The Year of Magical Thinking

JOAN DIDION Born in California and a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Didion has spent her adult life in New York and Los Angeles. Winner of the 2005 National Book Award, The Year of Magical Thinking is one of 13 books by Joan Didion. Her other books include Play It As It Lays, Democracy, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, Salvador, Miami and Political Fictions. With her husband, John Gregory Dunne, she wrote the screenplays for such pictures as The Panic in Needle Park with Al Pacino, True Confessions with Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall, A Star Is Born with Barbra Streisand and Up Close & Personal with Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert Redford. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which awarded her its 2005 Gold Medal in nonfiction. She also received the 1996 Edward MacDowell Medal, the 1999 Columbia Journalism Award and the 2002 George Polk Book Award. She contributes to various periodicals, most frequently The New York Review of Books.

CHARLES NEWELL has been Artistic Director of Court Theatre since 1994, where he has directed over 30 productions. He made his Chicago directorial debut in 1993 with The Triumph of Love, which won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Production. Directorial highlights at Court include The Year of Magical Thinking, The Wild Duck, Caroline, Or Change, Titus Andronicus, Arcadia, Man of La Mancha, Uncle Vanya, Raisin, The Glass Menagerie, Travesties, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hamlet, The Invention of Love, The Little Foxes, Nora, and The Misanthrope.  Charlie has also directed at the Goodman Theatre (Rock ‘n’ Roll), the Guthrie Theater (Resident Director: The History Cycle, Cymbeline), Arena Stage, John Houseman’s The Acting Company (Staff Repertory Director), the California and Alabama Shakespeare Festivals, Juilliard, and New York University. He is the recipient of the 1992 TCG Alan Schneider Director Award. He has served on the Board of Theatre Communications Group, as well as on several panels for the National Endowment for the Arts. Opera directing credits include Marc Blitzstein’s Regina at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Rigoletto at Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Charlie is a multiple Joseph Jefferson Award (Chicago’s highest theatrical honor) nominee and recipient.  Most recently, his production of Caroline, Or Change at Court was the recipient of 4 Joseph Jefferson Awards, including Best Production–Musical and Best Director–Musical.

JOHN CULBERT recently designed scenery for Court Theatre’s productions of The Year of Magical Thinking, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Caroline or Change, Man of La Mancha (for which he received a Joseph Jefferson award), and Carousel, Northlight Theatre’s Grey Gardens, Rigoletto for Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Regina.  He also designed Lookingglass Theatre’s Argonautika, Goodman Theatre’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Long Wharf Theatre’s Hughie. He has designed productions for the Singapore Repertory, Opera National du Rhin, Berkeley Rep, McCarter Theatre, and the Shakespeare Theatre. Other projects include the lighting design for the Chicago Park District’s Buckingham Fountain. Mr. Culbert serves as the dean of The Theatre School at DePaul University.

SUSAN HILFERTY has designed over 300 productions from Broadway to the Bay area and internationally including Japan, London, Australia, Germany and South Africa. Recent designs include Wicked (2004 Tony, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Olivier nominations), Spring Awakening (Tony nomination) August Wilson’s Radio Golf and Jitney, Lestat (Tony nomination), Assassins, Into the Woods (Tony and Drama Desk nominations; Hewes Award), Manon at LA opera, Berlin Staatsoper, Richard Nelson’s Conversations in Tusculum, and Frank Wildhorn’s Wonderland. She works with such well-known directors as Joe Mantello, James Lapine, Michael Mayer, Walter Bobbie, Robert Falls, Tony Kushner, Robert Woodruff, JoAnne Akalaitis, the late Garland Wright, James MacDonald, Bart Sher, Mark Lamos, Frank Galati, Des McAnuff, Christopher Ashley, Emily Mann, David Jones, Marion McClinton, Rebecca Taichman, Laurie Anderson, Doug Wright, Carole Rothman, Garry Hynes, Richard Nelson and Athol Fugard (the South African writer with whom she works as set and costume designer and often as co-director since 1980). Hilferty also designs for opera, film, and dance, and chairs the Department of Design for Stage and Film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Hilferty’s many awards include a 2000 OBIE for Sustained Excellence in Design.

JENNIFER TIPTON is well known for her work in theater, dance and opera. Her recent work in opera includes Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette directed by Bart Sher at the Salzberg Festival, La Traviata for the Scottish National Opera directed by David McVicar and the Wooster Group’s La Didone. Her recent work in dance includes Balanchine’s Jewels for the Royal Ballet in London, Jerome Robbins’ Les Noces for the NYC Ballet and Paul Taylor’s Beautiful Renegade. In theater her recent works include David Gordon’s Uncivil Wars at the Kitchen in New York, Beckett Shorts directed by JoAnne Akalaitis at the New York Theater Workshop and Conversations in Tusculum written and directed by Richard Nelson at the Public Theater. Ms. Tipton teaches lighting at the Yale School of Drama. She received the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 2001, the Jerome Robbins Prize in 2003 and in April 2004 the Mayor’s Award for Arts and Culture in New York City. This year she was made a USA Gracie Fellow and a MacArthur Fellow.

ANDRE PLUESS is based in Chicago and his credits include numerous productions for Lookingglass Theatre (artistic associate), Court Theatre (1999-2002 resident artist), Victory Gardens Theatre (resident designer), About Face Theatre (artistic associate), Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Northlight Theatre and many other Chicago and regional theatres. Broadway credits: Metamorphoses, I Am My Own Wife and The Clean House (Lincoln Center). He has received 11 Joseph Jefferson Awards and citations, an L.A. Ovation Award, Barrymore Award, a Drama Critics Circle Award and a Lortel nomination for composition and sound design. 2008-09 projects include: Kafka on the Shore (Steppenwolf Theatre), Arabian Nights (Berkeley Rep, K.C. Rep., Lookingglass Theatre), Our Town (Lookingglass Theatre), Eurydice (Victory Gardens Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (California Shakespeare Festival), Equivocation (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Legacy of Light (Arena Stage), Ghostwritten (Goodman Theatre) and the Broadway premiere of 33 Variations (Eugene O’Neill Theatre).

MIKE TUTAJ has been designing multimedia for theater in Chicago since 2002. This is his first production with Court Theatre.  Previous design credits include: History Boys, Fiorello!, The House with no Walls, Guantanamo, Tesla’s Letters (Jeff Nomination), Martin Furey’s Shot (Jeff Award), and This Happy Breed with TimeLine Theatre Company; Tomorrow Morning (Jeff Award) with Hillary A Williams LLC, Jon (Jeff Nomination) with Collaboraction; Macbeth and Romeo y Julieta with Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Hana’s Suitcase and The Red Kite Project with Chicago Children’s Theatre; Pangs of the Messiah and Our Enemies (Jeff Nomination) with Silk Road Theatre Project; Love Person, and I Sailed with Magellan (Jeff Nomination) with Victory Gardens; and Death of a Salesman and Columbinus (Jeff Nomination) with Raven Theatre.  Mike is an artistic associate with TimeLine Theatre Company, and a company member of Barrel of Monkeys Productions.

WILLIAM COLLINS is joining Court Theatre for his fourth season.  He previously worked on The Year of Magical Thinking, Arcadia, Thyestes, Uncle Vanya, and The Wild Duck, among others.  Locally, he has worked with Redmoon Theatre as their stage manager and production manager on projects including Sink.Sank.Sunk, The Cabinet, and The Golden Truffle.  Last spring, he served as Assistant Director to Charles Newell on Goodman Theatre’s production of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

JONATHAN NOOK loves coming home to share in the work with the family at Court. He has worked on productions of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Wait Until Dark, The Wild Duck, Caroline, or Change, The First Breeze of Summer, Carousel, Titus Andronicus, What the Butler Saw, and Thyestes. Other stage management credits include Sex with Strangers, The 3rd and 4th Annual First Look Repertory of New Work, Superior Donuts, Huck Finn (Steppenwolf); Radio Macbeth (Court/SITI); Measure for Measure, Arms and the Man (American Players Theatre); Misalliance, The Taffetas, Moonlight Room, Take Me Out (Milwaukee Chamber Theatre).