Frank's Home Takes Up Residence At Goodman Theatre

Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls continues his 20th Anniversary Season with the world premiere of Frank's Home by Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Nelson, a lyrical, heartbreaking story about one of Chicago's greatest, if less than perfect, visionaries.

Frank's Home features stage and screen star Peter Weller-perhaps best known for his starring role in the first two Robocop films-as Frank Lloyd Wright and Harris Yulin as Louis Sullivan, the famed Chicago-based architect who was a mentor to Wright.

The cast of eight also includes Mary Beth Fisher as Miriam Noel, Wright's longtime mistress and confidant; Jay Whittaker and Maggie Siff portray Wright's adult children, Lloyd and Catherine, respectively. Frank's Home runs November 25 - December 23, 2006 in the Owen Theatre. Frank's Home is produced in association with New York's Playwrights Horizons, where it will begin performances on January 12, 2007. The corporate sponsor partner is Mesirow Financial. Additional support is provided by the Producer's Circle.

"I'm so pleased to again collaborate with Richard and a first-rate cast on this poignant new play about one of Chicago's most venerated, but ill-famed, artists," said director Robert Falls. Added playwright Richard Nelson, "Frank Lloyd Wright was an artist who consistently flaunted convention-with his iconoclastic buildings that drew both praise and condemnation, and with his family. I'm thrilled to return to the Goodman and excited to produce this play in a city where Wright and Sullivan's influence is so clearly visible."

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright was born in 1867 in Richland Center, Wisconsin. He moved to Chicago at the age of 20, finding work in the drafting room of Louis Sullivan at the architectural firm, Adler and Sullivan. An important mentor to the young architect, Sullivan encouraged Wright's radical ideas and even loaned him money to build his first home in Oak Park. Wright soon earned national acclaim for his "prairie style" of architectural design, an approach that emphasized the horizontal lines of a structure, working in harmony with the flat terrain of the Midwest.

Frank's Home peers into a moment in the tumultuous private life of this man who created a new architectural vocabulary, but couldn't create a home for himself and his family. It is summer 1923, and Frank Lloyd Wright has recently left Chicago for California, determined to embrace Hollywood's youthful zest, mend broken relationships with his adult children and revive his career. He has recently enjoyed the successful completion of his latest "wonder of the world," Tokyo's Imperial Hotel, and is now poised to settle down and embrace his new home. But his splintered family still has deep-seeded resentments. Then news arrives of an earthquake in Japan that has crumbled Wright's prized hotel to the ground. Or has it?

Chicago native playwright Richard Nelson-who earned a Tony Award for the musical he conceived, James Joyce's The Dead-returns to Goodman Theatre where his adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters was staged by Falls in 1995. Nelson's plays include Rodney's Wife, Franny's Way, Madame Melville, Goodnight Children Everywhere, Where I Come From, The General From America, Kenneth's First Play, New England, Two Shakespearean Actors, Some Americans Abroad, Columbus and the Discovery of Japan, Left, Misha's Party, Principia Scriptoriae and The Vienna Notes. In addition to James Joyce's The Dead, Nelson's musicals include My Life With Albertine and the forthcoming Hal Prince musical, Paradise Lost.

Adaptations include Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Tynan, Strindberg's Miss Julie and The Father, Ibsen's An Enemy of the People and Pirandello's Enrico IV. His plays have been produced on Broadway and in London's West End as well as off-Broadway and at Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theater Club, Lincoln Center Theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, New York Stage & Film, Theater for a New Audience, The Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre of Great Britain, Yale Repertory, TimeLine Theatre Company, Huntington Theatre Company, Alley Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, American Conservatory Theatre San Francisco and Moscow Art Theater. He is an Honorary Associate Artist of the RSC and the Chair of the Playwriting Department of the Yale School of Drama.

Peter Weller makes his Goodman Theatre debut as architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Other Chicago credits include the premiere of David Mamet's The Woods opposite Patti LuPone. Credits with Joseph Papp include David Rabe's Tony Award-winning Sticks and Bones, also in London; Rabe's Streamers directed by Mike Nichols and Tom Babe's Rebel Women. Other New York credits include Lanford Wilson's Serenading Louie with Diane Weist; Full Circle directed by Otto Preminger; William Inge's Summer Brave with Alexis Smith; James Purdy's Daddy Wolf and William Mastrosimone's The Woolgatherer with Patricia Wettig.

Weller's film credits include Robocop, Leviathan, The Order, Mighty Aphrodite, Beyond the Clouds, Just Tell Me What You Want, Shoot the Moon, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, First Born, Shadow Hours (an adaptation of Goethe's Faust), Naked Lunch, The New Age and Ivan's XTC (Independent Spirit Award). Television credits include David Brown's Tales of Seduction, Dorothy Parker's Dusk Before Fireworks directed by Ken Russell and The Contaminated Man with William Hurt on HBO; Odyssey for Showtime; and the role of Christopher Henderson on FOX's 24.

Joining Weller is veteran actor Harris Yulin as Louis Sullivan. Yulin last appeared at Goodman Theatre in Falls' world premiere staging of Arthur Miller's Finishing the Picture. He has appeared on Broadway in Hedda Gabler, The Price, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Visit, A Lesson From Aloes, and Watch On The Rhine. His off-Broadway credits include Raindance at Signature Theatre; Don Juan In Hell at Symphony Space; Steve Tesich's Arts And Leisure at Playwrights Horizons; Tina Howe's Approaching Zanzibar at Second Stage; Hamlet, King John, Richard III, and A Midsummer Night's Dream at New York Shakespeare Festival; and Mrs. Warren's Profession and Hedda Gabler at Roundabout Theatre Company. Regional credits include a recent appearance in the title role of King Lear at New Jersey Shakespeare Festival; The Talking Cure at Mark Taper Forum; Tartuffe at the Guthrie and Arena Stage; Henry V at Hartford Stage; and The Tempest at Shakespeare & Co. Yulin's television and film credits include Mister Sterling, 24, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Frasier, La Femme Nikita, The Emperor's Club, Training Day, The Million Dollar Hotel, The Hurricane, Looking for Richard, Murder at 1600, Multiplicity, Clear and Present Danger and Scarface.

Mary Beth Fisher (Miriam Noel) most recently appeared at the Goodman in The Clean House. Her other Goodman credits include Heartbreak House, Dinner with Friends, The Rose Tattoo, The Guys, Design for Living, Light Up the Sky, The Night of the Iguana, Marvin's Room, Spinning into Butter and Boy Gets Girl. Other Chicago credits include The Glass Menagerie, Travesties and The Importance of Being Earnest at Court Theatre; The Dresser and The Memory of Water at Steppenwolf; My Own Stranger at Writers' Theatre; Away at Northlight Theatre and Theatre District at About Face Theatre. She has worked in regional theaters all over the country, most recently in The Clean House at South Coast Repertory. New York credits include The Night of the Iguana at Roundabout Theatre Company; Boy Gets Girl, The Radical Mystique and By the Sea"¦ at Manhattan Theatre Club and Extremeties at Westside Arts.

Television and film credits include Without a Trace, Numbers, Prison Break, NYPD Blue, Profiler, To Have and to Hold, Turks, Early Edition and the award-winning short film Safe Storage. Jay Whittaker (Lloyd Wright) recently returned from Stratford, England where he played John of Lancaster in Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Swan Theatre. Chicago credits include Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Court Theatre, Next Theater and Steppenwolf. Maggie Siff (Catherine Wright Baxter) returns to the Goodman where she was last seen as Nora in Falls' world premiere staging of Rebecca Gilman's Dollhouse. The remaining members of the cast make their Goodman Theatre debuts in Frank's Home. Chris Henry Coffey plays Catherine's husband Kenneth Baxter. Coffey's credits include Long Wharf Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, Alley Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre and the Old Globe.

Jeremy Strong plays Wright's assistant William. His credits include Manhattan Theatre Club, Partial Comfort, Underwood Series, New York Stage and Film, The Belt and Williamstown Non-Equity Company. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate Holley Fain plays Helen, a teacher at Hollyhock House. Her off-Broadway credits include Measure for Measure at Pearl Theatre. Fain's regional credits include Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, North Carolina Shakespeare Festival and Texas Shakespeare Festival.

The design team includes Thomas Lynch (Set), Susan Hilferty (Costumes), Michael Philippi (Lighting) and Richard Woodbury(Sound).

This season marks director Robert Falls' 20th anniversary as artistic director of Goodman Theatre, where he most recently directed King Lear. Later this season on Broadway, he will direct Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio, featuring Liev Schreiber, Peter Hermann and Eric Jensen. From 1977 to 1985, he served as artistic director of Chicago's Wisdom Bridge Theatre. Falls has directed some 30 major productions for the Goodman, including eight world premieres and eight plays that he subsequently remounted on Broadway and/or abroad. Two of his most highly acclaimed Broadway productions, Arthur Miller's Death of A Salesman and Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night (first staged at the Goodman in 1998 and 2002, respectively, and both starring his longtime collaborator Brian Dennehy) were honored with seven Tony Awards and three Drama Desk Awards. Falls recently directed Oliver Platt, Brian O'Byrne and Martha Plimpton in the American premiere of Conor McPherson's Shining City, which opened on Broadway last spring and received two Tony Award nominations. Also during the 2005/2006 season, he directed David Mamet's A Life in the Theatre for the Goodman, as well as the London revival of Death of a Salesman. His production of Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida for Walt Disney Theatricals, which ran on Broadway for four years, is currently playing in Germany, Japan and South Korea. For the Goodman's 2004/2005 season, Falls directed the world premiere of Arthur Miller's final play, Finishing the Picture; the world premiere of Rebecca Gilman's Dollhouse; and Eugene O'Neill's Hughie. Other recent credits include the Midwest premieres of Edward Albee's The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? and Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero at the Goodman, as well as a new production of Rebecca Gilman's Blue Surge for the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York.

His 1997 Goodman production of Horton Foote's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Young Man from Atlanta transferred to Broadway and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Production of a Play. In 1995, Falls won an Obie Award for his direction of the world premiere of Eric Bogosian's subUrbia at Lincoln Center Theater, and his production of Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo for Circle in the Square received a Tony Award nomination for Best Revival of a Play. Previously at the Goodman, Falls has directed Galileo, The Iceman Cometh, A Touch of the Poet, Three Sisters, The Night of the Iguana, Landscape of the Body, The Misanthrope and Pal Joey; the world premieres of Blue Surge, Griller, Book of the Night, The Speed of Darkness, On the Open Road and Riverview: A Melodrama with Music; and the American premiere of Alan Ayckbourn's House and Garden. His directing credits also include The Iceman Cometh at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, On the Open Road at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, The Night of the Iguana at the Roundabout Theatre and Nicky Silver's The Food Chain at the Westside Theatre in New York, as well as productions for the Guthrie Theater, Remains Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera and Grande Théâtre de Genève. Falls is the 1999 recipient of the Illinois Arts Council's Governor's Award for outstanding contributions by an individual artist, and he was named a "Chicagoan of the Year" by Chicago magazine in 2000. In 2003, he received the League of Chicago Theatres' Artistic Leadership Award and was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In May of 2006, Falls was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree by Lake Forest College.

By www.mccarter.org