The chili peppers haven’t even begun to sting in Lookingglass Theatre’s soon-to-open production of “Cascabel,” but that hasn’t stopped the company from announcing its lineup for the 2012-2013 season, which will mark its 25th anniversary, as well as the return of Lookingglass founder and ensemble member David Schwimmer.
Schwimmer will direct the world premiere of “Big Lake Big City” (beginning June 19, 2013), a play by Keith Huff, whose career-making drama, “A Steady Rain,” moved from Chicago Dramatists to Broadway in 2009, where it starred Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig. Huff’s new work lampoons Chicago as it follows the adventures of a police detective who can’t get a break as he “chases down a perp who has a screwdriver in his head.”
In addition to the Huff play, and the previously announced revival of “Metamorphoses” (beginning Sept. 19), Mary Zimmerman’s Tony Award-winning show adapted from the myths of Ovid, the productions planned include:
“Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” (beginning Jan. 30, 2013), the Chicago premiere of Rajiv Joseph’s pitch-black play – a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist – about two U.S. Marines and an Iraqi translator in Baghdad who are haunted by the reign of Saddam Hussein, as well as by a particularly irritated tiger in human form. Heidi Stillman will direct.
“Still Alice” (beginning April 10, 2013), the world premiere of a play adapted and directed by ensemble member Christine Dunford, and based on the critically acclaimed novel by Lisa Genovese. It focuses on a Harvard professor, Alice Howland, who, at the age of 50 and at the peak of her career, begins to understand that she has Alzheimer’s disease, and is determined to “outwit it” with everything she’s got.
For tickets, call (312) 337-0665; lookingglasstheatre.org.
