Welcome to TimeLine Theatre!

BACK TO FALSETTOS

Thank you for visiting to learn more about TimeLine Theatre Company and Falsettos, produced in partnership with Court Theatre!

QUICK LINKS

BACKSTORY MAGAZINE  |  DIGITAL PROGRAM  |  LEARNING GUIDE  |  LOBBY DISPLAY
SHARE A REFLECTION  | DISCUSSION EVENTS  |  ADDITIONAL READING & RESOURCES

BACKSTORY MAGAZINE

Learn more about the history and themes of Falsettos with Backstory, TimeLine’s behind-the-scenes magazine about the play. Featuring information, essays, and a historical timeline compiled by the production dramaturgy team, Backstory is published to accompany each production in TimeLine’s season.

DIGITAL PROGRAM

Read the Digital Program for Falsettos, including cast and production team bios, articles exploring the themes of the play, details about both Court Theatre and TimeLine Theatre personnel and programs, and much more! Optimized for mobile viewing.

LOBBY DISPLAY

Explore the story of how three plays ultimately became what we know as the musical Falsettos in this lobby display created by TimeLine for the show (PDF).

LEARNING GUIDE

Visit Court Theatre’s Learning Guide, featuring resources for academics, enthusiasts, and educators to support your learning and viewing.

Share a reflection
WHAT DOES “GROWING UP” MEAN TO YOU?

Share Now

Use link above to share your response to this provocative question explored at the center of Falsettos. Recent comments by fellow audience members include:

  • Growing up means being there for the people you love
  • Growing up means understanding how your parent’s inadequacies were as influenced by uncontrollable factors as much as yours are

DISCUSSION EVENTS

Our discussions for Falsettos have already occurred, but you can now watch recordings and see images from these events right here and on TimeLine’s YouTube channel! Enjoy!

• • •

POST-SHOW DISCUSSION WITH JAMES LAPINE

Thursday, November 14, 2024
Check out this post-show discussion featuring Tony Award-winning librettist James Lapine and Professor Jennifer Brier, PhD as they discuss Falsettos and the AIDS crisis.

• • •

VIRTUAL DISCUSSION WITH THE CAST

Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Moderated by TimeLine Associate Artistic Director and FALSETTOS director Nick Bowling, this conversation features cast members Stephen Schellhardt (Marvin), Jack Ball (Whizzer), Sarah Bockel (Trina), Jackson Evans (Mendel), and Sharriese Hamilton (Dr. Charlotte) chatting about their experience bringing FALSETTOS to the stage.

• • •

HISTORIES RIPPLES: The ’70s Sexual Revolution, the AIDS Crisis, and Today’s LGBTQIA+ Community

Sunday, November 24, 2024
In the tradition of TimeLine’s Sunday Scholars series, this free, hour-long panel discussion was moderated by Falsettos director Nick Bowling, and featured distinguished panelists Caprice Carthans, a trans advocate and author with more than 30 years of experience and leadership in HIV and Trans issues; Roberto Sanabria, a community organizer and co-founder of Vida/SIDA and of El Rescate—two initiatives of The Puerto Rican Cultural Center that address HIV/AIDS and queer youth homelessness respectively; and Renslow Sherer, M.D., Director of the International HIV Training Center and Professor of Medicine in the Section of Infectious Diseases at the University of Chicago and founder of Chicago’s first HIV clinic in 1982. This event was not recorded, but pictured (from left) are Carthans, Bowling, Sherer, and Sanabria after the conversation.

ADDITIONAL READING & RESOURCES

William Finn

James Lapine

William Finn & James Lapine on their collaboration

Judaism

AIDS

  • 7 New Yorkers Remember the Early Days of the AIDS Epidemic
    Oral history in New York magazine by Tim ­Murphy, May 2014
  • The Stages of HIV Infection
    Learn more about HIV via the National Institutes of Health
  • HIV/AIDS Timeline
    Exploring the history of the epidemic, pre-1981 to present day, via New York City AIDS Memorial
  • A Timeline of HIV and AIDS
    The history of the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic from the first reported cases in 1981 to the present, via HIV.gov
  • Fighting a Plague: Doctors’ Stories of Challenge and Innovation Combatting the AIDS Epidemic in 1980s New York City
    Article by Timothy N DeVita via the NIH’s National Library of Medicine
  • Last Men Standing
    Article about long-term survivors of AIDS in the San Francisco Chronicle by Erin Allday, March 2016
  • PLAYS:
    • The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer
    • The Destiny of Me by Larry Kramer
    • Angels in America by Tony Kushner
    • As Is by William M. Hoffman
    • The Inheritance by Matthew López
  • NON-FICTION / MEMOIRS:
    • And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts
    • Reports from the Holocaust by Larry Kramer
    • Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited by Andrew Holleran
    • Sometimes My Heart Goes Numb by Charles Garfield
    • Borrowed Time by Paul Monette
  • NOVELS:
    • The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
    • Facing It by Paul Reed
    • The Farewell Symphony by Edmund White
  • FILMS / DOCUMENTARIES:
    • 5B — An inspirational story of everyday heroes, nurses, and caregivers who took extraordinary action to comfort, protect, and care for the patients in the first AIDS ward at San Francisco General Hospital in the early 1980s.
    • How to Survive a Plague — The definitive history of the successful battle to halt the AIDS epidemic
    • Longtime Companion — A 1989 American romantic drama, the first wide-release theatrical film to deal with the subject of AIDS

 Feminism

  • PRIMARY SOURCE:
    • The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
  • NON-FICTION:
    • Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disrupter by Rachel Shteir

Black Lesbian Feminism

  • NON-FICTION / MEMOIR
    • The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde
  • The Combahee River Collective Statement
    Published in 1977 by the Combahee River Collective, a collective of Black feminists who had been meeting together since 1974