Productions & Events featuring Maren Robinson

A comedic showdown between truth and fact set in the world of non-fiction publishing.

JIM FINGAL IS AN EAGER YOUNG INTERN at a high-profile magazine hoping to impress his demanding editor-in-chief, Emily Penrose. When assigned the job of fact-checking legendary writer John D’Agata’s essay about the city of Las Vegas, Jim discovers a huge problem: many of the essay’s details were made up. As the publication deadline looms, a battle between truth and fact ensues in a gripping and fast-paced comedic showdown.

Drawing from true events surrounding real-life Jim Fingal’s fact-checking of the John D’Agata essay “What Happens There,” The Lifespan of a Fact has been praised as “a smart and engaging exploration of the nature of truth and the role of the media in society,” (Chicago Tribune) and “a tightly written and expertly crafted play that keeps the audience riveted from start to finish” (The New York Times).

The book on which the play is based, The Lifespan of a Fact, received critical attention from national media including NPR, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. It was subsequently named a “Top 10 Most Crucial Book” by the editors of Slate, a “Best Book of the Year” by The Huffington Post, and an Editor’s Choice by The New York Times Book Review. 

The stage adaptation opened on Broadway in 2018, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Bobby Cannavale, and Cherry Jones.

CONTENT ADVISORY: To learn more about the specific content and themes of this production, please visit our content advisory page.

The first Chicago-based production of the Tony Award-nominated Pulitzer Prize finalist!

Fifteen-year-old Heidi earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In this hilarious, hopeful, and guttingly human debate-meets-play, she resurrects her teenage self in order to trace the relationship between four generations of women—all while grappling with the founding document that, for better and worse, shapes their lives.

What the Constitution Means to Me is a “slyly crafted piece of persuasion and a tangible contribution to the change it seeks” (The New York Times) and a “singularly charming, politically urgent and cathartically necessary play” (Los Angeles Times) that shows “how broad concepts of law and governance effect individual lives in the most intimate ways” (The Guardian). 

A sensation upon its premiere at New York Theatre Workshop in 2018, What the Constitution Means to Me went on to a five-month Broadway run. TimeOut New York declared: “Here is something that every citizen must see. It’s theater in the old sense, the Greek sense, a place where civic society can come together and do its thinking and fixing and planning.”

Today, What the Constitution Means to Me is bound to feel even more relevant, profound, and searing than during its original run and Broadway debut. In the end, Shreck’s personal stories reflect our own, as does her passion, her laughter, and her outrage at a document that deserves to be challenged as much as it is upheld.

“Here is something that every citizen must see”

HEALTH AND SAFETY: TimeLine is currently requiring mask-wearing at all Thursday evening, Sunday matinee, and Distanced Seating performances of What the Constitution Means to Me. While masking is no longer required at most performances, TimeLine will support an individual’s choice to mask. For more information, please visit our Health & Safety policies.

CONTENT ADVISORY: To learn more about the specific content and themes of this production, please visit our content advisory page.

What the Constitution Means to Me runs approximately 1 hour, 40 minutes with no intermission

Based on the true story of Leone Baxter and Clem Whitaker, who formed the first political consulting firm in U.S. history, Campaigns, Inc. is a hysterical and jaw-dropping inside look at the underbelly of politics through the lens of two of the undeniable founders of “fake news.”

IT IS 1934, and famous novelist Upton Sinclair is all but guaranteed to become the first Democratic governor of the state of California—until a young, unknown pair of consultants from the shadows of the challenger’s campaign attempt to take him down. As Frank Merriam and Sinclair battle it out in the spotlight—seeking endorsements from the likes of Charlie Chaplin and FDR—Baxter and Whitaker work behind-the-scenes to methodically construct one of the most spectacular, unbelievable, and star-studded smear campaigns ever.

This world premiere play was developed through TimeLine’s Playwrights Collective, launched in 2013 to support Chicago-based playwrights in residence and create new work centered on TimeLine’s mission. Campaigns, Inc. is the third play developed through the Collective to receive a full production, following Brett Neveu’s To Catch a Fish (2018) and Tyla Abercrumbie’s Relentless (TimeLine and Goodman Theatre, 2022). Campaigns, Inc. received its first public reading as part of our inaugural First Draft Playwrights Collective Festival in 2018.

Although TimeLine’s production of Campaigns, Inc. has been postponed, we can still start the conversation!

Set in 1934, Campaigns, Inc. follows The Jungle novelist Upton Sinclair as he is challenged in his bid to be the first Democratic governor of California, exposing a timely true story about the power that persuasion, deceit, and perception hold in the U.S. electoral system.

This live virtual event will feature playwright Will Allan, dramaturg Maren Robinson, and special guest speaker Jessica Lee (Snopes.com) in a panel discussion exploring a notable early example of “fake news” and how we got from there to today’s political climate. Introduced by director Nick Bowling and moderated by TimeLine Company Member Anish Jethmalani, the event will also feature scenes from the play performed by cast members Charles Andrew Gardner, Terry Hamilton, Larry Baldacci, and Tyler Meredith.

This FREE & one-night-only event will be presented live on YouTube.

If you want to let us know you plan to watch, you can still register via the “Buy Tickets” link below. But there are no tickets required to watch the livestream. Just settle in via your preferred viewing platform before 7:30pm (CDT), and enjoy!

Watch the Livestream

This hit production, which recalls the adventure and romance of Julia and Paul Child’s journey of discovery to Paris during the 1950s, is now offered for a limited time via online video streaming.

MORE ABOUT REMOTE VIEWING

From the French bistro where Julia Child fell in love with food, to the kitchen table where she recreated everything learned during cooking class, to a room where Paul was grilled by U.S. agents about alleged Communist contact, To Master the Art is the story of a larger-than-life culinary icon and her remarkable husband as they struggle to find themselves as Americans abroad.

Commissioned by TimeLine in 2008, To Master the Art received its world premiere at TimeLine in 2010, selling out its 8-week run within days and receiving more than 20 rave reviews and five Jeff Award nominations, including New Work and Production. The production was remounted in 2013 at the Broadway Playhouse via the Chicago Commercial Collective, Broadway In Chicago, and producers Brian Loevner and Aurélia F. Cohen. The video that will stream during this remote viewing run was filmed during the 2013 production.

During its two previous Chicago runs, To Master the Art was acclaimed as “an excellent, intimate, foodie-friendly staging, resonant with atmosphere and the kind of classic, cozy, autumnal kitchen ambiance that makes one want to swear off takeout food from this moment forth” by the Chicago Tribune, and “a total delight—funny, touching, charming and as enjoyable as an exquisite meal enjoyed together with good company” by Talkin’ Broadway. And Woditsch’s performance as Julia Child was declared “magnificent” and “a piece of acting not to be missed” (Chicago Tribune) and “so absolutely perfect … that we left the theater discussing the possibility that she is actually a better Julia Child than [Meryl] Streep” (Newcity).

Named one of the “100 plays of the century” by the Royal National Theatre, Githa Sowerby’s rarely produced family drama is a smart and absorbing twist on a woman’s “place” in a male dominated society.

In the industrial north of England in 1912, the patriarch of the Rutherford family has spent decades building a respected glass works company to pass on to his children, without any say from them. Caught between passion, purpose, and expectation, John, Richard, and Janet struggle to break free from an oppressive and narrow-minded father dead set on writing their stories himself. Less entangled by these family expectations and with ambitions to give her son the life he deserves, John’s young wife Mary is determined to upend the cycle, whatever it takes.

Playing on the conventions of the period with wit and creative edge, Rutherford and Son is a play ahead of its time, asking us to question if our “place” in life should be anything but what we ourselves determine it to be.

The estimated run time is 2 hours and 10 minutes, including one intermission.

“A riveting political thriller.”
— Associated Press

Don’t miss TimeLine’s Chicago premiere of the 2017 Tony Award® winner for Best Play—a remarkable story about the unlikely friendships, quiet heroics, and sheer determination that pushed two foes to reach something neither thought truly possible—peace.

When the Israeli prime minister and the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization shook hands on the White House lawn in 1993, the world had no idea what it took to orchestrate that momentous occasion. Behind the scenes, a Norwegian diplomat and her social scientist husband hatched an intricate, top secret, and sometimes comical scheme to gather an unexpected assortment of players at an idyllic estate just outside Oslo. Far from any international glare, mortal enemies were able to face each other not as adversaries, but as fellow human beings.

J.T. Roger’s’ Oslo is a humorous, surprising, and inspiring true story about the people inside politics, and the incredible progress that is possible when we focus on what makes us human—together.

This glorious, raw, and bittersweet look at one of opera’s most formidable talents was the Tony Award winner for Best Play in 1996.

Witness a master class conducted by legendary opera diva Maria Callas. Glamorous and demanding, Callas critiques and regales a new crop of opera’s finest. Both frustrated and amazed by the students thrust before her, she escapes into recollections of the glories and failures of her past, remembering her rise as one of opera’s biggest underdogs. This authentic and musically rich Master Class presents a portrait of a fading star who refuses to be anything but unapologetically herself.

TimeLine’s production stars Company Member Janet Ulrich Brooks, a six-time Jeff Award nominee for roles at TimeLine (including 33 Variations, A Walk in the Woods, and All My Sons), where she mostly recently appeared last season as Queen Elizabeth II in The Audience.

“Leave behind the stranglehold of convention and loosen your corset, you will breathe much better.”

This intimate and humorous story of awakening, equality, and the need for connection was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony Award nominee for Best Play. It is the 1880s and Thomas Edison’s invention of the electric light has begun to change the fabric of daily life. Inspired by Edison’s discovery, scientist and inventor Dr. Givings experiments with a piece of machinery to treat the increasingly common affliction of female hysteria. When he starts to see a new patient regularly, his wife’s curiosity with the invention and what occurs “in the next room” grows, leading to discoveries of her own. Don’t miss this entertaining night of self-discovery which shows that human connection is not simply a means to an end, but a vital part of life itself.

TimeLine presents a new and rare staging of this exquisite, internationally acclaimed play about love, math, and how the past and future connect. In 1913, a clerk in rural India named Srinivasa Ramanujan sends a letter to famed mathematician G.H. Hardy, filled with astonishing mathematical theorems. In the present, a math professor and a businessman fall in love. Told in a mesmerizing whirlwind of vignettes spanning history and time, A Disappearing Number is a love letter to numbers, blending the beauty of everyday relationships with the mysticism of the cosmos.

Winner of the 2007 Critics’ Circle Theatre, Evening Standard, and Laurence Olivier awards for Best New Play.

“Miracles happen. Don’t they?”

A provocative and hilarious look at what makes art—and people—authentic. Maude has bought the ugliest thrift store painting she could get her hands on as a gag gift. When she’s told it might be an undiscovered work by the famed Jackson Pollock, she invites a world-class art expert to decide if it’s a forgery or the real thing, worth millions.

Inspired by a true story and set to feature TimeLine Company Member Janet Ulrich Brooks and TimeLine Associate Artist Mike Nussbaum in the two-person cast, Bakersfield Mist is “a perfect marriage of emotion and ideas that is rare indeed” (Los Angeles Times).

From the Emmy Award-nominated head writer of The Laramie Project, acclaimed as “a pioneering work and a powerful stage event” by Time magazine. This can’t-miss theatrical event goes beyond the headlines to tell vivid personal stories from all sides of the country’s greatest environmental disaster.

This classic play is about the legacy of the past and the price of life’s choices. In a New York brownstone marked for demolition, two estranged brothers meet to sort through and sell their late father’s belongings—a pile of relics and old furniture buried by a lifetime’s worth of family baggage. What follows is a poignant, intimate, and often heart-wrenching look at the ways we are liberated or trapped by those we love.

On the eve of the United States’ invasion of Baghdad in 2003, an Iraqi museum curator plots to save treasured antiquities from destruction—including the statue of ancient mother goddess Inana. Fleeing to London with his young, mysterious bride, he makes a life-altering deal to ensure the statue’s preservation. Against this background of international and personal intrigue, the couple’s poignant and beautiful love story opens a window of hope and healing.

Richard Nelson’s celebrated series of four Apple Family Plays—first commissioned by The Public Theatre in New York where they premiered on the day they are set—explores politics, change, and family dynamics. TimeLine presents the Chicago debut of two of these remarkable works (the first and third in the series) on an alternating schedule.

Set in the American town of Rhinebeck, New York, That Hopey Changey Thing takes place as the polls close on the 2010 mid-term elections, and Sorry is set on the morning of the presidential election in 2012. Both explore how a family sorts through personal and political feelings of loss and confusion in the shadow of history as it is being made.

Originally premiered Off-Broadway in 1985, TimeLine’s production is the first Chicago staging of this landmark play that “blasts you like an open, overstoked furnace” (The New York Times) since its Tony-Award winning Broadway production in 2011. Set at the height of the public and private indifference to the AIDS plague in the early 1980s, this searing drama will feature acclaimed actor/director David Cromer in his return to the Chicago stage as a passionate activist leading the fight to awaken the world to the crisis. Along the way he, and the community he leads into the battle, must face the deeply held fears that led so many to remain silent for too long.

TimeLine’s latest world premiere follows extraordinary successes with new works like My Kind of Town, To Master the Artand Hannah and Martin. An American soldier, captured by the enemy in Vietnam and isolated in an underground cell, hears a voice from the other side of his prison wall. Thrust into each other’s lives, the two men are separated by solid ground, divergent backgrounds and opposite worldviews. But over time, they are drawn together as they battle dire conditions, loss of faith, and each other. This emotionally stirring new play affirms the extraordinary power of human connection to forge hope in even the darkest hours.

TimeLine’s 2012-13 season opener is an elegant waltz between past and present, fact and speculation, a mother and daughter, and art and life. One of classical music’s enduring riddles is why Ludwig van Beethoven devoted four years of his diminishing life writing 33 variations of a mediocre waltz. Two hundred years later, a modern-day music scholar is driven to solve the mystery even as her own health and relationship with her daughter crumbles.

The result is an extraordinary new American play — accompanied throughout by a live pianist playing the variations themselves — about passion, parenthood, and the moments of beauty that can transform a life.

One of the most infamous scandals in financial history becomes a dynamic new theatrical event that was a sold-out sensation in London. Crafted as sprawling tragedy mixed with savage comedy, Enron follows a group of ambitious men and women through the breathtaking rush of greed and fraud that led to a legendary financial collapse. Along the way we gain disturbing insight into the backroom secrets of big business and confront a world where appearance has little relation to reality.

Heralded in London and on Broadway, this new play by the Tony Award- winning writer of Billy Elliot is based on a triumphant true story. A group of miners in Northern England taking an art appreciation class start experimenting with painting and soon build an astonishing body of work that makes them the unlikeliest of art world sensations. An arresting and hilarious salute to the power of individual expression and the collective spirit, The Pitmen Painters is a deeply moving and timely look at art, class and politics.

Lee Blessing’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated drama, filled with unexpected humor and extraordinary humanity, is an absorbing, revealing and brilliant debate on the eternal hope and relentless futility of high-stakes politics. Two superpower arms negotiators— one a witty but cynical Russian veteran and the other an idealistic American newcomer — meet informally in the woods after long, frustrating hours at the bargaining table. TimeLine’s production is presented with a twist: The two characters (originally written as two men) are portrayed by TimeLine Company Members Janet Ulrich Brooks and David Parkes.