(Top row from left) Maria Burnham, Jean E. Mueller-Burr, Marcela Adeze Okeke (Middle row from left) Lukas Felix Schooler, Nick Furlong, James Sparling. (Bottom row from left) Hannah Perez, Faris El-Kildani, Hannah Rhode
Ghostlight Ensemble is pleased to announce the details, including the cast, of our spring mainstage show, The Dover Road by A.A. Milne.
The 1921 comedy is set in the home of the eccentric Latimer, who waylays couples running away together (to France via the eponymous Dover Road) and gives them a taste of what their lives together might be like by forcing them into sustained exposure to each other's habits and idiosyncrasies.
The Dover Road is a not-so-subtle dissection of romantic love with hints at the homosocial instinct of English upper-class men. Ghostlight’s production brings to the forefront the play’s implied observations on sexuality and gender expression that has always existed in society if you knew where to look.
The cast of The Dover Road is: Ensemble Members Maria Burnham as Latimer and Jean E. Mueller-Burr as Eustasia with Marcela Adeze Okeke as Anne, Lukas Felix Schooler as Leonard, Nick Furlong as Nicholas and James Sparling as Dominic. Understudies are Hannah Rhode, Hannah Perez and Faris El-Kildani.
The play is directed by Co-Artistic Director Holly Robison.
“The Dover Road is an almost forgotten gem of a play,” Robison said. “It has been on Ghostlight’s wish list for many seasons, and I am so thrilled we are finally bringing it to Chicago audiences.”
The rarely produced play premiered on Broadway in 1921 and in the West End in 1922. Today Milne is best known for his children’s books about the bear Winnie-the-Pooh. But before the massive success of the little bear from the Hundred Acre Wood overshadowed his previous work, Milne was primarily a playwright and humorist, who also dabbled as a novelist.
“The script is deeply funny, witty and slyly subversive – it is hard to believe it was written more than a century ago. I can’t wait to see this incredibly talented cast up and running with this story,” Robison added. “For a play about a pivotal meeting in a very special house, it is also particularly exciting to stage this onsite at Glessner House, one of Chicago’s most important historical houses.”
The Dover Road will take place in the coach house of the historic Glessner House (1800 S. Prairie Avenue, Chicago, IL). A National Historic Landmark, the Glessner House was completed in 1887 in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, which took elements of European Romanesque architecture from buildings constructed in the 11th and 12th centuries, and adapted them to American idioms.
The show runs from April 17 through May 3, with a preview performance on Thursday, April 16. Performances take place on Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. There is no performance on Saturday, April 18. Please note: There is a designated understudy performance on Monday, April 27 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are pay-what-you-will, with an average donation of $30. Tickets include a tour of the historic house before the show. Audience members who are financially able to donate more help offset the cost for those who can’t afford to give. For the preview performance, the suggested donation is $15. Tickets are available now.
The Dover Road is part of Ghostlight’s season celebrating otherness and uplifting Queer characters and voices. Season 9 is centered on the theme, Love As A Verb, and is inspired by a passage from All About Love by bell hooks: “The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb.”
More information about The Dover Road can be found at www.ghostlightensemble.com/the-dover-road.
Ghostlight Ensemble acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
Ghostlight Ensemble is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit theatre whose mission it is to ask questions that challenge the status quo through timeless stories, immersive environments and unconventional staging. As an ensemble-based theatre, Ghostlight is made up of individual artists who are dedicated to collaborative creation and committed to working together consistently over years to develop a distinctive body of work. We welcome you to learn more about us at GhostlightEnsemble.com.