TimeLine Theatre, a midsized, nonprofit theater company in Chicago, will partner with Broadway in Chicago to present the Midwest premiere of “The Lehman Trilogy,” the critically acclaimed, Tony Award-winning hit play in New York and London that explores the rise and fall of the influential if notorious financial services company Lehman Brothers that collapsed in 2008.
TimeLine’s production of the arresting docudrama, which will be co-directed by TimeLine associate artistic director Nick Bowling and Vanessa Stalling, will run Sept. 19 to Oct. 29 at Broadway in Chicago’s Broadway Playhouse theater at Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut St. This will be an all-new production of the three-act work by playwright Stefano Massini, as adapted by Ben Power. Sam Mendes was the original director and the show opened at London’s National Theatre in 2018, where it continues to play.
The announcement is unusual because so prominent and commercially successful a show generally would either tour through Chicago or be produced instead by a larger company such as the Goodman Theater or Steppenwolf Theatre.
No casting has yet been announced. Broadway in Chicago vice president Eileen LaCario sits on the board of TimeLine, which is still engaged in a 5-year-old capital campaign to open a new theater in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. The show will be part of both Broadway in Chicago’s and TimeLine’s fall subscription season. Details of the three other productions planned for TimeLine’s season are still to be announced.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
