The1921 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 and 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 nd 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.
