Joyce Award-recipient Naomi Iizuka brings her tale of family ties, a lingering debt, mystical stories-and magical food-to the Goodman stage in her newest work, Ghostwritten, April 4 - May 3, 2009. Lisa Portes, who has shepherded this play from its first appearance at the 2007 New Stages Series, directs its world-premiere production with a cast of Chicago favorites led by Lisa Tejero (Mirror of the Invisible World and Metamorphoses) and Kim Martin-Cotten (King Lear). Tickets to Ghostwritten are $10 - $39. A complete performance schedule including dates, times and ticket prices appears at the end of this release. Ghostwritten is a Goodman commission supported by The Joyce Foundation. The Sara Lee Foundation is the "Strong Women, Strong Voices" Owen season Corporate Sponsor. Clerestory Consulting is the contributing sponsor of Ghostwritten.
"I've long admired Naomi's gifted, innovative approach to storytelling and her ability to transcend culture and time," said Artistic Director Robert Falls. "It's a privilege to host this premiere at the Goodman with the talented Lisa Portes and a remarkable Chicago cast."
Based on The Brothers Grimm fairy tale, "Rumpelstiltskin," Ghostwritten shows the lengths families will go in order to protect their loved ones. This journey begins in Southeast Asia, when a traveling American woman, Susan, strikes a bargain with a mysterious stranger. Twenty years later, Susan has become an acclaimed chef specializing in Asian cuisine and the mother of an adopted Vietnamese-born daughter. She is successful beyond her wildest dreams-until the stranger from her past reappears to collect on the debt.
"Like all fairy tales there is a much deeper human meaning rooted in these characters and their stories," said Iizuka, who plays on her own multicultural background to explore the many different paths her characters take. "Being able to tell the stories of real immigrants who have moved their lives to the cultural collision that is America honors their struggle for identity while sharing their tales of survival. The play is based on a fairy tale, but characters are rooted in the human reality of acceptance, family and self-appreciation."
Naomi Iizuka has been counted "among the playwrights who will help define theater as we move ahead" (StarTribune-Minniapolis) and an "important and arresting talent" (Seattle Times) whose work has been described as "intellectually engaging" (The New York Times) with a "lush, evocative style" (The Stranger). Born in Tokyo and raised in Japan, Indonesia, Holland and Washington, D.C., Iizuka's work includes 36 Views; Anon(ymous); Aloha, Say the Pretty Girls; After a Hundred Years; At the Vanishing Point; Polaroid Stories; Language of Angels; Tattoo Girl and Skin. Her latest play, Strike-Slip, premiered at the 2007 Humana Festival of New Plays. Her work has been produced by Guthrie Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Children's Theatre Company, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Huntington Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Geva Theatre Center, Portland Center Stage, The Public Theater, Campo Santo and Intersection for the Arts, Dallas Theater Center, The Next Wave Festival at Brooklyn Academy Of Music, Soho Repertory Theatre and Edinburgh International Festival. Iizuka's work has been workshopped at Sundance Theatre Lab, Midwest PlayLabs, New Works Now at The Public Theater, Performance Space 122, Manhattan Theatre Club and Seattle Repertory Theatre. Her plays have been published by Theatre Communications Group, Smith and Kraus Publishers, Inc., Heinemann, Playscripts, TheatreForum and American Theater. Iizuka is a member of New Dramatists and the recipient of a Joyce Award, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, an Alpert Award, a Whiting Writers' Award, a Stavis Award from The National Theatre Conference, a Rockefeller Foundation MAP grant, an NEA/TCG Artist‑in‑Residence grant, a McKnight Fellowship, a PEN Center USA West Award for Drama, Princeton University's Hodder Fellowship and a Jerome Fellowship. She is the head of the graduate MFA Playwriting Program at the University of California, San Diego.
