TimeLine Theatre Company’s Chicago premiere of the epic, three-act play runs through November 26, 2023 at Broadway In Chicago’s Broadway Playhouse

THE LEHMAN TRILOGY is a sweeping play that covers 164 years of history as it weaves together fact and fiction to chart the rise and fall of Lehman Brothers. The play’s title mirrors the ambition of the piece: It has a run-time of over three hours that unfolds in three acts — all performed by only three actors. The trilogy in the title is thus a literal reflection of the play’s structure and the roles, but it’s also suggestive of the piece’s mythical nature. Likewise, playwright Stefano Massani’s script (adapted by Ben Power) has a rhythmic storytelling style; the actors often narrate their own stories and actions in a chamber theater type of presentation. Although the run time is long, the fact that THE LEHMAN TRILOGY covers so much ground means it remains interesting throughout.

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It seems fitting that Goodman Theatre opens new Artistic Director Susan V. Booth’s inaugural season with THE NACIREMA SOCIETY, a play that’s about coming out to society. This Chicago premiere marks a continuation of Booth’s long-standing relationship with celebrated Black playwright Pearl Cleage. THE NACIREMA SOCIETY takes the form of an extended farce, following the incredibly wealthy Dunbar family in 1964 Montgomery, Alabama. In this light-hearted (if not always legitimately laugh-out-loud) comedic play, Cleage draws heavily from classic farce conventions. As the centennial event of matriarch Grace Dubose Dunbar’s beloved Nacirema Society, Montgomery’s organization for Black young women, dawns — and she awaits her own granddaughter Grace’s coming out — the antics become more and more heightened as family secrets come to light. 

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Steppenwolf’s season opening production of the play by Pulitzer Prize winner Martyna Majok runs through November 18, 2023

In Martyna Majok’s SANCTUARY CITY, two teenagers in Newark, New Jersey — named only B and G (presumably standing for Boy and Girl) — must contemplate the complexity of their simultaneous youthfulness and the need to make grown-up decisions well beyond their years. Both B and G are migrants in the United States; they emigrated from unnamed countries as young children, and now as they approach high school graduation, must grapple with what it means to live illegally in the United States. When G becomes a naturalized citizen, she offers B a bold proposition so that he, too, might be able to stay. Majok’s play beautifully threads this needle between youthful impulsiveness and the immense pressure on the protagonists to make weighty adult decisions. 

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