Remy Bumppo Theatre Company is a

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

known for productions from playwrights such as

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

and

Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...

. Marti Lyons serves as the company's Artistic Director.

History

Remy Bumppo was founded in 1996 by Artistic Director Emeritus James Bohnen, Carol Loewenstern, and John Stoddard as Remy Bumppo LLC. The company was named after two of the founders' pets – Bohnen's dog Natty Bumppo (named after the

James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought h ...

character,

Natty Bumppo Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo is a fictional character and the protagonist of James Fenimore Cooper's pentalogy of novels known as the '' Leatherstocking Tales''. Fictional biography Natty Bumppo, the child of white parents, grew up among Delaware ...

) and Loewenstern's cat Remy (named after Remy Martin cognac). In their first year, the company produced two plays, ''Night and Day'' by

and ''The Seagull'' by

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...

. On June 20, 2001, Remy Bumppo incorporated as a not-for-profit company under the name Remy Bumppo Theatre Company. At that time, they added five artistic associates: Annabel Armour, David Darlow, Shawn Douglass, Linda Gillum, and Nick Sandys. Artistic associates added since that time include Joe Van Slyke (added in 2005) and Gregory Anderson (2007). On August 13, 2007, at the age of 55, artistic associate Joe Van Slyke died after a lengthy struggle with cancer. Remy Bumppo dedicated their 2007–08 season to his memory. In 2006, as part of the 10th year, Remy Bumppo was named a resident theatre company at the

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...

winning

Victory Gardens Theater Victory Gardens Theater is a theater company in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to the development and production of new plays and playwrights. The theater company was founded in 1974 when eight Chicago artists, Cecil O'Neal, Warren Casey, Stuart Go ...

. The space is now under different ownership and is known as the

Greenhouse Theater Center The Greenhouse Theater Center is a professional, non-profit theater located in the heart of Chicago's Lincoln Park. The Greenhouse Theater Center hosts multiple Off-Loop theater companies, including Eclipse Theatre Company, Hubris Productions, MP ...

. In 2018 the company moved out of the Greenhouse Theater Center and into Theater Wit, with an administrative offices in a separate location. In April 2009, founder and artistic director James Bohnen announced his retirement from the company, to be effective at the end of the 2010–11 Season. In October 2010, the company announced that Timothy Douglas would take over the artistic directorship beginning with the 2011–12 Season. Douglas resigned as artistic director effective January 31, 2012. On February 1, 2012, Remy Bumppo's board of directors appointed artistic associate Nick Sandys as artistic director and he served in this position until 2021. On July 12, 2021, Remy Bumppo's board of directors appointed Marti Lyons as artistic director.

Production history

1996 Season: ''Night and Day'' by Tom Stoppard; ''The Seagull'' by Anton Chekhov 1998 Season: ''Waiting for Godot'' by

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

; ''Rockabye'' by Samuel Beckett; ''Heartbreak House'' by George Bernard Shaw 1999 Season: ''Road to Mecca'' by Athol Fugard 2000–01 Season: ''Man and Superman'' by George Bernard Shaw; ''Hapgood'' by Tom Stoppard 2001–02 Season: ''No Man's Land'' by

Harold Pinter Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanne ...

; ''Top Girls'' by

Caryl Churchill Caryl Lesley Churchill (born 3 September 1938) is a British playwright known for dramatising the abuses of power, for her use of non- naturalistic techniques, and for her exploration of sexual politics and feminist themes.

2002–03 Season: ''The Secret Rapture'' by

David Hare David Hare may refer to: *David Hare (philanthropist) (1775–1842), Scottish philanthropist *David Hare (artist) (1917–1992), American sculptor and photographer *David Hare (playwright) (born 1947), English playwright and theatre and film direc ...

; ''Holiday'' by Philip Barry; ''Money'' by Edward Bulwer-Lytton 2003–04 Season: ''Major Barbara'' by George Bernard Shaw; ''Some Americans Abroad'' by Richard Nelson; ''Hidden Laughter'' by Simon Grey 2004–05 Season: Chaos Theory... and Other Family Gatherings: ''A Delicate Balance'' by

Edward Albee Edward Franklin Albee III ( ; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright known for works such as ''The Zoo Story'' (1958), '' The Sandbox'' (1959), ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1962), '' A Delicate Balance'' (1966) ...

; ''Arcadia'' by Tom Stoppard; ''

Humble Boy ''Humble Boy'' is a 2001 English play by Charlotte Jones. The play was presented in association with Matthew Byam Shaw and Anna Mackmin, and was first performed on the Cottesloe stage of the Royal National Theatre on 9 August 2001.Jones, Charl ...

'' by Charlotte Jones 2005–06 Season: Temptation: ''Aren't We All'' by Frederick Lonsdale; ''

Tartuffe ''Tartuffe, or The Impostor, or The Hypocrite'' (; french: Tartuffe, ou l'Imposteur, ), first performed in 1664, is a theatrical comedy by Molière. The characters of Tartuffe, Elmire, and Orgon are considered among the greatest classical thea ...

'' by

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...

; ''Power'' by Nick Dear 2006–07 Season: Lost Innocence: ''The Best Man'' by

Gore Vidal Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and ...

; ''The Real Thing'' by

; ''Mrs. Warren's Profession'' by

; ''

A Child's Christmas in Wales ''A Child's Christmas in Wales'' is a piece of prose by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas recorded by Thomas in 1952. Emerging from an earlier piece he wrote for BBC Radio, the work is an anecdotal reminiscence of a Christmas from the viewpoint of a ...

'' by

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under ...

; ''Remy Bumppo's thinkTank'' 2007–08 Season: Life, Love & Other Inventions: ''Fiction'' by

Steven Dietz Steven Dietz (born June 23, 1958) is an American playwright, theatre director, and teacher. Called "the most ubiquitous American playwright whose name you may never have heard", Dietz has long been one of America's most prolific and widely prod ...

; ''The Philadelphia Story'' by

Philip Barry Philip Jerome Quinn Barry (June 18, 1896 – December 3, 1949) was an American dramatist best known for his plays ''Holiday (play), Holiday'' (1928) and ''The Philadelphia Story (play), The Philadelphia Story'' (1939), which were both made into ...

; ''Bronte'' by Polly Teale; ''On the Verge or the Geography of Yearning'' by Eric Overmyer; ''Remy Bumppo's thinkTank''; ''Dickens in America'' by

James DeVita James "Jim" DeVita is an American actor, director and author. Since 1995, he is a member of the core acting company at American Players Theatre, a classical amphitheater located in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Biography Devita is from Long Island ...

2008–09 Season: The Perils of Possession: ''The Voysey Inheritance'' by

Harley Granville-Barker Harley Granville-Barker (25 November 1877 – 31 August 1946) was an English actor, director, playwright, manager, critic, and theorist. After early success as an actor in the plays of George Bernard Shaw, he increasingly turned to directi ...

, adapted by

David Mamet David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony Award, Tony nominations for his plays ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and ''Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first ...

; ''The Marriage of Figaro'' by

Beaumarchais Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (; 24 January 1732 – 18 May 1799) was a French polymath. At various times in his life, he was a watchmaker, inventor, playwright, musician, diplomat, spy, publisher, horticulturist, arms dealer, satirist, ...

, adapted by Ranjit Bolt; ''thinkTank: American Ethnic'' by

Usman Ally Usman Ally (born August 27, 1982) is a Swazi-born Pakistani-American film, stage and television actor. Marking his acting debut in 2008, Ally won an Obie Award in 2015 for his role in ''The Invisible Hand''. He has appeared in several stage pro ...

, Idris Goodwin, and Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai; ''Old Times'' by

2009–10 Season: Friendships Tested: ''Les Liaisons Dangereuses'' by Christopher Hampton, based on the novel by

Choderlos de Laclos Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos (; 18 October 1741 – 5 September 1803) was a French novelist, official, Freemason and army general, best known for writing the epistolary novel ''Les Liaisons dangereuses'' (''Dangerous Liaisons'' ...

; ''The Island'' by

Athol Fugard Athol Fugard, Hon. , (born 11 June 1932), is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director widely regarded as South Africa's greatest playwright. He is best known for his political and penetrating plays opposing the system of apart ...

; ''Heroes'' by Gerald Sibleyras, translated by Tom Stoppard 2010–11 Season: Secret Lives, Public Lies: ''The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?'' by

; ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' by

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

; ''Night and Day'' by

2011–12 Season: The American Evolution: ''Mourning Becomes Electra'' by

Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier ...

, adapted by Gordon Edelstein; ''Changes of Heart'' by

Marivaux Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (4 February 1688 – 12 February 1763), commonly referred to as Marivaux, was a French playwright and novelist. He is considered one of the most important French playwrights of the 18th century, writing nume ...

, translated by Stephen Wadsworth; ''Chesapeake'' by

Lee Blessing Lee Knowlton Blessing (born October 4, 1949) is an American playwright best known for his 1988 work, '' A Walk in the Woods''. A lifelong Midwesterner, Blessing continued to work in regional theaters in and around his hometown of Minneapolis thro ...

2012–13 Season: The Marriage Game: ''Creditors'' by

August Strindberg Johan August Strindberg (, ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than sixty p ...

, adapted by David Greig; ''The Chimes'' adapted by Nick Sandys from the novel by

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

; ''You Never Can Tell'' by

; ''Seascape'' by

2013–14 Season: The Human Puzzle: ''Our Class'' by Tadeusz Slobodzianek, English version by Ryan Craig; ''An Inspector Calls'' by

J.B. Priestley John Boynton Priestley (; 13 September 1894 – 14 August 1984) was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator. His Yorkshire background is reflected in much of his fiction, notably in ''The Good Compa ...

, translated by Stephen Wadsworth; ''Northanger Abbey'' by

Jane Austen Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...

, adapted by Tim Luscombe 2014–15 Season: Welcome to the Fun House: ''Both Your Houses'' by

Maxwell Anderson James Maxwell Anderson (December 15, 1888 – February 28, 1959) was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist, and lyricist. Background Anderson was born on December 15, 1888, in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to ...

; ''The Clean House'' by

Sarah Ruhl Sarah Ruhl (born January 24, 1974) is an American playwright, professor, and essayist. Among her most popular plays are ''Eurydice'' (2003), '' The Clean House'' (2004), and ''In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)'' (2009). She has been the rec ...

; ''Travesties'' by

2015–16 Season: Biting the Apple: ''Love and Information'' by Carol Churchill; ''Fallen Angels'' by

Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...

; ''The Life of Galileo'' by

Bertold Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

, translated by

2016–17 Season: An Age of Enlightenment: ''Pirandello's Henry IV'' by

; ''Pygmalion'' by

; ''Born Yesterday'' by

Garson Kanin Garson Kanin (November 24, 1912 – March 13, 1999) was an American writer and director of plays and films. Early life Garson Kanin was born in Rochester, New York; his family later relocated to Detroit then to New York City. He attended ...

; ''Great Expectations'' by

, adapted by Tanika Gupta

Notes

{{Chicago mtp Theatre companies in Chicago