THE HISTORY BOYS

CHICAGO PREMIERE
by Alan Bennett
directed by Nick Bowling

APRIL 25 - JUNE 21, 2009
previews 4/22 - 4/24

Back to 2008-09 Season Announcement ...

The recipient of more than 30 major awards, including Tony and Olivier awards for Best New Play, The History Boys follows a rambunctious group of clever young men as they pursue higher learning, games, sexual identity and a place at university under the guidance of three wildly different teachers and a headmaster obsessed with results. Set during the 1980s in northern England, it is a hilarious and provocative play about the anarchy of adolescence and the purpose of education — specifically, how history should be taught.

The History Boys premiered in London at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre in May 2004. It played to sell-out audiences for an extended run before touring to Hong Kong, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia in 2006. The play premiered on Broadway in April 2006 and received six Tony Awards. It has also been adapted into a feature film.

“Alan Bennett's provocative script tackles essential questions we regularly grapple with as we explore TimeLine’s unique mission — ‘how do we benefit by dissecting, studying and examining history?’” Powers said. “Whether audiences have seen this production in London, on Broadway or on film, or are coming to it for the first time, The History Boys will have a fresh and powerful impact at TimeLine’s intimate theater.”

Alan Bennett (Playwright) is regarded as one of the premiere English dramatists of his generation. He has been a household name in British theater since 1960, when he starred in and co-authored the satirical review Beyond the Fringe with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook at the Edinburgh Festival. His first stage play, Forty Years On, was produced in 1968, and he has since worked prolifically as a writer, actor, director and broadcaster for stage, television, radio and films. He adapted his play The Madness of George III into the Academy Award-nominated film The Madness of King George in 1994. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Bennett resides in London.

Nick Bowling (Director) was the founding artistic director of TimeLine and is now a Company member. He is the recipient of four Joseph Jefferson Citations for Outstanding Direction (This Happy Breed, The Crucible and Fiorello! at TimeLine, Another Part of the Forest at Eclipse Theatre). He also was nominated for TimeLine’s Hauptmann and The Lion in Winter, and for a Jeff Award for Closer Than Ever at Porchlight Music Theatre. At TimeLine, he also directed The Children’s Hour, Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, Summit Conference, Gaslight, the world premiere of Streeterville and concert readings of The Cradle Will Rock and Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story. Other credits include Writers’ Theatre’s Bach at Leipzig, Shattered Globe Theatre’s Time of the Cuckoo and Frozen Assets, Shakespeare’s Motley Crew’s Present Slaughter, Rivendell Theatre’s Factory Girls, Buffalo Theatre Ensemble’s Angels in America, Impulse Theatre’s Blithe Spirit and Carpe Noctem’s The Subject was Roses.