Northlight Theatre continues 2023-2024 season with the Rolling World Premiere of Brooklyn Laundry
By John Patrick Shanley
Directed by Artistic Director BJ Jones
Featuring Sandra Delgado, Marika Mashburn,
Mark Montgomery, and Cassidy Slaughter-Mason
April 11-May 12, 2024
Northlight Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans, continues its 2023–2024 season with the rolling world premiere of Brooklyn Laundry by John Patrick Shanley, the Pulitzer, Tony, and Oscar-award winning author of Moonstruck, Doubt,and Outside Mullingar. Brooklyn Laundry runs April 11-May 12, 2024, at Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd in Skokie. The press opening is Friday, April 19, 2024 at 7:30pm.
Fran is broke and chronically single. Owen has a bad back and a lot of baggage. And then he asks her out. They might be just what each other needs… but life still has some savage tricks in store. At turns funny and tragic, this new play takes a fresh look at relationships, family, and surprising second chances.
“Life is hard. And life is hilarious,” says Artistic Director BJ Jones. “John Patrick Shanley's plays have always brought seemingly little lives into close-up, throwing life’s larger challenges at them to examine their strength and courage under duress. In Brooklyn Laundry, Fran and Owen are middle aged people who are struggling with challenges in their life. I think the play is exhorting all of us to carry on and to trust that the human spirit is indomitable.”
Brooklyn Laundry features Sandra Delgado (Susie), Marika Mashburn (Trish), Mark Montgomery (Owen), and Cassidy Slaughter-Mason (Fran).
The creative team includes Jeffrey Kmiec (set design), Izumi Inaba (costume design), JR Lederle (light design), Lindsay Jones (original music and sound design), and Katie Klemme(stage manager).
Northlight's production of Brooklyn Laundry is supported in part by Paul Epner and Janet Gans Epner, Donna and Gene Frett, Nan Greenough, and Blythe McGarvie.
About the Artists
John Patrick Shanley (Playwright) is from The Bronx. His plays include Prodigal Son, Outside Mullingar (Tony nomination), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, Italian-American Reconciliation, Welcome to the Moon, Four Dogs and a Bone, Dirty Story, Defiance, and Beggars in the House of Plenty. His theatrical work is performed extensively across the United States and around the world. For his play, Doubt, he received both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In the arena of screenwriting, he has ten films to his credit, most recently Wild Mountain Thyme, with Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, and Christopher Walken. His film of Doubt, with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis, which he also directed, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay. Other films include Five Corners (Special Jury Prize, Barcelona Film Festival), Alive, Joe Versus the Volcano (which he also directed), and Live From Baghdad for HBO (Emmy nomination). For his script of Moonstruck he received both the Writers Guild of America Award and an Academy Award for best original screenplay. In 2009, The Writers Guild of America awarded Mr. Shanley the Lifetime Achievement In Writing.
BJ Jones (Director) is in his 25th season as Artistic Director of Northlight. Mr. Jones is a two-time Joseph Jefferson Award Winning actor and a three-time nominated director. He’s directed the world premieres of
Charm (Jeff Award Best New Play),
The Outgoing Tide (Jeff Award Best New Play),
White Guy on the Bus (Jeff Nominated Best New Play),
Chapatti (Nominated Jeff Award Best New Play),
Better Late, and Rounding Third. Notably, he has directed productions of
Outside Mullingar, Grey Gardens, The Price, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, and
The Beauty Queen of Leenane. As a producer he has guided the three world premieres of The
Christmas at Pemberley Trilogy (Jeff Award Best New Play),
Shining Lives, The Last Five Years, and
Studs Terkel’s ‘The Good War’. Additional directorial credits include
Pitmen Painters (Timeline, Jeff Award Best Production); 1
00 Saints You Should Know (Steppenwolf);
Glengarry Glen Ross (Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, Suzi Bass nomination Best Director);
The Lady with All the Answers (Cherry Lane, New York);
Animal Crackers (Baltimore Center Stage);
Three Musketeers, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing (Utah Shakespeare Festival), and four productions at the Galway International Arts Festival. As a performer, he has appeared at Northlight, Goodman, Steppenwolf, Court, and other theatres throughout Chicago. Film/TV credits include
The Fugitive, Body Double, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Early Edition, Cupid, and
Turks, among others.
Sandra Delgado (Susie) is a Colombian-Chicagoan theater artist best known for La Havana Madrid, her hit play with music which will take the stage at Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion this summer in a co-production with her artistic homes, Teatro Vista and Collaboraction. As an actress, she’s been on the stages of Steppenwolf, Goodman, Lookingglass, and The Public Theater in New York. Awards include a United States Artist Fellowship, NALAC Grant, Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature, 3Arts Award, Joyce Award, TCG Resident Actor Fellowship. Her audioplay, if you belong to me as I belong to you, is on Audible as part of a collaboration with the Oscar-winning film, Women Talking. Her song and story project, The Sandra Delgado Experience, debuted at Joe’s Pub in NY last year and will be back in Chicago this July.
Marika Mashburn (Trish) Chicago: Verböten, Death & Harry Houdini, Season on the Line (The House); For Services Rendered (Griffin); The Wooden Breeks (Lookingglass); Regional: Arsht Center (Miami), Milwaukee Rep. TV/Film: Reporting for Christmas, Princess Cyd, Imperfections, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD. Marika was raised in a trailer in an Oklahoma cornfield and is a world traveler, having visited all 50 states and 32 countries on 7 continents, including a year-long stint driving ice road trucks and fronting the continent’s most famous alt-country band, Roll Cage Mary, at McMurdo Station, Antarctica.
Mark Montgomery (Owen) returns to Northlight where he appeared in Discord, Mansfield Park, Outside Mullingar (Jeff nomination, Best Actor), As Bees in Honey Drown and Experiment with an Air Pump. Other select Chicago credits: 2666, Rapture, Blister, Burn, Camino Real and Stage Kiss(Goodman); Hedda Gabler, The Letters, Buried Child and The Scene (Writers); Agamemnon, Iphigenia in Aulis, and M. Butterfly (Court) and productions with Chicago Shakespeare, Victory Gardens, Steppenwolf, Journeymen and Remy Bumppo, among others. New York credits: Mamma Mia! (Broadway), Our Town (Barrow Street), Macbeth (Public). Regional credits: Julius Caesar(American Repertory) as well as the show’s French tour. Television: Law & Order, Chicago Fire and Empire. Film: Candyman.
Cassidy Slaughter-Mason (Fran) is an actor and writer based in Chicago. Recent acting credits include: The Luckiest (Raven Theatre, Equity Jeff Award for Best Performer in a Principal Role), How A Boy Falls (Northlight Theatre), Kiss (Haven Theatre), Natural Affection (Eclipse Theatre), Significant Other (Theatre Wit/About Face), Scapegoat (New Colony) and Rapture Blister Burn(Goodman Theatre, Equity Jeff Nomination for actor in a Performer in a Supporting Role). Recent film and TV credits include: All Happy Families, Later Days, Ultra-City Smiths, Chicago Fire, Easy, APB, and Soundtrack. Cassidy is a graduate of the school at Steppenwolf, and a founding ensemble member of One Year Chekhov.
