The History Boys

TimeLine Theatre Company announces that it will present the Tony and Olivier award-winning play The History Boys by Alan Bennett in its Chicago premiere. Directed by TimeLine Company member Nick Bowling, The History Boys is projected to open in April 2009, with a specific schedule to be determined.

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. After its premiere, the Daily Telegraph reviewer raved that The History Boys is “a play that strikes me as one of the finest Bennett has ever written, packed with superb one-liners. A play of depth as well as dazzle, intensely moving as well as thought-provoking and funny.”

The History Boys premiered in London at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre in May 2004; the cast of 12 featured Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour, Dominic Cooper and Samuel Barnett. It played to sell-out audiences for an extended run before touring to Hong Kong, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia in 2006. With its original cast still intact, the play premiered on Broadway in April 2006 and received six Tony Awards. It also was adapted into a feature film, again featuring the original cast, which premiered in the United States in November 2006.

"The History Boys is one of the most celebrated new plays of this decade, and TimeLine is honored to be the first to bring it to Chicago," said Artistic Director PJ Powers. "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?' 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."

Playwright Alan Bennett 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.