TimeLine Theatre snags Frost/Nixon and a "Hopie"

TimeLine Theatre Company, the 12-year-old, historically-focused Lakeview underdog, is riding a well-documented surge these days. The company's followed last year's massive hit (and Jeff Award magnet) Chicago premiere of The History Boys with solid fare like Kimberly Senior's strong revival of All My Sons and the current ‘Master Harold’…and the Boys; up next is another Chicago premiere, Aaron Sorkin's The Farnsworth Invention, in April.

TimeLine's first out of the gate with news of the 2010–2011 season, announcing today that it's scored another Chicago premiere to kick off its fall slate: Peter Morgan's Frost/Nixon will open in August, directed by Louis Contey. The 2006 play, about the unlikely circumstances by which British TV presenter David Frost bagged a series of interviews with former president Richard Nixon in 1977, earned Tony and Drama Desk awards for Broadway star Frank Langella. TimeLine's casting (and the rest of its season) remain TBA. The company also announced that it's one of two 2010 recipients of a $25,000 grant from the Lester and Hope Abelson Fund for the Performing Arts at the Chicago Community Trust. The "Hopie," as the award is apparently referred to, is given annually to two arts orgs that have less than $1 million in operating revenues, have been in existence at least three years and whose work demonstrates "innovation, inspiration and creativity." This year's other recipient is Free Street Theater, who TOC profiled last month.