{"id":17273,"date":"2025-07-24T00:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T00:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/17273\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T00:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T00:31:07","slug":"billie-jean-world-premiere-of-play-about-tennis-icon-billie-jean-king-showing-at-chicago-shakespeare-theater-until-august-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/17273\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Billie Jean’: World premiere of play about tennis icon Billie Jean King showing at Chicago Shakespeare Theater until August 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO (WLS) — The world premiere of the powerful play “Billie Jean” is now at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.<\/p>\n

Acclaimed performer Lily Tomlin loves the story of the tennis champ so much, she produced it and sat down with ABC7 to talk more about it.<\/p>\n

Tomlin joined writer Lauren Gunderson, and Chilina Kennedy, starring as Billie Jean King, to explain why this is the perfect serve for the audience.<\/p>\n

ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24\/7. Click here to watch<\/a><\/p>\n

“I think we need heroes now,” Gunderson said. ‘The theater is the place we get to see and know and walk with characters that matter and make us laugh and learn and love.”<\/p>\n

She never doubted she was right. She knew something was wrong about the business when she was a young girl and she set out to change it.<\/p>\n

“She’s won every title ever, she’s done so much for women, so much for the LGBT+ community,” Kennedy said. “She’s a pioneer and she was so brave especially for that time period, she really was the first one in so many ways.”<\/p>\n

“The truth about the Billie Jean’s story it is not in the past, it is right now, and what she and her wife Alana do teaches us the work is never done, the community always is growing and the fight is all of our fights,” Gunderson said.<\/p>\n

The playwright explained why they decided to bring the show to Chicago.<\/p>\n

“Chicago is for me a theater town, it is real people, real art,” Gunderson said. “We’re here at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, and I think Billie Jean King is Shakespearean character, the heroism, the cost, the great love, the great work she went through in her life.”<\/p>\n

“Every single night I discover something new in the piece and I hear it differently, and it’s exciting,” Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO | Chicago-area native athletes honored with Billie Jean King Youth Leadership Award at ESPYS<\/a><\/p>\n

“Chicago Shakespeare Theater, it’s a wonderful complex, I’ve never even been over on this waterfront and I played here every year at Mr. Kelly’s, I’ve played at the Goodman,” Tomlin said.<\/p>\n

Chicago means a lot to Tomlin.<\/p>\n

“Yeah, I hitchhiked to Chicago when I was 15, 14,” Tomlin said.<\/p>\n

Tomlin explained why telling the story of Billie Jean King was an important choice.<\/p>\n

“The stage is a very powerful instrument whatever you can think up you can create on the stage, may not be wise or it may have been a fabulous thing, but that’s what it allows you,” Tomlin said. “It couldn’t be more timely than today, because the same kinds of fights, struggles are still going on with women, in general. She never doubted she was right. She knew something was wrong about the business when she was a young girl and she set out to change it.”<\/p>\n

“Billie Jean” is playing at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater through August 10.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (WLS) — The world premiere of the powerful play “Billie Jean” is now at the Chicago Shakespeare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[18412,64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-17273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-18412","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}