Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars, a Chicago-set world premiere written by and set to feature Sandra Delgado, one of the city’s most celebrated “triple-threat” theater artists, in the lead role of Clara, kicks off TimeLine Theatre Company’s milestone 29th season, October 8 - November 9, 2025.
TimeLine’s production of Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars will be hosted by Lookingglass Theatre Company in the historic Water Tower Water Works, 163 E. Pearson Street at Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago, while TimeLine continues construction of its new home in Uptown, anticipated to open in May 2026.
Pictured (from left): Sandra Delgado, playwright, and Kimberly Senior, director, of TimeLine Theatre’s world premiere drama Hundred and Hundreds of Stars. To view and download high-res headshots, click here. To view and embed TimeLine Theatre's 2025-26 season announcement video, click here.
TimeLine Associate Artist Kimberly Senior directs Delgado’s captivating new play that blends grounded family drama with otherworldly wonder for a moving and provocative exploration of our country’s most fundamental values.
Meet the moment of TimeLine’s 2025-26 season and save as much as 25 percent off regular tickets to Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars with a 2025-26 TimeLine FlexPass. Four options, on sale now from $134 to $278, also assure the best seats and offer impressive flexibility throughout TimeLine’s three-play season.
Single tickets for Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars will go on sale later this summer. For more information and to purchase a TimeLine FlexPass, call the TimeLine Box Office at (773) 281-8463 x6 or visit timelinetheatre.com.
Motherhood, marijuana and the multiverse: Shining light on American identity
Several years in development, Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars is a play of the moment, echoing stories pulled from today’s news of families being torn apart.
Like millions of Americans, Clara is doing her best to hold everything together—working hard, raising her tween daughter Stella, caring for an aging father, and supporting her under-employed ex-husband. But when she applies for U.S. citizenship ahead of a mother-daughter trip to Paris, her application is unexpectedly flagged, exposing minor infractions in her past and threatening the only home she’s ever known.
In addition to writing Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars, Delgado will lead the cast as Clara. More production details, including the full cast and design team, are to be announced.
“I can’t think of a more timely topic than this play about a mother being pulled away from her daughter, forced from the only home she has ever really known,” said Artistic Director PJ Powers. “Sandra’s script is moving, provocative, funny, and deeply emotional, putting a human face on the headlines surrounding us today.”
Powers continued: “Set in 2015, this play is also a testament to TimeLine’s mission of connecting past with present, underscoring that a broken immigration system is not new, yet its resonance with where we are today in 2025 couldn’t be more apparent. We are deeply honored to launch this transformative year for TimeLine by welcoming back our longtime colleague, director Kimberly Senior, and premiering Sandra’s must-see new work.”
“After the election, I thought this play I’ve been working on for years is suddenly of the moment. Someone has to produce it,” said Delgado. “People aren’t often forced into action beyond watching the news, until it becomes personal. So this is a very personal family tale, not unlike those playing out more and more, every day in Chicago and around the U.S.”
“At the same time,” Delgado added, “the play also explores the multiverse, or the possibility of an infinite number of parallel universes, and astral projection, the ability of a person’s spirit to travel to distant places, to bring a layer of magic and hope to an otherwise daunting tale of a mother at risk of losing her daughter and being sent to a country she has never known.”
Originally commissioned by the Chicago Park District’s Theatre on the Lake In the Works project, in partnership with Chicago Dramatists, previous development of Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars included stagings as part of Goodman Theatre’s New Stages Festival in 2018 and Northeastern Illinois University’s thINKtank Series, co-produced in partnership with Teatro Vista, in 2024.
Sandra Delgado (Playwright, HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF STARS) is a Colombian-Chicagoan writer, performer and producer. Hailed as “her own brand of triple threat” (Newcity), she writes plays inspired by underknown Chicago histories centering Latine lives. She is best known as the creator and star of La Havana Madrid, her smash hit play with music, originally produced by Teatro Vista with runs at Steppenwolf and Goodman theatres, in a co-production with Collaboraction at both The Den and at Pritzker Pavilion as part of Millennium Park’s 20th Anniversary Celebration, as well as productions at South Coast Repertory and New Village Arts. Delgado is also a respected veteran of the stage, with a career spanning more than two decades. In addition to her work at artistic homes Collaboraction and Teatro Vista, as an actress, she has been seen on stages across Chicago and the country including Goodman, Northlight, Lookingglass, Victory Gardens, and About Face. Highlights include the titular role in La Havana Madrid, La Ruta at Steppenwolf, and starring off-Broadway as Jocasta in the Public Theatre’s production of Oedipus el Rey. Her NALAC award-winning spiritual-cabaret-meets-dance party, The Sandra Delgado Experience, has played all over Chicago and at the Public Theatre’s iconic Joe’s Pub. Delgado was recently awarded the inaugural Platform Award from the Walder Foundation, named a Hall of Famer in Newcity's Players of Chicago Theatre, awarded a United States Artists Fellowship, and serves on the board of the Chicago Public Library. She is also an Illinois Arts Council Fellow in Literature, a recipient of the 3Arts Award, the Joyce Award, the Theater Communications Group (TCG) Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship in the Extraordinary Potential Category, a three-time Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events grantee, a 3Arts 3AP Project Grantee, and received the 2017 Latina Professional of the Year Award from the Chicago Latino Network. Delgado is one of the 20 women of Chicago arts and culture honored in Kerry James Marshall's mural “Rushmore” on the facade of the Chicago Cultural Center and her audio play, if you belong to me as I belong to you, is streaming on Audible as part of a collaboration with the Oscar-nominated film, Women Talking. She is currently developing The Boys and the Nuns, a new musical inspired by the true-life alliance between LGBTQ activists and Catholic Sisters in 1980s Chicago; LIVE.LOVE.NOW., a solo show exploring death, life and love; and Crying Hispanic Woman, a book of essays about motherhood, being the daughter of immigrants and a life in the performing arts. Catch Delgado this fall on TV in a recurring role on Power Book IV: Force on Starz. For more information, visit sandradelgado.net or @yosoysandradelgado on Instagram.
Kimberly Senior (Director, HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF STARS) returns to TimeLine Theatre Company, where she is an Associate Artist. Senior began working with TimeLine in 2008, where she directed Inana, My Name is Asher Lev, All My Sons, and Dolly West's Kitchen. She has collaborated with Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars playwright Sandra Delgado on multiple projects going back to 1997. Senior is a freelance director whose award-winning work has been seen in 15 states in more than 200 productions. She directed the Broadway production of the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-nominated Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar. She directed the HBO special Chris Gethard: Career Suicide and her work in audio has ranged from Marvel’s The Wastelanders to C13’s Ghostwriter. Senior is a member of the Goodman Theatre’s Artistic Collective and has taught at a number of universities. Her first book, What Would a Person Do? is available on Amazon. She is a proud union member of SDC and even prouder mother of Noah (18) and Delaney (16). For more information, visit kimberlysenior.net.
Save with a TimeLine Theatre 2025-26 FlexPass
TimeLine’s 29th season opens with the world premiere of Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars, followed by two more exciting productions:
- The Chicago premiere of Eureka Day, Jonathan Spector’s sharply funny new satire of progressivism, parenting, and public health—winner of the 2025 Tony Award® for Best Revival of a Play—will be presented at Broadway In Chicago’s Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut St., on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Lili-Anne Brown directs TimeLine’s new production of Spector’s Broadway hit, hailed by The New York Times as “the perfect play for our age of disagreement.” Deadline called it a “shiny, insightful and damn funny little gem.” Performances are January 13-February 22, 2026.
- TimeLine’s season will culminate in May 2026 with the long-awaited inaugural production at its new theatre, currently under construction at 5035 N. Broadway in Uptown: the Chicago premiere of An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen, a new version by Amy Herzog, directed by TimeLine Company Member Ron OJ Parson. This fresh, award-winning new take on Ibsen’s historic masterwork—the talk of Broadway last season—brings a 144-year-old literary classic forward to today, speaking directly to our times about what it means when citizens stand up to power. Entertainment Weekly called it “eerily prescient,” and Deadline called it “smart, sharp and relevant.”
TimeLine is offering four FlexPass subscription options, on sale now from $134 to $278, that save 25 percent off regular tickets, assure the best seats and enjoy impressive flexibility. For more information, call the TimeLine Box Office at (773) 281-8463 x6 or visit timelinetheatre.com.
Remember The Past. Embrace the Future. Meet the Moment.
Screen TimeLine Theatre's 2025-26 season sizzle video.
About TimeLine Theatre Company
TimeLine Theatre Company, recipient of the prestigious 2016 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, was founded in April 1997 with a mission to present stories inspired by history that connect with today's social and political issues. Currently celebrating its 28th season, TimeLine has presented 95 productions, including 15 world premieres and 43 Chicago premieres, and launched the Living History Education Program and TimeLine South summer arts program, which bring the company's mission to life for students in Chicago Public Schools and beyond. Recipient of the Alford- Axelson Award for Nonprofit Managerial Excellence and the Richard Goodman Strategic Planning Award from the Association for Strategic Planning, TimeLine has received 62 Jeff Awards, including an award for Outstanding Production 11 times.
The company departed its longtime home on Wellington Avenue in August 2024 and moved into new administrative offices at 5539 N. Broadway, Ste. B, a few blocks north of the site of its future new home, located at 5035 N. Broadway in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. Construction is ongoing on that site, where plans feature an intimate black box theater seating up to 250 audience members, expanded area for the immersive lobby experiences that are a TimeLine hallmark, new opportunities for education and engagement, room to allow audience members to arrive early and stay late for theatergoing experiences that extend far beyond the stage, and more.
TimeLine is led by Artistic Director PJ Powers, Executive Director Mica Cole, and Board President Thaddeus J. Malik. TimeLine Company members are Tyla Abercrumbie, Will Allan, Nick Bowling, Janet Ulrich Brooks, Behzad Dabu, Charles Andrew Gardner, Lara Goetsch, Juliet Hart, Anish Jethmalani, Mildred Marie Langford, Mechelle Moe, David Parkes, Ron OJ Parson, PJ Powers, Maren Robinson, and Helen Young.
Major corporate, government and foundation donors providing season support via TimeLine’s Annual Fund include Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation; Bayless Family Foundation; Bulley & Andrews, LLC; Carol Oppenheim and Jerome Lamet Charitable Fund; Crown Family Philanthropies; Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation; Laughing Acres Family Foundation; Lloyd A. Fry Foundation; Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; Polk Bros. Foundation; and The Shubert Foundation. TimeLine also acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
For more information, visit timelinetheatre.com or Facebook or Instagram (@TimeLineTheatre on all platforms).