
Big Bill
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A.R. Gurney’s 'Big Bill' arrived Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in 2004 as a gripping, poignant, and biographical historical drama exploring the spectacular rise and tragic public disgrace of an American sports icon. The plot chronicles the real life of Bill Tilden, the fiercely prideful, aristocratic tennis champion who dominated the global sports arena in the 1920s, tracking his slide into social exile following two arrests and incarcerations related to his homosexuality in a deeply homophobic mid-century landscape. Directed with elegant precision by Mark Lamos, the acclaimed production starred John Michael Higgins in a tour-de-force lead performance.

