The world premiere play “Billie Jean” depicts the iconic tennis player Billie Jean King’s journey to become a Grand Slam champion and a prominent activist for women amid her personal struggles.
So when its star, Chilina Kennedy, enters the third floor office at Chicago Shakespeare Theater dressed ready for the court in a fluorescent orange tennis dress, it makes a statement.
Kennedy is no stranger to biographical roles. She played the titular role of Carole in “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” on Broadway, stacking up more than 1,200 performances as the famed singer and songwriter.
Now, to embody another King at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, where the play runs through Aug. 10, she again must transform. This time, she has a lot of intel: Kennedy spent time with Billie Jean King herself for another tennis play, and she’s put in extensive work to capture the sports icon and activist’s essence. As King, her mannerisms shift. She is more animated, talking with her hands. Her shoulders tense. She doesn’t move her top lip while speaking. All of these characteristics belong to King.
“So many people have such a deep relationship and a strong attachment to these people,” said Kennedy, who is also set to portray Canadian rock star Carole Pope of Rough Trade in an upcoming musical. “They’re so famous. People know their voices, their styles — like, everyone knows Billie Jean’s mannerisms and her style of playing tennis. So, there’s a lot of pressure that goes with playing a role like this.”
The biggest tip Kennedy received in preparation for this role was from Billie Jean herself. During rehearsals in 2023 for the tennis drama “Love All” at La Jolla Playhouse in California, King gave the actor a few pointers on playing tennis. There, Kennedy also started studying her demeanor and movements.
“You want it to flow through you organically,” Kennedy explained. “But there is a certain kind of speech pattern that she has. There’s a certain kind of way that she walks, a way that she moves through the world.”
Through the process, Kennedy also became a tennis fan. She bought a ticket to the 2023 U.S. Open. When she told King, the tennis legend invited her to her private suite. “I sat in Billie Jean King’s box and watched Coco [Gauff] win and watched [Novak] Djokovic win,” Kennedy said. “I was there until 2:30 in the morning, and it was one of the best experiences ever.”
Director Marc Bruni, who also helmed “Beautiful” and “Love All,” said Kennedy was the first person who came to mind for the lead.
“She has an emotional accessibility that allows for the audience to be able to be in her heart and feel the highs and the lows,” he said. “She also has a remarkable likeness to Billie Jean. It’s unbelievably close when you see her in the wig and the glasses.”
For this production, the sport isn’t presented in a literal way. There are matches in the show, but there are no balls nor tennis racquets. Playwright Lauren Gunderson — one of the most produced writers in America, whose work includes the Shakespeare-era comedy “The Book of Will” — said she intentionally wrote this script without focusing on staging the actual game. “We really wanted the art to lead,” she said.
That presented a challenge for the director, but “we found a vocabulary for it,” Bruni said. He worked with movement director Steph Paul to craft a way of displaying tennis matches, through victories and defeat, using physical motions. “We’re not staging entire matches, because that’s kind of the least interesting element dramatically. It’s really about what happens off the court. That is the thrust of the drama.”
“We’re not trying to make it look like tennis. You can go watch Wimbledon if you want to see tennis,” said Gunderson. “For our show, it is the art of this sport and how it expresses emotionality.”
The set looks like a tennis court, but the show covers a lot more than the sport. An activist famous for her stances on women’s rights and pay equity for women’s sports, King championed Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination. This play covers her activism but also her setbacks: She was outed as a lesbian in a lawsuit filed by a former lover, which ultimately cost King millions.
“Once you get invested in what she’s fighting for, there’s humor and there’s so much wit,” Kennedy said of her character. “It’s exciting. And it’s inspiring. Even though there are a few hard things, you get through it with grit and determination and with a lot of joy.”
Mike Davis is a theater reporter who covers stages across Chicago.