Half a century before tennis star Naomi Osaka earned $53.2 million in 2022, breaking her own record as the highest-paid female athlete in the world, Billie Jean King became the first woman athlete to earn over $100,000 in prize money in 1971. For the trailblazing tennis champion, now 81 years old, this milestone represents just one step in a lifelong fight for equal pay and equal opportunities for women in sports. Her activism also extends beyond the tennis court to encompass LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, and racial justice. In 2009, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor, for her advocacy work.

Billie Jean, a biographical play by Lauren Gunderson premiering at Chicago Shakespeare Theater this summer, highlights many of King’s achievements as a public figure alongside her more private journey toward living as her authentic self and finding love with fellow tennis player Ilana Kloss. Directed by Marc Bruni (The Great Gatsby, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), the fast-paced show covers a lot of historical ground, including King’s 1973 win over Bobby Riggs in the famous “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match, the formation of the Women’s Tennis Association, and the successful campaign to achieve equal prize money for women and men at the U.S. Open.

Many of Gunderson’s previous works spotlight women who left their mark on history, from Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi (Artemisia) to Nobel Prize-winning scientist Marie Curie (The Half-Life of Marie Curie), so when her agents approached her with a one-sentence pitch for a play about Billie Jean King, she was intrigued. “I’m the least sporty person in the country, I’m sure, but what is so clear for Billie Jean’s story is it does align with women that I have profiled before,” the playwright said in an interview with Playbill. “It is a story about many firsts and a lot of glass breaking in different ways, not just within the sport, [but also] outside of the sport—politically, in terms of feminism, in terms of queer history, and on and on.”

While the play is named after King, Gunderson surrounds the protagonist, played by Chilina Kennedy, with an ensemble of women who collectively serve as a chorus and individually step into a variety of roles. This structure reflects King’s inclusive approach to activism, Gunderson explains. King and Kloss have both shared input during the play’s development, and in one round of script notes, King requested that her character defer to using the pronoun “we” instead of “I” in her dialogue, to better reflect her collaboration with other women and allies. “That’s a perfect encapsulation of how she is approaching this play,” says Gunderson. Bruni, who has also been involved throughout the development process, adds, “We are aiming to create something that feels very much not like nostalgia, but like a road map for people who come to see this play to be able to be inspired by the way in which these battles were fought.”

The rights of transgender athletes represent just one cause championed by King, who took a stance in the 1970s that seemed ahead of her time. In her 2021 autobiography, All In, King recounts her friendship with transgender tennis player Renée Richards, one of the first professional athletes to transition. In 1977, the 42-year-old Richards won a groundbreaking legal case that allowed her to compete in the U.S. Open, from which she was banned the previous year. After personally getting to know Richards and learning more about the science behind gender-affirming care, King publicly supported Richards and even suggested they compete together in doubles. Richards appears as a character in the play, offering historical perspective on an issue that is still contested today.

In an effort to touch on many aspects of King’s tennis career, advocacy work, and personal life without losing momentum, Gunderson structures Billie Jean to mimic the rhythms of a tennis match. Fast-paced snippets of action propel the plot forward like a ball in play, broken up by more gently paced scenes that offer glimpses into King’s private life. Guided by Bruni and movement director Steph Paul, the performers’ actions evoke “the dance element” of tennis, suggests Gunderson. “There’s such a balletic choreography to the game that is incredibly strong but incredibly agile.”

Gunderson feels that King’s life story resembles the journey of a Shakespearean hero, though she acknowledges that King herself would likely resist that comparison. “There is a battle being waged in all of these eras that she existed in, and proved, again and again, that there’s a different way, a better way. But it was at a cost to her. She lost and then gained and proved her resilience through trial by fire.”

“I think that the thing that theatre has, specifically, that is so different from a documentary or a profile article,” observes Bruni, “is that we are allowed to examine some of the interior life that you might not get access to in those other ways. And what Lauren has so beautifully done in the play is to allow for some of those insecurities, some of those moments that are off the court and are very personal, to be juxtaposed with these incredible victories and incredible public moments.”