Welcome to the Steppenwolf Blog
Posted by Martha Lavey on 1/27/2006Welcome to the inaugural posting of the Steppenwolf blog. One of our great prides at Steppenwolf is the quality of our audiences. Because of you, we are able to produce work that is challenging, thought-provoking, and complex. This has been made especially manifest during this, our 30th season, through our increased schedule of post-show discussions. By conducting conversations with our audiences six days a week, we are refreshed and enlivened by your interest and engagement with our work. We initiate this blog in order to expand that conversation. Perhaps days after you have seen a production, an idea occurs to you that you want to share with the artists or your fellow audience members. Perhaps another audience member, having seen a production on another night, shares an insight on this blog that adds to or revises your interpretation. The blog gives you access to the entire interpretive community of Steppenwolf, and to the artists and staff of the theatre.
Here’s how it will work: someone from the theatre – a member of the artistic staff or one of the artists from a production – will initiate a posting. We will create these postings twice a week. You will have the opportunity to post your comments and, to respond to the comments of others. Simply by clicking on the comments link at the bottom of each post, you will be able to respond with your own comments, as well as read and respond to the comments of other Steppenwolf audience members. We encourage all kinds of feedback to our posts, but please refrain from the use of excessive profanity and inappropriate subject matter. We may remove comments with unsuitable content. Our wish is to initiate a conversation, one in which you have access to both the artistic decision-making process of the theater, and, to one another in your responses to the work.
Maintaining this public access to the work, to the artists and processes of the theater, and to your fellow audience members is an endeavor unique to Steppenwolf. Very few theaters of Steppenwolf’s size have undertaken the project of a blog. We do so because we recognize the extraordinary quality of our audiences. We do so because the presiding model of our theater is the public square – a vital space in which conversation is rich, diversely-sourced, and permitting. We welcome you to an arena of discourse that encourages your curiosity and values your interpretive daring.
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:30 pm
May I also refer to the Yahoo Group that my friend from Texas and I started in 2002. The description of the site is that is a place to discuss or post reviews of productions at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, or its ensemble members and to be kept updated on the latest news. In the almost 4 years that we exist, we had close 14700 posts. Feel free to join our group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Steppenwolf_Theatre/
Thanks to Step for starting this blog!
Jo
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:05 pm
I think it is an awesome way to kick off the new season with this blog. Also will be passing this along to my Illinois State University Alumni group and telling them to comment as well. Let the conversation begin!
February 3rd, 2006 at 3:29 pm
As the founder of the Theatre Department at Illinois State University, the teacher of many of the original members of the ensemble, and one who attended that first production in the church basement those many years ago, it is a pleasure to see Steppenwolf continuing to keep its creative energy as it grows into middle age. I am a regular attender today and I welcome a venue to discuss the productions.
February 19th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
I simply wanted to thank the cast and crew for such a job well done on Valentine’s Day proformance of After the Quake. This was my first theater experience and it was without question, not my last! I was unsure if the theater would be entertaining or just alot of hype. I can honestly say that from start to finish, I was overwhelmed. I truely enjoyed the play, and look forward to seeing more in the future. Again, thanks to everyone!
November 11th, 2007 at 8:55 am
i saw the crucible friday night and loved it.. sets,costumes, peformances excellent. the show was not without surprises.. i never thought of john proctor as a hippocrite but that is what i saw in this show.. made me think are we all. all americans even the most noble, hippocrites?.. i also was stunned by austin pendleton’s performance of judge danford.. he made me see the absolute corruption of power.. transforming a do gooder into the absolute opposite of what he wanted to be. try as i might i could not hate him.. he showed me what any of us could be. please let him know both my husband and i were touched by his performance and hope to see more of him at steppenwolf in the future. thank you for a wonderful evening.
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:08 am
although i thoroughly enjoyed GOOD BOYS AND TRUE, and believe that there could not be a better production of this work anywhere, i have a few comments to make.
i was seated in far aisle seats on the side of the theatre. the manner in which the play was directed appeared to be for a proscenium theatre. i never saw the coach’s face until the curtain - his back was to me, or if he moved to stage left, he was blocked by the other actors. does the director (during rehearsal) not move around the theatre to check on the views of the audience.
at the first interval i thought the play was perfect. but at the end of the play i found the coach’s 27 year grudge against his schoolmate unbelievable, and left feeling a little cheated.
the (unseen) father is the key to the dilemma of the play, not the coach, and if this approach could be considered, i think the play would be improved.
but bravo nonetheless!