Steppenwolf Theatre Company Blog – Chicago Theater, World-Class Ensemble

Well, this is our first week of the run of Huck Finn and it has been quite fun. It has been an ongoing process of changing lines to make the script clearer or changing blocking in order to tighten up the length of the play. I have luckily been a part of new plays before, so having to constantly change a line or a movement is not foreign to me; still, it presents its challenges. For actors, I think the most challenging part of creating new plays is having to stay on your toes and constantly be open to change. For example, you have a scene that you have been working on for two or three weeks and all of a sudden, a small change in the script or in blocking deems that your scene is totally cut out of the play. You have to deal or come up with a really good reason to keep the scene. On the other hand, you might have something added, which most people might think an actor would want (”More lines! Hell yeah!”) but it is not always like that. Eventually things come together and whether the public likes it or not, you mold a unique story that is ready to be told. What I love about working on new plays is, of course, originating a role. We all know that Huck Finn is not a new story and that Jim has been played by many other actors in many different versions of the story of Huckleberry Finn. But this Jim is reborn in the eyes of Laura Eason and so in my mind, I get to breathe that fresh, new breath of air into his lungs.

The John Pizzarelli Quartet

Dar Williams

Music & Memories

Stories on Stage: Tilting at Windmills

Thursday, we opened this season’s Traffic Jam with Kahil El Zabar, the extraordinary internationally acclaimed percussionist. Kahil was the first curator of the Traffic series when we started it in 1995 and helped me program the series for the first three years. It was important to me that Kahil return to the Steppenwolf stage and I thought it would be most appropriate to open this year’s festival with him.

When I asked him to do so he gladly accepted and we discussed presenting an evening with the best jazz musicians around. As per usual, Kahil pulled together some of the greatest world-class musicians working today – and almost all of them live in Chicago. Some of the extraordinary artists joining Kahil on our stage last night were saxophonists Ari Brown and Ernest Khabeer Dawkins – with very special guest from St. Louis, Hamiett Bluiet, leader of The World Saxophone Quartet; guitarist Fareed Haque; pianist Robert Baabe Irving III; trumpeter Corey Wilkes and half a dozen other great musicians. (more…)

Well, I’ve found the joy again! I think I lost some of it in the post-tech jitters, but putting Huck up in front of an audience has really brought it back to an infectious degree. I didn’t stop smiling for quite a few hours after we came down today. Performing for high schoolers is such a welcome challenge, because in many ways they seem to be your most honest critics. They know when you’re bluffing and won’t ever let you get away with a rather half-assed performance, and I love it. It just brings up your consciousness of those not only on stage with you, but also watching you from the seats. But the show is just such a joy to perform and the three audiences who’ve seen it so far have been really taken with it…fantastic questions in the talk-backs and hopefully that’ll continue.

This has been such an amazing process and I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by such talented and friendly folk. It’s been different from any production I’ve worked on in awhile in its sense of collaboration, almost. Having the adapter, Laura Eason, there in the room with us for a good chunk of the process and back in the workshop was new. Seeing our choices and delivery directly influence a change here and there was as exciting as watching the musicians (and sweet lord are these guys too talented for their own good) building upon the groundwork laid out by Rick Sims. The music created for the show in that it doesn’t so much comment on but rather set the mood/scene and inform the action of the play just gives that much more life to the production – pretty darn infectious songs too. It’s turned me on to bluegrass more, I’ll say that much. (more…)