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

JEAN (played by Polly Noonan):
Hello?
I think that there is a dead man sitting next to me.
I don’t know how he died.
I’m at a cafe.

Explore more moments from Dead Man’s Cell Phone.

We are almost a month into Carter’s Way and it has been wonderful. As well as humbling, at times tough, scary, but most of all…wonderful. Eunice is a hard part for me sometimes. I love her, I believe in her, but sometimes when I want her to be so much more than just the “white girl who messes everything up,” as one audience member referred to me, I can get frustrated. As an actor, naturally you want to do the playwright’s play justice, but I would be lying if I thought that happened every night. Eight shows a week and all you want to do is knock it out of the park, but sometimes unfortunately that just doesn’t happen. On my last blog one audience member informed me that I didn’t understand the character at all and that she was disappointed in my performance. I was extremely insecure for days after I read that, but then I realized – this is the business, Anne! This is what happens when people come to see any form of art, they naturally and rightfully judge it. And you are never going to please everybody. So now I am in the process of trying to learn how not to get down on myself, and instead let “critiques” fuel my fire…to try harder and harder every performance to reach the audience. To tell the story with strength and integrity. (more…)

Big News! I’m lucky that Steppenwolf gave me a new mattress today because tomorrow is a very big day and I’m hoping for a good night’s sleep. We are doing two full run-throughs of the play. The first one is at 11am; when we’re finished we’ll get notes and break for lunch. The second run-through is at 3pm for all of the Steppenwolf staff. It is the first time since we started rehearsals that we will have an audience, and I am looking forward to it.

There has been a flurry of excitement about this play from the press. Just in this last week alone, I was interviewed by The Chicago Tribune and The Evanston Review. Last Monday, The New Yorker did a lengthy piece on Sarah Ruhl. Read it if you get a chance, it’s fascinating. Last Thursday I received the Vassar Quarterly (my alma mater) which has a two page feature on me and the play.

In response to Justin’s question after my first blog entry: Hello Justin! Thank you for writing in. Here is his question: “I wonder if you feel that you have some kind of advantage coming to this new script, having done Sarah Ruhl’s plays before? Or, does it still feel like starting out on any other new play?” (more…)

April and May will be very busy months for everyone who works on the Traffic series, but right now is a bit like the calm before the storm. So I have a few minutes for reflection on my start here at Steppenwolf, including when I first met ensemble member Tracy Letts as I worked on my first show as a staffer. I was so excited, proud and a little nervous about bringing the Blues/Hip-Hop Intersection to Millennium Park, so naturally I invited my mom to come out from our hometown in Erie, PA and see the show. She hemmed and hawed and finally said, “I don’t want to see your damn show. I’m 70 years old and I’m just not interested.” This is a woman with enough moxie to work in the church food pantry for 12 hours on one day, and shop the mall in her stilettos the next. She has the energy of person decades younger, and the will to do anything she wants to do. The fact that she did not want to do this with me hurt. But I had just seen Violet Weston, the pill popping manipulator and matriarch of August: Osage County, a character with an arsenal of venom carefully aimed to inflict maximum damage on her family. I owe a debt of gratitude to Tracy Letts for creating Violet Weston, and for context on what makes a truly bad mother. My mom is loving and supportive, really. Her only brutality comes in her honesty about how she wants to use her time. (more…)

The show is now running. But not on rails–yet–and really, it never should, if we’re doing it right. We opened on Sunday night, and just got back into it all on Tuesday. A very challenging part of a run. Sure there’s the part later in the run where you’ve done 60 shows and you’re trying to find ways to keep it fresh and new and motivated and focused.

And there’s the part at the beginning, when you do the final dress and then the first preview or two. At that point, you’ve got other questions. Do I have enough time to get back into this three piece suit between scene six and seven? How soon can I get rid of this hat when I get onstage? (Eric will kill me if I wear this thing through the whole scene.) Should I even eat before the show? I eat a whole Lean Cuisine Salisbury Steak dinner on stage, plus two bowls of soup during the argument with Pee-Wee. The salisbury steak is actually pretty good, but they changed the soup, and now I don’t like it–gotta ask Lauren, the assistant stage manager, if they can change it back for me. How do I make that line work that Eric added? Why can’t my hair lay down like Michael and Curtis and Calvin’s? I need to add more hair goop. Why are Ora and K. Todd looking at me like that–damn I dropped that line again, that’s why… (more…)