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

Polly Noonan in rehearsal for Dead Man’s Cell Phone. Check out more rehearsal photos.

You’re on the Steppenwolf mainstage. You’re on the Steppenwolf mainstage. ANNE- YOU’RE ON THE STEPPENWOLF MAINSTAGE!!! This is the thought that has been running through my mind on repeat ever since I started rehearsals for Carter’s Way.

Right now I am writing this blog in my dressing room. Across the way Ora is doing her hair and I can hear K. Todd’s mischievous laugh down the hall. Calvin, Curtis and Michael are having a dance off to some James Brown song and I can still hear James whistling his saxophone solo even with his door closed. It’s the night of the 5th preview and I am hopeful, scared, excited and tickled pink. We just got notes from Eric (who is by far one of the most patient, generous, and collaborative directors I have ever worked with) and he just gave me the most helpful note of my entire process: “Anne, remember Eunice’s sense of humor and joy-she is hopeful that life is and can be beautiful. This is a woman who lives from one moment to the next, she lives life spontaneously.” With that one note I finally start to understand where Eunice is coming from-what she’s fighting for, and how much courage she actually possesses. I see the potential of where I can take her story and I am truly thankful. (more…)

What an exciting moment in our cultural life. We are on the precipice of a change in our national leadership. America is dreaming its future. Steppenwolf celebrates this moment with a season of the imagination. We offer five stories that feature the power of the imagination in shaping our identity, creating our future, determining our reality.

We begin with Frank Galati’s adaptation and direction of novelist Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, featuring ensemble members Francis Guinan and Jon Hill. Murakami’s powerful and popular novel is brought to theatrical life in Frank’s incisive adaptation. Kafka on the Shore is a young man’s coming of age story in contemporary Japan–a landscape in which cats talk, Johnnie Walker lives, and the world reveals itself in a series of dreams and memories.

We follow with Conor McPherson’s brilliant new play, The Seafarer, featuring John Mahoney. On Christmas Eve, in a disheveled basement flat in Dublin, the Devil walks in the door and challenges the motley group of men assembled there to a card game. At stake is the soul of Sharky, a middle-aged man in review of his life. With great humor and deep feeling, McPherson explores the horizon of our dreams and the power of personal transformation. (more…)

Only moments ago I finished reading a book called Harriet Jacobs: A Life by Jean Fagin Yellin.

Things you may not know about Harriet Jacobs:

-Harriet never saw her grandmother again after she escaped to the north.
-Harriet never forgave Master Norcom for his horrific treatment of her and her family.
-Harriet escaped to the north and did find both of her children.
-Harriet’s book was first published in the United States in 1861, then went to London and got another publishing deal for her book abroad.
-Harriet’s son traveled with her brother to California and Australia.
-Harriet’s freedom was bought by a friend for $300.
-Harriet’s brother becomes a public speech maker and avid abolitionist leader who was on the same bill with Frederick Douglass at speaking events.
-Harriet’s daughter got educated and had aspirations of being a teacher.
-Harriet and her daughter started a school in the south called THE JACOBS SCHOOL.
-Harriet and her daughter worked to clothe, feed, and counsel refugees from the Civil War, open several boarding houses for both whites and black public officials, and travel between the north and south trying to help establish rights for free black folks and women.
-Harriet had to return to being a house servant, even as an elderly woman, so that she and her daughter could live.
-Harriet gets breast cancer at the end of her life, and survives!
-Harriet’s daughter nurses her mother until her mother dies, and continues to serve in the field of education, which was her mother’s dream for her life. (more…)

Hi, I’m Polly and I play the role of Jean in Dead Man’s Cell Phone. My character, Jean, is shy and old fashioned, so I wish I could post on this blog with a fountain pen or a typewriter.

We just finished our first week of rehearsal and I feel happy and exhausted. We told all sorts of stories in rehearsal, mostly funny stories, but some sad ones too.

It takes a while to adjust to being in a new place. Ensemble member Molly Regan, who plays Mrs. Gottlieb, and I both came in from New York, so we are being housed in Steppenwolf apartments about a block from the theater. It is great to be so close to work. One of my favorite things about doing plays out of town is living in a new place. It makes me think that I am in the circus. And in a way, I am! (more…)