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

When Justin Kaufmann of Schadenfreude opened last night’s Traffic show – A Celebration of Chicago Sketch Comedy - by classifying his troupe as “regular” (compared to kevINda which is, umm, African-American), it was pretty clear that I had better loosen up and pluck that pin out of my — well, you know.

And yet, nothing (let me repeat: nothing) could have prepared this genteel Southerner for the spate of offensive, appalling, embarrassing and (ultimately) hysterical sketches presented last night. Even I couldn’t keep a straight face when kevINda offered a theory on the private sex life of Martin and Coretta King. And, yes, actually, it is totally obvious that Curious George is shrewdly designed to indoctrinate children towards pro-slavery political views. (more…)

Hi everyone, my name is Safiya and I’m part of the Young Adult Council. I’ve never written a blog before and I’m not exactly sure how this works, but I’ll give it my best shot.

For the past month or so, 3 members of the Young Adult Council have worked with CPS teachers in the Immersion 2 workshop, “The Chicago Ethnography Project”. The Chicago Ethnography Project interviews people about their culture (ethnicity-aha! Word roots!) and puts those interviews together to create an original piece of theatre. Since we were working with teachers, Emilio, the workshop director, spent some time talking about how to apply the theatre or writing exercise in the classroom. We learned and participated in fun warm-ups. We learned new catchphrases, like “marinate” and “juice”. Both students and teachers felt that the role of “student” or “teacher” really didn’t apply and everyone was just a person. In the final performance, the casting was pretty colorblind (or… ageblind…?). Our ‘informance’ (our purpose was to INFORM, not PERFORM) about class, family, and race, was pretty successful. And we had some awesome Mediterranean food.

Ensemble members Martha Lavey and Tracy Letts at Monday’s press conference after Tracy won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play August: Osage County.

I love watching post show discussions. I don’t often participate in them, because I’m always concerned that I’m going to get a question to which I have no answer. But I’m always in awe of the way the moderators lead the discussions, coaxing the audience into lowering its guard and speaking freely about what they’ve seen. I’ve witnessed post shows where members of the audience couldn’t stop expressing the love they had for a show, and I’ve seen post shows where they couldn’t stop expressing how the show made them throw up in their mouth a little. And that’s cool with me. I know that people may be a bit reluctant to criticize a show when the actors are out there, so I sometimes sit unseen in the balcony so that I can hear honest opinions. And I really value them. Sometimes there’s a plot point that wasn’t clear or even audible (towards the end of a recent show, after I made a statement to Marilyn [Ora] critical to the plot, I heard an audience member whisper “Wait — she’s pregnant?”), and our moderators will need to clarify what some audience members might have missed, or misunderstood. Sometimes a character didn’t ring true, or a moment didn’t seem plausible, or the writing in this scene was great, but maybe not in that scene; the feedback that the audience gives is really valuable to me. You get to see what maybe worked that night, and maybe what didn’t. Perception is reality, right?

Completely unrelated, but here’s another cell phone story — I’m sure that if you’re reading this blog, you probably go to the theater fairly regularly, and surely have a cell phone story of your own. Last week, we were coming up on the end of a show. Probably 15 minutes from the end, so pretty high tension, climax of the show, all that stuff. A phone rings. Nothing new, it’s happened before. Loud, but still, it’s happened before. PeeWee’s in the middle of some dialogue with an important piece of plot. The audience member answers the phone. And it must be one of those Sprint or Nextel beep phones, because there’s no beep, but all of us (audience and actors alike) can hear the whole conversation, including the person on the other end of the line: (more…)

We’re pleased to announce that Tracy Letts received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play August: Osage County today. As you may know, the prize is awarded annually “for a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life.” As an award-winner, Tracy joins the company of the most eminent playwrights of the American theater, including Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Thorton Wilder, Tony Kushner, and Sam Shepard. We extend our warmest congratulations to Tracy for this honor.

So, it’s a day of celebration here in the Steppenwolf offices. We couldn’t be more proud of Tracy. And the success of August: Osage County is particularly meaningful as the play exemplifies the very heart of Steppenwolf’s mission. Commissioned as part of our New Plays Initiative, its development process reflected our philosophy that new play development must be tailored to the individual playwright’s needs and geared toward production. At each step along the way — from the first reading to the production now running on Broadway — August gained vitality through the participation of an ensemble of artists with a long history of collaboration. Finally, August’s success was contingent upon the culture of risk-taking that we on the staff are proud to share with you in our audience. Many theaters might have balked at August’s ensemble of thirteen, and many audiences may have shied away from an unknown new play clocking in at three plus hours. Together, in the belief that innovation requires a little audacity, we took a chance and embraced this play. On this celebratory day, please take a moment with us to enjoy the success you helped to create.