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

The Steppenwolf crowd celebrates August: Osage County winning 5 Tony Awards. Explore more moments from this special event.

Last night, I joined a lively cross-section of the Steppenwolf community—including staff, ensemble, artists, trustees, and subscribers—to excitedly await the announcement of the seven Tony awards for which August: Osage County had been nominated. Although Superior Donuts is now in technical rehearsals, the cast and crew had graciously surrendered their theater for our celebration and we gathered to watch the awards on the two large projection screens that now obscured their set. Some brilliant soul in marketing had come up with the idea of distributing little pill bottles filled with blue jelly beans—an homage to the pills Violet Weston inhales over the course of the play—and we marked our excitement by shaking these noisemakers every time a member of the Steppenwolf family was mentioned.

Ten minutes in, Rondi Reed accepted the first award of the evening (for Best Featured Actress in a Play) by saying “Families. It’s about families for us,” and I think all of us in the theatre felt the truth of that statement. I moved to Chicago to join the staff here in November, and, as a new member of the Steppenwolf family, I was moved to hear how frequently our nominees mentioned the importance of our community in their speeches. The August nominees’ heartfelt expressions of gratitude painted an image of Steppenwolf’s uniquely rich artistic ecosystem that must have been clear to even the most disconnected observer. Anna Shapiro expressed it perfectly: “I’m pretty sure that the only way that you get to have a life in the theatre is if somewhere in your life you come upon a group of people who although they don’t need to, make room for you. And if you’re incredibly lucky, that group of people is the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago.” (more…)

Director of New Play Development, Ed Sobel, talks with actors after a reading of Fair Use for First Look 101. Explore more moments from this reading.

The Traffic season is done, we’re well into the run of Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and we’re gearing up for Superior Donuts and First Look . Hmmm, this seems like the perfect moment to hop on the train (that’s how we roll) and head down to the beautiful Chicago Cultural Center to hear the Mayor and others talk about the importance of theater in Chicago. The official purpose of the occasion on Monday, June 9, 2008 was a salute to Chicago’s award-winning theater community and the Tony nods for Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and Steppenwolf. However, Cultural Programming Deputy Commissioner Janet Carl Smith played host to a line up of beloved icons including Commissioner of Cultural Affairs Lois Weisberg, CST Artistic Director Barbara Gaines, and our own Artistic Director Martha Lavey; the event turned into a love fest for everyone in the artistic and cultural community. (more…)

Goodness, it has been a loooong time since my last blog, so I’ll do my best to relay some of the fabric of our lives here in NY since then……

DENNIS LETTS
We lost our cast mate to cancer a while back. I can’t properly capture how important this man became to all of us. To witness his spirit and humor as he faced his mortality was a priviledge none of us will forget. His contribution to his son’s play was a nightly artistic lesson–as he and Kim, our native Oklahomans, began our story every night August: Osage was graced with the authenticity of a documentary– the father, husband and poet the rest of us had gathered to look for, miss and mourn was made indelibly real on a nightly basis by Mr. Dennis Letts.

We are proud to have shared the boards with him. (more…)