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

Opening this show has been a monumental moment in my life and career. Imagine my excitement as I watched August: Osage County on its opening night on Broadway, knowing I was next in line to tackle a play written by the same genius man. Imagine my terror. At this point I had not performed on the Steppenwolf stage as an ensemble member, and I already knew that the eyes of the theater world would be closely watching to see what Tracy would come up with next–not to mention subscribers who had been coming to the theater for years who must have been curious to see this new kid that the ensemble had embraced as their own. Just imagine my relief when I learned that Tina Landau, whom I had already worked on two previous shows with and had grown into myself as a young actor with, had been pulled on board! Then, if you will, imagine the honor I felt when I learned that Michael McKean, whom I had seen in the acclaimed The Homecoming on Broadway not too long ago and was staggered by, had joined the project.

I won’t ask you to imagine anything else, but I will tell you that I felt small and still do. This experience can be described as nothing other than humbling for me. To be in the presence of the caliber of actors I’m working with, the astounding insight of Tracy and Tina’s unmatched craftsmanship I was not only trying to do justice to the play and the brilliant character but also trying to absorb the years of experience in the room. (more…)

Truth be told, tech rehearsals get a pretty bad rap. They are known for their epic length, their mind numbing stop-and-start rhythm and their all-around tedium. But in reality, it’s usually just actors who trade these disparaging remarks about the infamous tech rehearsal. The play’s design team on the other hand, probably finds the experience to be somewhat of a coming out party. The carefully crafted lighting, sound, costumes and set are all unveiled in one fell swoop, and all these elements must then wrestle with each other (and the actors) until the rocky tech smoothes out into a fluid piece of theatre. The day can feel a little like Goldilocks and Three Bears: this lighting is too bright, this lighting is too dark, but this lighting is juuuuuussst right. The truth is, tech is not for the actors at all, it’s for the designers: to nail sound cues, tweak transitions, locate missing props and set the lighting just so. And complain as they might, no actor would dare forfeit these wearisome tech hours. Long as they are, it’s the technical elements that ultimately round out the world of the play, allowing the audience to lose themselves in a theatrical, yet believable world.

Tech for First Look is a whirlwind process: the cast, crew and design team arrive in the Garage Theatre at 11am and don’t leave until 9pm in the evening. The idea is to tech the whole show in that concentrated time frame – an arduous task for even the most experienced stage mangers. (more…)

So one of the most rad things about having a team of crack designers is how invested they get in the world and characters of the play. Case in point: props. If you pay special attention to the book our fictional novelist wrote you might notice that the book jacket is adorned with rave reviews (totally invented) from the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Chicago Tribune. If you had super laser vision, you could read the certificates in the bookcase, my favorite being Sy’s basketball award from Harvard Law. And I’d be lying to you if I didn’t tell you how cool it is to overhear the costume designer talking about what kind of watch Bec would wear or how Sy’s idea of accessorizing differs from Madi’s.

Despite the fact that we only had eight hours to tech through the entire show (a feat I had no doubt our rockstar director and her team would accomplish), as the playwright in the room you want to try and be useful. So I did what I could.

11:00 Walk through space with the cast. Totally love it up that we’re in a theater. (more…)

A couple months ago, Steppenwolf’s Associate Artistic Director David New told me about the interactive lobby display he was putting together with the Third Coast International Audio Festival for Dead Man’s Cell Phone. The lobby display would consist of a bunch of cell phones and three different voicemail plays that audience members could call and listen to before the play or during intermission. The voicemail plays would literally be just that – little two or three minute long plays that were made up only of voicemail messages. The idea being that these plays would be something you could hear if you picked up a stranger’s phone on the street (or in a café like Jean does in the play) and logged into their voicemail.

I told David it sounded like a cool project and then he asked me if I’d like to write one of them myself. I, of course, said yes and asked him, “When do I need to turn in the script?” to which he replied, “How about tomorrow?”

The phrase “no good deed goes unpunished” isn’t quite right, but it comes pretty close.

So, how do you write a voicemail play in 24 hours? First off, take a good, hard look at Aristotle’s three unities and throw them out the window. Aristotle is going to hate your voicemail play. (more…)

Last time I blogged about being dead, now I have to talk about coming to in the underworld:

I play Gordon in Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and in the first scene of the play I am discovered dead at a table in a cafe. A little bit later I address the audience in the form of a long monologue, and then finally, I appear in a scene with Jean, the play’s protagonist.

It’s the first time I interact with another character on stage and it’s sure nice to have someone to talk to; though it seems to mean different things to each of us. Jean is having a dream about being dead and I am actually dead. But none the less, we find ourselves together where we discuss various topics, among them, how to do your laundry in the afterlife and how we may be more alike than Jean would like to admit. (more…)