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

As we quickly approach the opening of First Look Rep, the First Look 101 Open Rehearsals become more and more like watching a play. We are now in the third week of rehearsal, and the plays are beginning to take on a real shape: a semblance of what the audience will see opening night is beginning to emerge, albeit a bit rough around the edges.

Even though it was a beautiful Chicago Saturday, approximately thirty faithful First Look 101ers showed up this weekend to observe an open rehearsal of Perfect Mendacity. As they arrived, the actors were preparing to do a full run of Act II – something they had not attempted in its entirety. The cast is off-book at this point, or at least getting there – stage manager Kathleen Petroziello diligently watched the script and called out lines if (and when) the actors missed a cue. (more…)

Greetings Steppenwolf blogosphere. It’s been a busy couple of weeks here in First Look Land and our rehearsal room for Fair Use has been no exception. On the fourth of July, we had our first stumble through (theater term referring to the first time the actors run through the play off book…no actual stumbling) after which Meredith (our rockstar director) and I had a lengthy chat. I had thought, previous to the stumble through, that all the scenes in the play were written. But we both realized something was missing in the second act. I had neglected one of the sides of the love triangle. So the play sounded like it was skipping a beat.

So this week I started working on what we affectionately referred to as “The Mystery Scene.” On Friday, the mystery was over; I brought in ten new pages, (copied on grassy green, the draft color du jour) and the actors read through them. Yesterday, Meredith and the actors put the new scene on its feet. We’ll have another run through of the play this week; I can’t wait to see what the new addition does to the play.

I recently joined the cast of August: Osage County, walking onstage for my first performance (replacing Ian Barford as Little Charles) only two nights after the show garnered its passel of Tony awards. I was nervous — it’s as if I had been asked to walk out onto the high wire with a circus family whose act had been carefully rehearsed and calibrated for a full year. The other replacements and I (including fellow ensemble member Molly Regan) had all seen the play before and we all had the same awed response to the tight ensemble and genuine chemistry; everyone was perfectly cast in their roles, some of them playing characters that were literally written for them. How do you jump into the middle of that?

The award euphoria helped us all overcome the terror of what we were trying to do — changing crews, mid-stream. Plus, looking across the table in the funeral dinner scene, I looked at the faces of my ensemble sisters Amy Morton, whom I first acted with in Road, in 1987; Mariann Mayberry, whom I directed in my first set of late night plays in 1988; Sally Murphy, whom I first acted with in my first play at Steppenwolf, Rondi Reed’s production of The Common Pursuit in 1988. If I couldn’t feel safe (and have a blast) acting without a net with this bunch, why was I in the business at all? (more…)

Putting on a play can often feel like raising a child. The playwright gives birth to something completely new, entrusts it to the director to raise as kind of adoptive parent, and by the time the audience shows up – the play is essentially a polished adult. But what the audience isn’t privy to is the play’s turbulent adolescence: the changes endured through script rewrites, the actors still struggling with lines, the often too-small rehearsal room that acts as a stage until the set is finished. Most refined adults would prefer to hide their awkward teenage years from the world – but not First Look. In the most nascent stages of rehearsal, First Look actors and directors opened up their rehearsal room doors - and shared their teenage angst with about thirty First Look 101 observers.

Fair Use was the first play to partake in First Look 101’s “open rehearsal” series, during which patrons who purchased the First Look 101 package can observe the last two hours of a Saturday rehearsal. The idea is for the company to carry on business as usual; the 101ers effectively become flies on the wall during a Steppenwolf rehearsal process – in hopes of seeing what actually goes into raising a successful piece of theatre. (more…)

I’m thinking about patriotism. I write this on our Fourth of July weekend as our final production of our “What does it mean to be American?” season is on the Steppenwolf stage and our presidential candidates exchange assertions of their patriotic pedigree. I find the whole discourse about their relative patriotism mad. Mad. And distracting. Two men who have devoted their lives to public service, two men who are willing to endure the ridiculous scrutiny of the electoral process–the enormous personal sacrifice of putting themselves on the line on a daily basis in front of the American electorate–and anyone is questioning their “patriotism?”

What it provokes in me is self-examination. How am I asserting my patriotism? I consider myself patriotic. Which is to say: I think that the principles upon which this country is founded are majestic and that the documents that encode those principles are breathtaking in their wisdom. I think there are many moments in America’s history when we have, as a people and as a government, risen to that majesty. And moments when we have miserably failed those ideals. I believe my responsibility as an American citizen is to continue to examine our behavior against our ideals and as a theater artist, to use my work to encourage that inquiry. (more…)