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

Here we go–the launch of our 2008-2009 season. The start of a new season is always a thrilling moment for the theater. It’s such a lot of fun to finally start talking to our audience about the plays and artists that we’ve been thinking about and planning with for a year. (We’re in the midst of our planning process for 2009-2010 right now). And then comes the moment when our directors and actors show up for the first day of rehearsal and the dream gains body and voice. And then comes the moment when YOU show up and theater begins.

We began with the negotiation of a theme for the season. As you know, this past season, 2007-2008, was bannered under the question of “What does it mean to be an American?” We felt the urgency of this question as we, as a nation, embarked on the Presidential election process. By positioning our season within this context, wonderful conversations about the plays ensued with our audiences–conversations about ideas that reached beyond the theater and into our lives.

This season, we are considering our five plays within the context of the Imagination. The imagination feels, like the question of our national identity and politics, an urgent matter. The imagination is the fundamental ground of our human nature–we dream, we speak to one another in images and metaphor, we create, we play. Fundamentally. All change, all innovation, all invention begins as an act of the imagination. Empathy is a function of the imagination (we imagine ourselves into another’s life and situation). In our world–growing increasingly more interconnected, increasingly more global, increasingly more “virtual” in its communication strategies–the cultivation of imagination is a necessary endeavor. To interpret our world, to know the other, we must give over to fancy, to playful engagement with the “what if.” To be a literalist is to be left behind.

And so, our plays.

We open with Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, adapted and directed by ensemble member, Frank Galati. Frank adapted and directed Murakami’s after the quake on our 2005-2006 season which subsequently toured to the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, the La Jolla Playhouse, and Berkeley Rep. Murakami is a master of the imagination–a writer whose easy traffic between the quotidian and the fantastic allows us to contact the zone of our poetic, playful selves.

Ensemble member Randy Arney returns to Steppenwolf to direct Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer. With ensemble members John Mahoney, Fran Guinan, Tom Irwin, and Al Wilder in the cast, this moving tale of one man’s encounter with the demons that haunt him promises to be a lively ride. Conor McPherson has a deep and sympathetic understanding of the sorrows and regrets that shadow our passage and he explores those dark corners with a robust and irreverent humor.

Yasmina Reza’s Art is a well-known title and deservedly so. The play is a clever and winning exploration of male friendships and with ensemble member Rick Snyder at the helm, directing fellow ensemble members, Fran Guinan, K. Todd Freeman and Ian Barford, the play comes to vivid and fresh life. Fran Guinan will open Art in the role of Mark and will switch, mid-run, to the role of Serge to Ian’s Mark. We look forward to bringing you this play about friendship–its pitfalls and joys–animated by ensemble acting of the highest level.

The Tempest. Steppenwolf’s first foray into Shakespeare, directed by Tina Landau. On a season dedicated to the imagination, it would be difficult to resist the call of William Shakespeare. And The Tempest, his late, great paean to the transformative power of the theater is bedrock. We are delighted to bring ensemble members Frank Galati, Yasen Peyankov, K. Todd Freeman, Alana Arenas, Al Wilder, and Jon Hill to the stage as we embark on this mysterious and beautiful journey.

Finally, Anna Shapiro directs a new play, Bridget Carpenter’s Up. The instigating incident of the play is a remembered voyage: a man’s flight in a lawnchair, born aloft by helium balloons. It is a trip that informs Walter’s whole life–the one moment when his dream became a reality. As his life then bears witness, the hand-made, faulty construction of that dream takes on profound meaning. Walter’s imaginary companion on his continuing flight of mind is Phillipe Petit, the famous wirewalker who traversed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. There is a deep and poignant knowing in acknowledging that those towers have crumbled that informs our reading of the play and our reception of Walter’s American dream. This is a beautiful play that explores that collision point between our personal dream and our great American dream.

We so look forward to bringing these five plays to you. Your imagination is the final and necessary piece of our season.

This entry was posted by Martha Lavey on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 4:04 pm and is filed under after the quake, 2008-2009 Season, Kafka on the Shore, The Seafarer, Art, The Tempest, Up. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.