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

Tina Landau was cool enough to share with some of us on the staff the songs and artists that she was listening to as she began her work on The Tempest, and if you have seen that show, you can see the amazing way music affected that show.

That, along with Ferdinand’s line “The ditty does remember my drown’d father” delivered as the spirits sing to him, got me thinking about the old music/memory connection and of stories I have heard from actors about how strongly they are brought back into the mind of a character they once played if they hear a song used in the show.

And I really love the idea of a private “mix” for a show: actors sometimes make their own private soundtrack to listen to every night pre-show to enter the character’s world. Also, if you have another job—or just a LIFE - listening to your mix on the way to the theatre takes you out of the ‘daily details’ part of your brain and into the part where the play is.

And, ok…yes I have been working on just such a mix - I am a cast member of The Walls, a fantastic new play by Lisa Dillman that is being produced by Rivendell in the Steppenwolf Garage as part of our Visiting Company Initiative. (I also work here at Steppenwolf — I’m the Marketing Director - but my duties take me all over the Steppenwolf campus.) The Walls looks at the lives of women in three different time periods who are negotiating the sometimes thin line between fearlessness/fulfillment and insanity. It’s really a great play — unique, surprising, exciting, warm, sometimes funny.

I play a bunch of characters, and my mix might start with “Crazy” by Seal? Too jokey? Whatever, its my mix…it’s in. I like the MOOD of that song - and that it sort of asks for the crazy: “We’re never gonna survive unless we get a little…crazy.” ”Human” by the Killers has been inconveniently lodged in my head anyway (one of the main Walls characters dealing with these issues is a painter) so “are we human or are we dancer?” “or are we painter?”…“Im Lost” by X will make it. “Drunken Angel” by Lucinda Williams — that’s for one of the contemporary characters. Maybe “Sweet Jane” by the Velvet Underground — for the character my friend Danica Ivancevic plays. (yes, named Jane. Too obvious?) Maybe Annie Lennox’s “Dark Road”? Speaking of Annie, there is a scary Reverend with some issues in the show, so maybe “Missionary Man” — oh, and for my favorite of the guys I play: Plaid Cranston (awesome name right?), I am pretty sure his song is R.E.M.’s “Supernatural Superserious” - not sure why yet. Ask me when the mix is done.

This entry was posted by John Zinn on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 10:03 am and is filed under The Tempest, The Walls. 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.