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

At Steppenwolf, there is a tradition around the first day of rehearsal. The entire Steppenwolf administrative and production staff pile into Yondorf rehearsal hall, and form a giant circle around the artists involved in the nascent production. The staff, actors, director and production team then introduce themselves – saying their names and what they do for Steppenwolf – and suddenly the sheer magnitude of persons involved in this single production is revealed. No matter how many times I saunter downstairs for this little Steppenwolf tradition, it never gets old. The energy in the room is always palpable, and all the names are always impossible to remember.

The first day of First Look Repertory rehearsal is kind of like this – except magnified by three. First Look Rep gives life to three brand-new scripts, all of which receive full-scale productions in the Steppenwolf Garage Theatre. While the three shows do share a design team, they are each given their own director, stage manager and cast. This year’s plays are Ski Dubai written by Laura Jacqmin, Sex with Strangers written by Laura Eason, and Honest written by ensemble member Eric Simonson.

In addition to the staff and the First Look artists, there was another group present for the Rep’s first day of rehearsal: the First Look 101ers. This is a group of Steppenwolf patrons who have signed up to get behind the scenes and observe the plays’ developmental journey over the course of the summer. The 101ers are invited to attend the first table reading of each play, in addition to open rehearsals and open technical rehearsals. It’s essentially a program that strives to demystify the new play development process, and transparently demonstrate what it is that Steppenwolf does to cultivate and nurture new work.

I still don’t know how many people exactly were in attendance. I do know however, that I ordered pizza for 150 – and all of it was finished by the end of the evening. So suffice it to say that there were a lot of people in the room.

After the staff and artists made their introductions, the First Look designers gave a brief presentation on the costume, lighting and sound design for each show. For the designers, First Look Rep is a particularly tricky project – as the set and lighting must be compatible across all three productions. And considering one script calls for scenes in the desert of Dubai and another for intimate moments in a homey bed and breakfast – these technical designers have their work cut out for them.

Following the design presentations, each cast jumped up to the front of the room and read a 10-minute snippet from their respective shows. Jessica Thebus, the director of Sex with Strangers, gave a beautiful introduction to her play, by quoting a poignant line that Elizabeth Proctor says in The Crucible: “A promise is a made in any bed.” Even though Sex with Strangers explores the complexities of dating in the era of the blogosphere, Thebus used the quote to explain that even in the Internet era, that promise to which Elizabeth Proctor refers (whatever it may be) still plagues modern couples.

The three plays then broke up into three different rooms to kick off their individual rehearsals, and the 101ers were able to choose which one they wanted to observe. At the end of the evening, as everyone trickled out of the building around 10:00pm, a 101er approached me and asked, “Are all first rehearsals at Steppenwolf like this one?”  I told him yes – only this one, is multiplied by three.

This entry was posted by Whitney Dibo on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 8:52 am and is filed under First Look Rep (09). 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.