Steppenwolf Valentine’s Day Contest
Posted by Steppenwolf Theatre Company on 2/05/2010
UPDATE: The winning entry as voted on by our panel was from @paulactor on Twitter:
Lenny looks downstage / George, with tears in his eyes, fires / Rabbits go unfed.
Thanks to everyone who participated!
We’re giving away two tickets to The Brother/Sister Plays* for Sunday, February 14, plus a $100 gift certificate to La Trattoria del Merlo for dinner. To enter, write a haiku about your favorite Steppenwolf production and leave it as a comment on this blog post or tweet it using the hashtag #brosis. Creativity and passion count. Submissions are due by 11:59PM CST on Wednesday, February 10. The winner will be announced Thursday, February 11.
*The Brother/Sister Plays are presented in repertory in Steppenwolf’s Upstairs Theatre. On Sunday, February 14, The Brothers Size and Marcus; Or the Secret of Sweet will be performed during the 3pm program (run time is 2 hours and 20 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission). In the Red and Brown Water will be presented at 7:30pm, (running 1 hour, 40 minutes including one 15-minute intermission).
To help get the creativity flowing, here are some entries (not eligible to win of course) from our staff:
Jamie Abelson, School at Steppenwolf Coordinator
Men scream for moments
Hum at hearts with coffee breath
Split open and close
(American Buffalo)
Palm on hand brothers
History dusts off records
We should have stayed home
(The Brothers Size)
Karin Freed, Steppenwolf for Young Adults Apprentice
When Teach cried after
Tearing the junk shop to shreds
I understood him.
(American Buffalo)
If you yell a lot
Do you get what you want?
Sometimes not at all.
(American Buffalo)
February 9th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Raw emotion and pain
aiming dead straight to your gut
do you have a hat?
(American Buffalo)
February 9th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
Music mystery
Grad student finds Bach sequence
Did she make it up?
(Ghost in the Machine)
Westons are the most
Dysfunctional family
Tracy Letts has known
(August Osage County)
Cop and bag lady
Eat donuts in Uptown shop
Neighbor wants the site
(Superior Donuts)
These bedtime stories
Are too much like unsolved crimes
It’s the Pillowman
Awful life ahead
Pillowman saves victim from
Fate that’s worse than death
(The Pillowman)
Turn that cell phone off
The last thing you’ll ever eat
Is my lobster bisque
(Dead Man’s Cell Phone)
That piece of shit cost
You 200,000 francs?
Give me your Sharpies
(Art)
She’s a small woman
With the most amazing voice
Sings like a diva
(The Rise and Fall of Little Voice)
Apartheid Must Go
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Sings us through the tale
(The Song of Jacob Zulu)
In an Irish pub
Haunting voices on the phone
Sent by child who’s gone
(The Weir)
“Glengarry Glen Ross”
Dialog’s unprintable
Mamet makes me blush
Big English rock star
“Just Stopped By to See the Man”
Who made Delta blues
In “Ring Round the Moon”
Tim Hopper plays twin brothers
We see one by one
To make a smash hit
On “The Road to Nirvana”
We’ll do anything
February 10th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
an empty bare stage
your glory is but a word
you are not mine yet
(I just moved to Chicago and have never seen a Steppenwolf production…….yet!)
February 10th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
A crash of thunder
Ropes swing, lightning crackles bright
A ship lost at sea
(The Tempest, which I thought was completely genius.)
February 10th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
say not what you want
want what you do not
challenge what you do
(The Unmentionables)
February 10th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
O’erthrowned,
Bereft, alone–A twinkle,
A spark. Now what?
(The Tempest, and in someways Marcus…)
February 10th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Blind, old brother stay
Shark, give the Devil his Due
Luck, he will be back
(The Seafarer)
February 10th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Families are nuts.
You think yours is special, right?
Not so fast Kiddo.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
That was for August Osage County by the way.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Language succinctly
meaning emotion sans words
Endgame, not Godot!
February 10th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Grief can be draining.
But with a pill-popping mom,
Mourning’s an ordeal.
(August: Osage County)
You search for the pills
Don’t rule out orifices
I’m running things now!
(August: Osage County)
I’m not a coward
There’s more fight on the frontier
But age takes its toll
(Superior Donuts)
North Side Chicago
The neon green and frosting
Art Przybyszewski
(Superior Donuts)
Stand beside me, Crow
The sun is setting ’round here
I can’t turn back now
(Kafka on the Shore)
Pleasing eye candy
Combined with Shakespeare’s beauty
And—oh! look up there
(The Tempest)
Swift air acrobats,
Ariel with his laptop,
Shakespeare re-loaded.
(The Tempest)
With fingers pointed
Inside our wooden prison,
Who will speak the truth?
(The Crucible)
Play for your future
Against the man from your past.
Shark, all bets are off.
(The Seafarer)
Hot days in O.K.
Paper covers all windows.
“Life is very long.”
(August: Osage County)
February 10th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
House full of secrets
All one can do these days is
Eat your f***ing fish.
(August: Osage County)
Serge, Marc, and Yvan
Bickering to end up at
Does white equal art?
(Art)
Should I answer that?
Is my answer in heaven?
What a contact list!
(Dead Man’s Cell Phone)
While held in this room,
I can hear my brother cry.
These are just stories!
(The Pillowman)
Big pillow arms hug.
Protection from a story.
Help, Katurian.
(The Pillowman)
February 10th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Return of the brood-
dead parakeets, claw hammer;
the way the world ends.
(August: Osage County)
Far from Nebraska
Little boxes make a life
Understand the stars.
(Man from Nebraska)