Back to Where it Started
Posted by Laura Marks on 8/17/2010
When (Steppenwolf Literary Manager) Joy Meads called to say that my play Bethany would be getting a staged reading in First Look, I was thrilled… not just because Steppenwolf is a national benchmark for great-quality work, but also because it felt like a homecoming. 12 years ago, as a young actor, I got my Equity card at Steppenwolf - in a delicious production of The Playboy of the Western World, complete with a hardworking rain machine and a stage made of packed earth. Martha Plimpton, Jim True-Frost, and Moira Harris were the leads: all fantastic. When I think of that production, I think of Moira’s three gorgeous children running around in the dressing rooms. Once in a while, the kids even put on costumes and joined the crowd scenes as Irish-urchin extras. I had a monologue full of bizarre idioms like “parching peelers” - damned if I can remember what that means - and got to wear genuine antique bloomers under my skirts (I begged to keep them, but no dice). There were live traditional musicians on the roof of the set, and their sound was magical.
Now I live in New York, with two small children of my own and a different last name. I started writing my first play when I was pregnant with my first kid, and both writing and babies proved to be addictive! This fall, shortly before First Look, I’ll be starting in a graduate program for playwrights at Juilliard. In order to register as a student, I had to go and get a bunch of vaccinations, as if I were 18 years-old again, living in the dorms. In many ways, it really does feel like starting all over at the beginning. My job is to open up and learn and listen.
Although First Look is still a few months away, it’s been on my mind a lot this week: I’m in touch with Krissy Vanderwarker, who’ll be directing the reading of Bethany, and I’m filling out a program questionnaire about how a Chicago audience might respond to the play, among other daunting questions. I can’t wait to cast the thing and hear some kick-ass Chicago actors read it. And I couldn’t be happier to be heading back to where I started.