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

We completed our run of Love-Lies-Bleeding at the Kennedy Center on Sunday, June the 25th. In total, we did 11 performances – from Saturday, June the 17th through our closing on Sunday, the 25th. We were there at the invitation of the Kennedy Center as the inaugural production in their New Fund for American Plays initiative. We performed in the Terrace Theatre, a 472-seat proscenium on the Rooftop level of the Center.

I had a terrific time doing the Kennedy Center run. For one thing, it’s been awhile since I have had the experience of centering my days around the day’s performance(s). When I am in a play at Steppenwolf, my day is split between life as the artistic director, and my life as an actor. That split life is an enormous privilege – and a deep pleasure – but there is a particular charm in thinking exclusively as an actor. This is especially true when the site of the performance is a city as rich in urban and cultural life as Washington, D.C. We stayed at the George Washington University Inn in Foggy Bottom, close to the Kennedy Center and so strolled by the Watergate Hotel on our walk to the theater every night. Georgetown was a short walk away and it was an easy hop onto the Metro to reach the Mall (with all of its great memorials and museums). (more…)

Today we welcomed 24 students from around the country (and England!) to our ten week acting intensive. The School at Steppenwolf is a training residency for professional actors to immerse themselves in ensemble traditions, values and methods. A series of three-week trimesters of course work will culminate in a week of performances in late summer.

The original idea of the School at Steppenwolf occurred to co-founder Jeff Perry nine years ago as a way of offering a unique training program, one that embodies the actor driven ensemble work that the company was founded upon. The faculty this year includes the school’s co-founders, Sheldon Patinkin and Jeff Perry, Steppenwolf ensemble members, Bob Breuler, Fran Guinan, Mariann Mayberry, Rick Snyder, and Yasen Peyankov, in addition to Alexandra Billings, Jeff Ginsberg, Luda Lopatina, Bob Mason, Monica Payne, Suzanne Thompson, and Monica Payne. The curriculum for the school includes work in the varied techniques of Viewpoints, Feldenkrais movement work, Meisner technique, text analysis, and two-person and larger group scene work. (more…)

Tonight we kick off our First Look Rep, with a reading of Mia McCullough’s play Spare Change. The play was commissioned by Steppenwolf, and was given a rehearsed reading as part of last year’s Rep. This year, it will be developed, rehearsed, and presented in full production. Tonight will be an opportunity for the director, dramaturg and playwright to hear the work out loud collectively, before beginning their intensive work on it.

One always feels some trepidation at the start of a process. Fortunately, tonight we are working with a writer whom we’ve produced before, and a director who already has some familiarity with the play. (Lisa Portes, who will be working with Mia on the script this year, directed the reading last summer). Nevertheless, the members of First Look 101 will be present, and it is an unusual moment for work to begin so publicly and in so exposed a fashion. I’m heartened by our experience last year, which suggested that rather than being a distraction, the presence of observers actually helped to intensify and focus the work of the artists; much as in the way a final dress rehearsal before an empty theater differs from the special charge on a first preview.

The purpose of a reading like this is to allow the collaborators to truly and simply hear the play. One is not influenced (or unduly aided) by staging or theatrical design elements. The focus is on the play’s own language, and on its structure. I’m looking forward to what tonight’s experience will reveal about the play.

Last year, Steppenwolf inaugurated a new program, the First Look Repertory of New Work. First Look is a play development process culminating in the presentation of three new plays in rotating repertory in our Garage space.

There are two truly exciting aspects of the program. First Look represents a unique model for the development of new work, emphasizing development of the play through the crucible of workshop and rehearsal for an actual, if small-scale, production. Rather than culminating in a staged reading, or exclusively producing the play and revising as best one can during the production process, First Look provides an environment in which the refining of the script is primary, but the result is what a play must have: performance before an audience. Our hope for these plays, in addition to the presumption they will be better plays at the end of the process than they were at the beginning, is that they will see further production, either at Steppenwolf or at other theaters. Second, we offer access to this unique process to a group of theater-lovers, but not practitioners. This group attends a reading of an early draft of each play, the first rehearsal, open rehearsal days, technical rehearsal, and sees the plays in production. We do not create events for the benefit of this group of people, but instead offer them an opportunity to observe and discuss what we actually do. Last year, the three month process proved invigorating and successful, and we are delighted to announce the program for this summer:

100 Saints You Should Know by Kate Fodor, directed by B.J. Jones. Kate is best known as the author of Hannah and Martin, which received its premiere at TimeLine Theater Company here in Chicago, before an Off-Broadway run. 100 Saints is a deeply moving story about the nature of faith and personal responsibility. A priest leaves his parish under mysterious circumstances and is followed by his cleaning woman, who brings her teen-age daughter in tow.

Spare Change by Mia McCullough, directed by Lisa Portes. This play, commissioned by Steppenwolf, was given a rehearsed reading as part of last year’s First Look Rep. In it, a man runs into a woman in need on the El, setting in motion a chain of events causing him to question the path his life has taken. You may remember Mia as the author of Taking Care, which we presented in our Garage space a couple of years ago.

The Butcher of Baraboo by Marisa Wegrzyn, directed by Dexter Bullard. Marisa’s play, commissioned by Steppenwolf, is a darkly comic look at a family in a small upper-midwestern town. Marisa, a recent graduate of the Washington University - St. Louis, has a bold and fresh voice.

Watching the opening night performance of The Well-Appointed Room, I was struck by a phrase of dialogue found toward the end of each act, in each case uttered by the character played by Amy Morton, the essence of which is “in the unlikely event of a future.” It seemed at once a daring and sad thing to have characters say, and no doubt speaks to some of the urgency and anxiety Martha refers to in her previous posting.

But it also struck me as an extraordinary thing for a playwright to postulate. I have always thought of the creative act as one marked by ultimate optimism. If one believes the world is beyond hope, why create anything? I was struck by the irony that in theatre, except for closing night, there is always a future. The play will be performed on Friday, then again on Saturday, and again on Sunday and so on. So I wonder, do others find this play, and the storytelling contained in it, acts of optimism? How do you read the end of the play?

A brief note, in response to the question from Justin Palmer, we expect to announce our plays for this summer’s First Look Rep within the next month. For those unfamiliar with the Rep: we present developmental productions of three brand new plays in rotating rep in the Garage. Last year, we offered unprecedented access to the development/rehearsal process to the members of our First Look Council. We expect to expand this in the coming year to give others the same opportunity. Watch these pages for details in the next month or two.