On behalf of the Steppenwolf ensemble and the artistic staff of the theater, I am very happy to announce the 2006-2007 subscription-series productions.
We open our season with Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman under the direction of ensemble member Amy Morton. You will remember Martin McDonagh as the playwright of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, which Steppenwolf produced in our 1998-1999 season. The Pillowman had its debut at the National Theatre in London where it won the Olivier Award for Best New Play and went on to a successful run on Broadway. Steppenwolf is honored to present its Midwest premiere. The play is a deeply funny, complex and thoughtful rumination on the personal and political legacy of story-telling. How are our lives shaped by the stories we tell ourselves and by the stories we create? McDonagh’s singular voice is well-met by the clarity and vibrancy of Amy Morton’s directional vision.
Second on the season is a new play by Melinda Lopez, Sonia Flew, under the direction of Associate Artist Jessica Thebus, and featuring ensemble member Al Wilder. You will recall Jessica’s work from the 2005 production of Intimate Apparel. Like Intimate Apparel, Sonia Flew telescopes the large cultural and political forces of an historical moment to examine their impact on the intimate lives of ordinary men and women. This close examination of a family, shaped by the large forces of nationality, politics, and religion, reveals and celebrates the passions and tenderness that lends those forces nuance, grace, and a capacity for forgiveness.
In the Upstairs Theatre, we present the third production of our season, Betrayal, by British playwright, Harold Pinter. Mr. Pinter is the winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature and familiar to Steppenwolf audiences from our productions of The Caretaker (1978 & 1985), The Homecoming (1989), The Lover (1976), The Hothouse (1983), The Dumbwaiter (1976), and The Collection (1980). Rick Snyder directs with a cast that includes ensemble members Amy Morton and Tracy Letts. Betrayal is the story of a marriage shadowed by an extra-marital affair. The story is told in reverse time: we begin in the present and trace back, through nine beautifully-etched scenes, to the moment when the love affair began. Moving from the consequences to the cause, examining love in all its lovely and terrible manifestations, Betrayal offers us a complex and compassionate portrait of how we live and love.
The fourth play of the season returns us to the Downstairs Theatre, where ensemble member Tina Landau directs The Diary of Anne Frank in the revised adaptation by Wendy Kesselman. Ensemble member Yasen Peyankov once again teams with Tina to create the role of Otto Frank. In Kesselman’s vivid adaptation, this familiar story of the young Anne Frank, trapped by the crushing force of Nazi Germany, is given fresh life. The indomitable spirit of this young girl, yearning for love and artistic expressiveness, provides a beacon in a dark world. Our gift, in presenting this well-known and beloved story to our Steppenwolf audiences, is the pairing of the play with Tina Landau, an artist of singular sensibility in her command of the orchestration of ensemble acting and theatrical design. Like Steppenwolf’s 2002 production of The Time of Your Life, The Diary of Anne Frank joins Tina’s visionary direction with a classic drama to shine a new light on a story of heartbreak and beauty.
Finally, we present a new play, August: Osage County, by ensemble member Tracy Letts. Tracy, a recent recipient of the 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library Foundation, has written a play, commissioned by the theater, for the actors of the Steppenwolf ensemble. This three-act play traces the complex network of relationships in a multi-generational family. The disappearance of the family patriarch, a brilliant, difficult academic and poet, precipitates a re-convening of his daughters, their mates and children to the family seat, now presided over by their fierce, unstable mother. The play crackles with fiery humor, profound psychological truth, and the power of rich characterizations. Ensemble member Anna D. Shapiro returns as a director to Tracy’s work, reprising their previous collaboration on Steppenwolf’s very successful production of Man from Nebraska. In this world premiere of August: Osage County, ensemble member Amy Morton anchors the play as Barbara, the oldest daughter, who must negotiate the uneasy alliances of her gifted, fractured family.
It is a joy and an honor to offer this varied palette of plays to our Steppenwolf audience. We bring you a world premiere, two new plays in their Midwest debuts, and two familiar titles given fresh life by Steppenwolf artists. We welcome you back to a season rich in ideas, bristling with humor and human pathos, and animated by the world-class talent of Steppenwolf actors and directors. We deeply appreciate your loyalty to Steppenwolf, your adventuresome spirit, and your interpretive acumen – all of which make it possible for us to choose the plays we love for the people we love.