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

Last night was an exciting and invigorating night for all of us at Steppenwolf. We welcomed the season’s first group of guests to a League of Chicago Theatre’s “Theatre Thursdays” event. This event coincided with the first preview of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. These LOCT events are held at theatres across the city and usually include some sort of social component in addition to the performance. We decided to expand the social component by inviting participants to view a screening of Six Shooter, the Academy Award-winning short film written and directed by Martin McDonagh. After a short reception with refreshments, we gathered in the Upstairs Theatre to watch the film. The screening was followed by a discussion of the film and the group went on for more food and drink.

The group of 80 or so then moved to the Downstairs Theatre for the first public performance of The Pillowman. A full house went on the topsy-turvy ride between the dark shadows and glimpses of light in which the playwright traffics. The playwright himself was present at the performance. He was recognized by a number of audience devotees at intermission who engaged him in conversation. Then all reconvened for the second act. Following the performance there was a post-show discussion attended by more than 50 people and as was our collective hunch - this play is fertile soil for conversation. (more…)

And we’re off! The Pillowman goes into tech on Saturday and starts previews on Thursday, September the 14th. Thus begins Steppenwolf’s 31st season.

It’s incredibly exciting, the start of a new season. We’ve been thinking about these plays for a long time–assembling the artistic and production teams, beginning the design processes, assembling the dramaturgical information and artists’ profiles for our magazines and programs, considering how to reach audiences who may have particular interest in each of the shows, creating events specific to each of the shows, and on and on. But all of the pre-planning simply anticipates THE DAY, the moment rehearsal begins and the production is given birth. It is when, finally, we meet YOU, our audience, that the real fun begins. As you know, we will be conducting post-show conversations for every performance this year. I hope that many of you will stay for a discussion–we dearly cherish your response to our work and appreciate, in the conversations you engender, the creation of a public square at Steppenwolf.

Last season, we dedicated ourselves to new work. We took the opportunity of our 30th season to foreground our role in the creation of new work and you responded with the sense of adventure and sophistication that distinguishes the Steppenwolf audience. (more…)

This morning at 9:45am the Steppenwolf staff gathered in Yondorf Rehearsal Hall for the all-staff run-thru of The Pillowman. This rehearsal is one of the last run-thrus the cast will have before they move on to the stage for technical rehearsals. In addition to the entire staff, the designers are also in attendance to see the shape of the show. Interestingly, the rehearsal hall is not located in the theatre but in a separate building where the administrative offices are located. There is something exciting about watching the actors in a rehearsal hall without a set, or lighting, or costumes. Makeshift furniture stands in for the real thing, the actors are in their street clothes – perhaps with a rehearsal jacket or shoes - and rehearsal props often bear no resemblance to the object they are standing in for. The focus goes to the actor and the imagination is engaged to supply the production elements.

After the run-thru, I went across the street to the theatre where the set is being loaded in. While it is not finished being installed, the majority of the elements are in place. I stood in the house and, in my mind’s eye, married the run-thru I had watched this morning with the set that was coming together on the stage. I imagined the costume renderings I had seen and tried to imagine how the production will be lit. It’s exciting to visit the different production elements as they come together.

The actors will move onto the stage on Saturday to begin the process of technical rehearsals, during which the scenic, lighting, and sound elements will be added. They will begin to wear the actual clothes they will wear in performance and begin working with actual props. They will rehearse five more days before the first preview when the final element will be added – the audience.

The start of a new season generally creates a feeling of electricity around the office. (Well, not today – the vast majority of our administrative staff has started their Labor Day weekend early, and the overriding sentiment of the seven of us left behind is considerably more low-key.) Even though we’re technically producing 52 weeks a year, there’s something about embarking on a new season that recharges us.

That’s especially the case when a new season begins with a Martin McDonagh play. The Pillowman, which is currently in rehearsals two floors below us, is a play that instantly excited us from the time we were first able to get our hands on a copy of the script, following its world premiere at the National Theatre in London.

For those who have managed to avoid our description of the play so far, The Pillowman is about a writer who lives in a totalitarian state, and who is brought in for police questioning because his stories share some gruesome details with a series of local murders. The act of storytelling is a crucial element of the play, fitting for a playwright whose works are meticulously well-crafted stories.

What The Pillowman explores rather cannily, among other things, is the extent of a writer’s level of responsibility for his or her work, especially within the context of the politically-charged society in which it is written. Obviously, we’re living in a particularly charged time: one political party has grabbed headlines this week by trying to cast their opposition’s stance as potentially treasonous. (Treasonous!)

When it comes to political theatre – and one may argue that all works are political, even if it is only through its conspicuous absence of a political stance – what is it that you look for, that you find useful? What do you think a writer’s responsibility is with respect to political events unfolding around us? How is a writer’s response made most effective?

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.