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

I find my deepest satisfaction as Associate Artistic Director at Steppenwolf in being able to sit in the theatre with our audiences at the end of the evening for post-show discussions. It is fortifying to follow the process of play selection, during which we choose plays for their resonance with how we live today, through rehearsal and performance, and ultimately get the chance to engage our audience in conversation about the ideas and themes of the play as they touch their own lives. Carter’s Way, though set in 1935, provided fertile ground for conversation for how we live our lives today. We knew when we chose to banner our season under the question, “What does it mean to be an American?” that race would be part of that conversation. And it was. Audiences acknowledged that progress has been made in the areas of the acceptance of interracial relationships and the abolishment of segregation - in both its formal and unspoken forms - but also acknowledged that race is still, distressingly, very much a part of our dialogue as Americans. People frequently referenced the rhetoric of the current presidential campaign as evidence. (more…)

Hard to believe that Carter’s Way just closed. It’s amazing, this business we’re in. So intensely close, yet so transient. On the last day of a show, I’m always a little broken up inside. It kind of feels like a break up, the end of a relationship. Not just with the actors you see everyday, but with the faces you get used to backstage, like Caleb and Rick and Noelle and Jamie and Gregor and Becky and Dawn and Martha W and Malcolm and Lauren and others. You remember small things, like waving to the Front of House person who sees you as you enter the theatre on the other side of the double doors, just before you head downstairs–how they always wave back. The box office employee who gives you an unexpected compliment on the show when you really needed it that day. The amazing artists who understudy us, who see the show all the time, surely tire of it, and yet are always warm and welcoming every time we come in (particularly Justin, for some reason).
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I love watching post show discussions. I don’t often participate in them, because I’m always concerned that I’m going to get a question to which I have no answer. But I’m always in awe of the way the moderators lead the discussions, coaxing the audience into lowering its guard and speaking freely about what they’ve seen. I’ve witnessed post shows where members of the audience couldn’t stop expressing the love they had for a show, and I’ve seen post shows where they couldn’t stop expressing how the show made them throw up in their mouth a little. And that’s cool with me. I know that people may be a bit reluctant to criticize a show when the actors are out there, so I sometimes sit unseen in the balcony so that I can hear honest opinions. And I really value them. Sometimes there’s a plot point that wasn’t clear or even audible (towards the end of a recent show, after I made a statement to Marilyn [Ora] critical to the plot, I heard an audience member whisper “Wait — she’s pregnant?”), and our moderators will need to clarify what some audience members might have missed, or misunderstood. Sometimes a character didn’t ring true, or a moment didn’t seem plausible, or the writing in this scene was great, but maybe not in that scene; the feedback that the audience gives is really valuable to me. You get to see what maybe worked that night, and maybe what didn’t. Perception is reality, right?

Completely unrelated, but here’s another cell phone story — I’m sure that if you’re reading this blog, you probably go to the theater fairly regularly, and surely have a cell phone story of your own. Last week, we were coming up on the end of a show. Probably 15 minutes from the end, so pretty high tension, climax of the show, all that stuff. A phone rings. Nothing new, it’s happened before. Loud, but still, it’s happened before. PeeWee’s in the middle of some dialogue with an important piece of plot. The audience member answers the phone. And it must be one of those Sprint or Nextel beep phones, because there’s no beep, but all of us (audience and actors alike) can hear the whole conversation, including the person on the other end of the line: (more…)

We are almost a month into Carter’s Way and it has been wonderful. As well as humbling, at times tough, scary, but most of all…wonderful. Eunice is a hard part for me sometimes. I love her, I believe in her, but sometimes when I want her to be so much more than just the “white girl who messes everything up,” as one audience member referred to me, I can get frustrated. As an actor, naturally you want to do the playwright’s play justice, but I would be lying if I thought that happened every night. Eight shows a week and all you want to do is knock it out of the park, but sometimes unfortunately that just doesn’t happen. On my last blog one audience member informed me that I didn’t understand the character at all and that she was disappointed in my performance. I was extremely insecure for days after I read that, but then I realized – this is the business, Anne! This is what happens when people come to see any form of art, they naturally and rightfully judge it. And you are never going to please everybody. So now I am in the process of trying to learn how not to get down on myself, and instead let “critiques” fuel my fire…to try harder and harder every performance to reach the audience. To tell the story with strength and integrity. (more…)

The show is now running. But not on rails–yet–and really, it never should, if we’re doing it right. We opened on Sunday night, and just got back into it all on Tuesday. A very challenging part of a run. Sure there’s the part later in the run where you’ve done 60 shows and you’re trying to find ways to keep it fresh and new and motivated and focused.

And there’s the part at the beginning, when you do the final dress and then the first preview or two. At that point, you’ve got other questions. Do I have enough time to get back into this three piece suit between scene six and seven? How soon can I get rid of this hat when I get onstage? (Eric will kill me if I wear this thing through the whole scene.) Should I even eat before the show? I eat a whole Lean Cuisine Salisbury Steak dinner on stage, plus two bowls of soup during the argument with Pee-Wee. The salisbury steak is actually pretty good, but they changed the soup, and now I don’t like it–gotta ask Lauren, the assistant stage manager, if they can change it back for me. How do I make that line work that Eric added? Why can’t my hair lay down like Michael and Curtis and Calvin’s? I need to add more hair goop. Why are Ora and K. Todd looking at me like that–damn I dropped that line again, that’s why… (more…)