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

Steppenwolf’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone closed last week after an 18-week run in the Upstairs Theatre. That is a longer run than usual for a production in Chicago and it is interesting to note what is rewarding and what is challenging in sustaining an extended run.

Over the course of the run Polly Noonan, who played the central character of Jean, talked about constantly discovering the play. Polly had been in a previous production of the play at Wooly Mammoth in Washington DC, so her ongoing discovery of the play is even more striking. Yet, right up to the last week of performances, she spoke of learning new things about the play through the playing of it. (more…)

A couple months ago, Steppenwolf’s Associate Artistic Director David New told me about the interactive lobby display he was putting together with the Third Coast International Audio Festival for Dead Man’s Cell Phone. The lobby display would consist of a bunch of cell phones and three different voicemail plays that audience members could call and listen to before the play or during intermission. The voicemail plays would literally be just that – little two or three minute long plays that were made up only of voicemail messages. The idea being that these plays would be something you could hear if you picked up a stranger’s phone on the street (or in a café like Jean does in the play) and logged into their voicemail.

I told David it sounded like a cool project and then he asked me if I’d like to write one of them myself. I, of course, said yes and asked him, “When do I need to turn in the script?” to which he replied, “How about tomorrow?”

The phrase “no good deed goes unpunished” isn’t quite right, but it comes pretty close.

So, how do you write a voicemail play in 24 hours? First off, take a good, hard look at Aristotle’s three unities and throw them out the window. Aristotle is going to hate your voicemail play. (more…)

Last time I blogged about being dead, now I have to talk about coming to in the underworld:

I play Gordon in Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and in the first scene of the play I am discovered dead at a table in a cafe. A little bit later I address the audience in the form of a long monologue, and then finally, I appear in a scene with Jean, the play’s protagonist.

It’s the first time I interact with another character on stage and it’s sure nice to have someone to talk to; though it seems to mean different things to each of us. Jean is having a dream about being dead and I am actually dead. But none the less, we find ourselves together where we discuss various topics, among them, how to do your laundry in the afterlife and how we may be more alike than Jean would like to admit. (more…)

June 29th, 2008 was a big day in my life; it was my first EVER parade. I can “proudly” say that Chicago’s 39th Annual Gay Pride Parade was my first parade. This is a good parade to start from, because it’s definitely the Midwest’s largest and one of the country’s best Pride parades.

To get the full experience we decided to go straight to the heart of the activity, so we got off the train at Belmont and swam through the rainbow colored mob towards Halsted. We had a prime position and as the parade started you could feel the excitement, especially mine (I’m highly prone to adrenaline rushes). (more…)

While we were in New York for the Tonys, revelling in the wonderful success of our August artists, the folks back home were in tech rehearsals for Tracy’s new play, Superior Donuts. Knowing that our work in new play development was on-going and that our Chicago audiences would be the first to see Tracy’s next play was a deeply gratifying experience. (Knowing, too, that our Chicago friends were gathered in our Steppenwolf home, watching the Tonys on a big screen, was a thrill). We had the added pleasure of being in New York with our pals from Chicago Shakespeare, winners of this year’s Tony for Best Regional Theatre.

This is your moment, Chicago. The theater that you have at your fingertips–all across our town–is being celebrated on a national platform. As Anna said in her acceptance speech for the Tony award for Best Director, “the people in Chicago don’t need a Tony to go to the theater. They go to the theater.” All of us making theater for our Chicago audiences are very fortunate indeed. You are discerning, adventuresome folk. You make it possible for all of us to work at our highest level of inventiveness and skill. In turn, we’re able to offer you work that is world-class. (more…)