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

As Literary Apprentice, it’s part of my job working with Ed Sobel, our Director of New Play Development and Joy Meads, our Literary Assistant, to make sure the actors and creative team have a clear perspective on the material. So I spend a lot of time in the library – often diving deep into history, looking up unfamiliar words and researching the cost of postage stamps. My work is rarely referenced in the rehearsal room, but such “deep background” can shade the creative process. In Good Boys and True, an actor familiar with Reagan-era AIDS policy is equipped with a new sense of his character’s motivations and fears.

Two books offered countless real-life parallels to the play: Our Guys, by Bernard Lefkowitz, is a piercing study of high school “jock” culture, its deep roots in American suburbs, and how a culture of entitlement can lead to crime. Restless Virgins, by Abigail Jones and Marissa Miley, features a recent sex-tape scandal at an elite New England boarding school. Both are widely available.

Hey-o. Tim Rock here. (My apologies go out to all of you who were probably hoping for some more witty words from Sean Cooper.) I play Justin Simmons in Good Boys and True. And I want to share something with you.

On the first day of rehearsal, our playwright, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, brought up an Edward Albee anecdote. This is relevant for a few reasons, but let me first recount the story as I remember it. (I’m bastardizing it. Sorry, Roberto!) At some discussion with the playwright, someone asked Albee when the best time of his life was. Mr. Albee replied, “Right now. Always right now.”

Here’s why it’s relevant: 1. Our director, Pam MacKinnon, recently directed Albee’s updated version of The Zoo Story in NYC, retitled Peter and Jerry. 2. Mr. Albee came to see a run through during tech. (I’ll never live that down. Especially the part where I forgot a line and, as a result, screamed my way through a scene. Thus banning myself from any future projects with which Mr. Albee is directly involved, I’m sure.) 3. For me, I’ve realized, it’s true.

Here’s something you probably don’t know: this is my dream. This. Right now. I’m living my dream. How bananas is that?! I mean, how often, if ever, does this happen? (more…)

JUSTIN: “Everyone’s shell-shocked; that’s what’s going on. At school? The teachers, the students. Everyone’s walking around, across the quad, like—like zombies. Like Dawn of the Dead meets A Separate Peace.”

Uncover more moments from Good Boys and True.

Director Pam MacKinnon rehearses Tim Rock and Stephen Louis Grush. See more rehearsal photos.

Three weeks ago, I was in Los Angeles, huddled around a table, in the writers’ room for the HBO Series “Big Love,” helping decide the fates of polygamist Bill Henrickson and his three wives. Above us, dark storm clouds had been building for months–until, finally and suddenly, they opened up and let loose: After many sputtering negotiations, amidst endless speculating, TV and film writers were going on strike, at the stroke of midnight, Monday, November 5th.

Oh, boy.

What did this mean? Well, for different writers, different things. “Pencils down” means pencils for all work that falls under the jurisdiction of the Writers Guild of America (of which I am a proud, card-carrying member). So “Big Love” was shutting down for the duration. The pilot about werewolves living in San Francisco I had been commissioned to write for Fox? I raced to finish it by the midnight deadline, got it in, barely, and there it hovers, in limbo… (more…)