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

Reasons to work on a Tina Landau show:

• Experience the application of Viewpoints in it’s purest form, and reap the benefits on stage
• Meet the most generous, caring, and talented actors and crew in the business because of her incredible instinct in assembling ensembles that meld as actors and friends
• Exercise your attention to detail because her eye for specifics is unparalleled in this business
• Her sense of humor
• Experience the collaboration of all aspects of the Theater, as it should be
• Work with a director who genuinely loves actors and respects what we do, and in turn gets the best results possible out of productive conversation and experiment
• Blunt honesty is not scarce in her rehearsal room, which saves a lot of time and energy that would be better spent getting work done

I could continue but you get the point. Great working conditions. (more…)

Director of New Play Development, Ed Sobel, talks with actors after a reading of Fair Use for First Look 101. Explore more moments from this reading.

The Traffic season is done, we’re well into the run of Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and we’re gearing up for Superior Donuts and First Look . Hmmm, this seems like the perfect moment to hop on the train (that’s how we roll) and head down to the beautiful Chicago Cultural Center to hear the Mayor and others talk about the importance of theater in Chicago. The official purpose of the occasion on Monday, June 9, 2008 was a salute to Chicago’s award-winning theater community and the Tony nods for Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and Steppenwolf. However, Cultural Programming Deputy Commissioner Janet Carl Smith played host to a line up of beloved icons including Commissioner of Cultural Affairs Lois Weisberg, CST Artistic Director Barbara Gaines, and our own Artistic Director Martha Lavey; the event turned into a love fest for everyone in the artistic and cultural community. (more…)

One of the moving things about life in the theatre is that there is this great sense of synchronicity: as I move into a new (small) space, in these past two days, I’ve been roaming through the streets and the spaces at the Yale School of Drama where Sarah Ruhl has already been; I’ve been passing by the theatre where soon Polly will set up residence (and someday, I hope, I’ll get to see Jessica’s work–). Yesterday, in a break, I had a dinner with my new second year playwrights; out of the corner of my eye, I watched the senator from Illinois’s delegate count edge towards the nomination, as we talked about the upcoming Yale Rep production of Passion Play.

The overlapping circles of connection, influence, missed connection, my best friend from school knows your best friend from school kind of layers, I’m in New Haven thinking of the performance at the Steppenwolf tonight–these levels of human complexity are exactly what Dead Man’s Cell Phone celebrates, and mourns the slide into solipsism that an addiction to technology brings. We must treasure the overlapping circles, and here, at a school where there have been generations of theatre artists, I do. (more…)

After a break for Memorial Day, First Look 101 returned with gusto, this time with a table reading of Jason Wells’ Perfect Mendacity. Jason is no stranger to First Look - his play Men of Tortuga was developed during the first season of First Look back in 2005.

At that time, Jason’s script was plucked like needle from a haystack from the ever-towering pile of “Sunshine” scripts - the somewhat ironic name given to unsolicited 10-page samples submitted to Steppenwolf by, well, anyone in the world. Steppenwolf has an open submission policy detailed online, but basically the gist is: send in ten pages of your play, and we’ll see what happens.

Instead of shoving these scripts in some unmarked drawer, Director of New Play Development Ed Sobel uses them as a teaching tool for erstwhile apprentices – like me and former Literary Apprentice Justin Sherin. Justin and I poured over these Sunshine scripts throughout year, meeting once a week with Ed and Literary Assistant Joy Meads to determine the merits of each sample – all the while keeping in mind that the next Waiting for Godot might be lurking in the pile. “You don’t want to be the person who passes on The Seagull,” Ed warned. But no pressure. Using specific tools and an ever-expanding (and always-changing) rubric of criteria, the four of us would ultimately decide whether to pass on each sample, or bring in the full script for further consideration. (more…)