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

In my dressing room downstairs at the theater, I’ve got the standard tackle for an actor’s dugout: a toothbrush, an extra pair of socks, my dog-eared script in a binder stuffed with notes from our dialect coach, a couple opening night cards and some really nice flowers that some friends sent me (which will probably dry up soon because I’ll forget to put water in the vase) … stuff like that. But I’ve also got a couple things on my dressing table that in my mind, are uniquely critical to my participation in this story. The first being a deck of cards so that I can fiddle with something relevant to the character besides my tube socks (the play does revolve around a card game after all). And the other item which is probably even more important, a list I’ve made of all the offstage characters referred to in The Seafarer.

I refer to this list frequently, and jot down notes about some of them as I think of it. I try to give them some detailed characteristics, and as best I can, brief histories in addition to the information that the playwright has provided for them. (more…)

The Seafarer is open - what a journey!

Audiences are enjoying the show immensely (we’ve just finished two weeks of previews and opened Sunday) and it’s a joy to watch the actors grow in the show and see the intricacies of the storytelling change with each audience.

This past week I was reminded of the wonderful phenomenon of the space between live performers and an audience. On the surface, one might say, the performers do the thing they rehearsed and the audience comes and watches it. But it’s so much more alive than that: the performers and the audience bring their lives, their personal histories, their good or bad day that day, their hopes about next year and their fears about tomorrow morning - they bring all of that with them. So, each night, a new group of people gather with an entirely different set of histories than those who came before. The guy in the third row could hear that line about being arrested in a snooker club in Harmonstown and absolutely explode with laughter, and that guy would be the first guy (since me during rehearsals) to do that. And the sound and energy coming from that guy in the third row has just changed the music of that moment and the one that’s to come. (more…)

I was fortunate to be able to make the trip to London to see the opening of our production of August: Osage County. August opened at the Royal National Theatre on Wednesday, 26 November in the Lyttelton Theatre. (The Lyttelton is one of the three theaters of the National, a 900-seat proscenium theater). Our production of The Grapes of Wrath played in the Lyttelton Theatre twenty years ago and like The Grapes of Wrath, August opened to glorious reviews in the British press. In both cases, Steppenwolf was able to bring a big American play to the National, animated by our ensemble actors and directed by a Steppenwolf artist. David Hawkanson, our Executive Director, and I felt tremendous pride to represent our theater with August: Osage County to British audiences.

You know the fun part? Coming back to Chicago and watching the final run-through in the rehearsal room of The Seafarer on Friday. Reading the show reports for Dublin Carol, playing in our Upstairs Theatre. Continuing our season-planning for next season. The fun part is that our theater continues to do its work for our Chicago audiences. We are thrilled to have our work received by a larger audience–in New York, in London. But the best part is that we have all of you here, at home, watching plays in your theater and continuing to encourage and support the on-going life of Steppenwolf. Many thanks for that.

Feel free to post a hello to our folks in London. We’ll make sure they get them.

“To be honest with you, I never drink this much,” says Mr. Lockhart, recently fallen to the floor. Sharkey responds, “Yeah, well welcome to our house.”
-One of many favorite exchanges in our play.

McPherson’s The Seafarer is an incredible story and I’m glad to be part of the telling. Having worked here as an actor in Our Lady of 121st Street a few years ago, I was familiar with the extraordinary level of support Steppenwolf provides their storytellers. Early in my career as a director, I knew it would be “great for me” to see how things work here from the director’s side of the table. But I didn’t really know what that would mean.

Now, wait - I know what you’re thinking - this guy’s going to be a sycophantic assistant and ramble on about how “great” everyone is. Well, take it from me friends, I’ve been around as an actor in Chicago for 15 years (I am early in my directing career), and I can sit at a bar and tear into my fellow theater artists with the best of them. I can be harsh. I can be direct. In fact, because I always want us to be more successful as storytellers (because that will eventually lead to a resurgence of our art form’s popularity in this country to the level it had when live-humans-gathering-together-for-storytelling-with-other-live-humans was the only game in town), I kind of take it personally when people given a good chance to succeed in putting on a play don’t succeed. I’ll be honest, I’ve ripped into a show or two I thought underachieved here at Steppenwolf (anyone who claims never to have done that is a flaming liar and not to be trusted). So, even though you have no idea who I am - trust me, I’d give you the real scoop on this show in a heartbeat. In fact, I’d have probably said “maybe you don’t want me to submit a blog post” to the nice folks here. (more…)

The first play I can ever remember seeing was A Christmas Carol. I imagine many of you can say the same thing. In my case, I went with my second grade class; my classmate Travis Neal was playing one of the Crachit boys and accordingly became a minor celebrity for the season. I remember three things about the show: 1) mild asphyxiation from the suffocating waves of stage fog rolling off the stage (I recognize this in retrospect as the exuberant excesses of a neophyte stagehand) 2) the terrifying Ghost of Christmas Future (I think he was about 13 feet tall and maybe an actual demon) and 3) crying just a little at Scrooge and the company’s joyously musical celebration at the end.

Since I know a lot of theatre people, I generally have to see at least one holiday play every year. By all rights, I should be jaded by now, rifling through my playbill with a bored knowing sigh and bolting from my seat the second the lights come up. But, honestly, I love the ritual of it all. There’s even something just a little bit spiritual about the experience. I think the holiday show is the purest modern incarnation of the medieval mystery play. (If you’re familiar with medieval theatre, please forgive me as I get a little Professor Theatre for a second here.) Mystery plays are a form of theatre that emerged from Catholic liturgy in the middle ages. These plays employed spectacle in the dramatization of biblical stories. While individual plays were diverse in subject and style, they were connected as a cycle by the Christian story of salvation: man’s sin puts him at risk of damnation, but through the twin miracles of compassion and repentance, he is offered the chance of redemption. Sound familiar? (more…)