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

(Maria is a member of Steppenwolf For Young Adults‘ Young Adult Council)

Every year, TCG conference-goers have a discussion on how to better engage the next generation of theatre audiences, and much to their credit, they’ve come up with some great ideas (including Steppenwolf’s Young Adult Council). But not too long ago, Hallie Gordon, the Director of Steppenwolf for Young Adults, along with Rachel Fink, the Associate General Manager and Director at Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, and Willa Taylor, the Director of Education and Community Engagement at Goodman Theatre, came up with an idea: why not cut out the middleman and ask young adults directly what brings them to the theatre? For the first time this past June, there were teens in attendance at the TCG National Conference in Chicago. And I was one of them.

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(Claire is a member of Steppenwolf For Young Adults‘ Young Adult Council)

In October, the idea to send a teen delegation to the annual TCG conference was brought up by Hallie Gordon, the Director of Steppenwolf for Young Adults. The fact that we were eventually allowed to attend and had the privilege of leading a breakout session was a tremendous feat that I do not credit to us teens at all.

In the weeks leading up to the conference, I began obsessively Googling TCG and the conference. I memorized the schedule and labored over which breakout session I was going to attend (the amazing diversity of those breakout sessions and the affinity groups from which to choose didn’t make the decision easy).

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(Sean is a member of Steppenwolf For Young Adults‘ Young Adult Council)

About a week ago, the Theatre Communications Group held its annual National Theatre Conference right here in Chicago, and about a week ago, I became sure of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Thanks to Steppenwolf, four of us Young Adult Council members had the privilege of being a part of this invigorating conference. It was awesome not only to represent Steppenwolf, but to see firsthand that people care. I loved being asked to share all the successes our department saw this year - from the sold-out The Brother/Sister Plays after-party to the growing Council applicant pool size - with people who did similar work at other theatres, who were just starting young adult programs, and others who were simply interested in what us young folks are doing with our time.

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(Joy is the Literary Manager at Steppenwolf)

Over the weekend, our colleagues from around the country flooded into to Chicago for Theatre Communication Group’s National Conference: the biggest annual gathering of theatre professionals in the country. The attendees represented theatres big and small; independent artists; trustees and funders; artists, educators, and administrators; and practitioners of every style and form of theatre imaginable. Over the next week or two, we’ll post some responses to the weekend, including some thoughts from a delegation attending the conference for the first time: the extraordinary teens that comprise Steppenwolf’s Young Adult Council.

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