Locusts saw through the sound system in Yondorf Rehearsal Hall. Afternoon light falls. And when the play begins, neighbors engage each other with atypical small talk at a dinner beside a burning backyard grill. We’re in week three of rehearsal for Detroit, a stunning new play by Lisa D’Amour.

The play reminds me so much of growing up in the Midwest. I am a Chicago transplant from Omaha, Nebraska. Detroit is set in such a place: not necessarily Detroit, but the “first ring” suburb outside a mid-sized city, to be exact. Omaha is such a place: in fact, the city is ring upon ring of suburban sprawl. The city is a time capsule of urban planning and architecture. As you move from downtown to the suburbs - yes, I know, as ridiculous as it sounds, Omaha has a downtown - you encounter various time-zones: the brownstone houses of the ’40s, the ranch-style homes of the ’50s jet age, the dead malls from the ’70s, the dead malls from the ‘80s, the dead malls from the ’90s, etc. Omaha, like so many mid-sized cities, is a place of boom architecture.

So in the play, when they discuss shoddily laid cement foundations for backyard porches, the moment holds a certain truth for me.

I’m the Assistant Dramaturge for the show. My responsibilities include audience talkbacks, requested research, and most integral to this part of the rehearsal process: script coordination.

A play is a living thing and frequently transforms through in the rehearsal process. Once on its feet, questions arise from the actors about motivation and arc. Or the director interrogates the pacing of a scene. The playwright can and usually does address these issues, all while refining the play’s language and rhythm, because lines may sound differently in the quiet of an apartment than in the hands of Steppenwolf’s formidable actors. So inevitably there will be some adjustments to the text. For example, chunks of dialogue can re-ordered for a better rise of emotional and conversational beats. Endings will get reworked for a better sense of flow.

So as changes come in, it is my responsibility to track these and give the actors new pages while successfully archiving the old. I have a binder on my table in Yondorf, and in it are the various drafts of the play. It also contains the numerous experiments we try out in rehearsal - longer versions of scenes, different endings, etc.

This binder represents the evolution of the play, and over time, this binder seems a more abstract Detroit, one of numerous eras of development. It’s a curious thing when the actual process of play rehearsal calls to mind the subject of the play itself. Looking at my binder and the progress of this fantastic play, I can’t help but be reminded of a growing city.

This is my third outing with First Look Repertory. My first was as the dramaturg on Keith Huff’s play, Pursued by Happiness, part of the 4th Annual Rep. Last year, I served as Program Director, and had the opportunity to work on all three astonishing plays and engage in the lively rehearsal room of each. This year, I’m directing one of the plays: The North Plan by Jason Wells, also participating in his third First Look.

But that’s the great thing about new play development: every time is the first time. It’s a lot like falling in love. There’s definitely the “crush” stage: oh-my-god-I-can’t-believe-this-play-is-sitting-this-close-to-me-that-I-can-hear-it-breathing! There’s tons and tons of flirting where playwright, director, and dramaturg coyly toss ideas around and see what might advance and expand the already great core of the play. And then there’s that first point of contact, the first touch that’s more than a casual brush across a forearm, usually first rehearsal, when hearing the latest draft aloud sends shivers down your spine.

And every time is the first time because, even though that really great song by (insert name of favorite love ballad band here) fits a lot of different relationships, it means something new each time. Even though we ask really similar questions in each new play development process - What’s this character’s point-of-view? How do we put that on stage? And why does this speak to us today? - every time feels distinct, as if no one had ever kissed these lips before. There’s an ephemeral quality that love and new plays share.

Ignoring our mothers’ best advice, we just jump right in and go all the way. With First Look, we get to experience all the impetuous romance new play development has to offer. And, sometimes, when the stars align, you find your perfect match.

Now I live in New York, with two small children of my own and a different last name. I started writing my first play when I was pregnant with my first kid, and both writing and babies proved to be addictive! This fall, shortly before First Look, I’ll be starting in a graduate program for playwrights at Juilliard. In order to register as a student, I had to go and get a bunch of vaccinations, as if I were 18 years-old again, living in the dorms. In many ways, it really does feel like starting all over at the beginning. My job is to open up and learn and listen.

Although First Look is still a few months away, it’s been on my mind a lot this week: I’m in touch with Krissy Vanderwarker, who’ll be directing the reading of Bethany, and I’m filling out a program questionnaire about how a Chicago audience might respond to the play, among other daunting questions. I can’t wait to cast the thing and hear some kick-ass Chicago actors read it. And I couldn’t be happier to be heading back to where I started.

The annual Steppenwolf picnic takes place every summer, on some warm, humid Monday, when our production team is sans performance and the administrative staff is just glad for a day off in the sunshine. This year our picnic was held on Monday, July 26th in Linne Woods, a forest preserve in Morton Grove. The day was perfect: sunny, warm, not too humid, and full of the carefree, lazy summer breezes that make you want to eat watermelon and lay in a hammock. As one of the members of the Picnic committee, I had taken part in the planning and execution of the event, which is one of only a handful of times that our entire company comes together, spanning departments and buildings, artistic and administrative, backstage and front-of-house.

You see, Steppenwolf as a company is divided. Our amazing carpenters and props artisans work at our scene shop, a 30-minute drive from our administrative offices. And those offices stand separated by a busy intersection and garage from our stages and production offices housed in the theatre itself. And so these moments are rare; moments when we can put down our hand tools and paperwork, scripts and keyboards, and walk away from it all and out into an open field, where good food and good friends await us.

This year’s picnic featured a delicious lunch spread from Tasty Catering, as well as volleyball, croquet, face painting for the kids (though mostly our adult staff participated) and a “decathlon” led by (the man I believe will become the world’s best little league coach someday) our House Manager, Evan Hatfield. Staff participated in everything from a water balloon toss to a memorized recitation of text from our current production, A Parallelogram, all in hopes of winning the grand prize: an extra paid vacation day. The stakes were high…

The park came alive with dogs and children, burgers and corn, guitars and sports, and yes, even an ice cream cart! It was a perfect summer scene. But as I looked around, I realized that Steppenwolf is one company where it is truly insignificant which building you work in or on which side of the stage. We are a family; at times a highly dysfunctional family worthy of a Tracy Letts play, but a family nonetheless. We do the things that families do: we talk, we support one another, we challenge ideas, we play, we fight, we laugh, we struggle through hard times, and we revel in the good ones. I had heard this term “Steppen-family” thrown around loosely in my nearly two years of employment, but I had rarely stopped to think about what that actually means, and just how lucky we all are…

A Parallelogram may focus on the future, but at Steppenwolf, right now, it is all about the present. The staff picnic is a time to enjoy the hard work we have all endured and make a fresh start for our new season. It is a tradition, yes, but it is also our own highly anticipated little family reunion of sorts… crazy uncle types included.

Pre-production (February through late June): Lighting design is the alchemic member of the design department. Unlike scene, costume and sound designs, you can’t draw or make models of it, construct mock-ups, or hear it ahead of the actual time in the theatre. So in the pre-production phase, it’s important to assemble as much information about the play and how we are going to do it as we can.

By March, I had read the play, and met with Anna Shapiro, Todd, Mara and Rob (and in this case, the playwright Bruce Norris as well) to discuss the approach, the world of the play. I have studied photos of the model and then see the model in person. Todd sends in-scale drawings of the set. It’s almost like building a house on a stage: ground plan, section, elevations… I am closer to knowing what to assemble to create that world. Having done two of Bruce Norris’ other plays helps as well: the world is similar. We joke about the theme of Norris’ sliding glass door.

April-May: My assistant, Seth Reiser, and I draw an in-scale light plot - a map - which shows the tools (the actual lights in relation to the set, gel to color them, and circuits to control them) we think we’ll need to accomplish the job.

June 24: I fly in from New York to see the last rehearsal run-through in Yondorf before moving to the theatre. I see the play on its feet, the staging. The actors are in the mocked up version of the set. It’s the next level of specificity: where they will actually be. Jay really DOES spend a lot of act one in the up left corner! Bee really IS on the bed up right the entire first act! Bee 2 never leaves down left! But I am encouraged that I have assembled the right tools for the production.

June 25: The focus: the lights have been hung and the set installed (what we call “loaded in”) the week or so before. I am onstage in the set, standing in the correct place for each light while the electricians in the catwalks and on ladders point each light, lock it down (wrenches are important) and use the shutters to cut unwanted light off walls. With a light walled set, I don’t want any extra light spilling in unhelpful places. I am pleased that what I assembled seems to make sense onstage. The lights are in the right places and in the right colors to do the jobs I imagined. It feels promising. As is typical with JR, Ernie and the crews they assemble, this all goes well and we are done in a surprisingly short five hours. We are now ready for the actors the day after. We’ll start at the top and lay in the look of the scenes – the cues - as the actors get used to the space and work through the play slowly.