Here’s the press release from Steppenwolf:

Steppenwolf Theatre Company Announces
2010-2011 Subscription Season

CHICAGO (March 10, 2010) – Steppenwolf Theatre Company is pleased to announce its 2010-2011 Subscription Season, exploring the theme of public/private self.  Season subscriptions go on-sale to the public on Wednesday, March 10 at 11 a.m.

Detroit
a new play by Lisa D’Amour
featuring ensemble members Kate Arrington and Robert Breuler

Edward Albee’s
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
directed by Pam MacKinnon
featuring ensemble members Tracy Letts and Amy Morton

Sex with Strangers
by Laura Eason, directed by associate artist Jessica Thebus
featuring ensemble member Sally Murphy with Stephen Louis Grush

The Hot L Baltimore
by Lanford Wilson, directed by ensemble member Tina Landau
featuring ensemble members Alana Arenas, K. Todd Freeman and Yasen Peyankov

Middletown
a new play by Will Eno, directed by Les Waters
featuring ensemble member Alana Arenas Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Robert J. Saferstein

RECOMMENDED

In the climax of the Steppenwolf revival of David Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” a polyester-clad, red-faced Tracy Letts tears up the stage, literally, by trashing the contents of a Chicago antique store circa 1975 so violently that audience members actually duck. But Letts’ current work as an actor, however intense and convincing, is nothing compared to the way that he is currently tearing up stages around town as a playwright.

Where else but in Chicago can you see the work of a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright in no less than three fascinatingly different guises during the same week of a dreary February?  There’s the Mamet Steppenwolf revival where you can experience Letts “in the flesh,” as it were, in the work of another playwright who has profoundly influenced him; an explosive performance of Letts’ first play “Killer Joe” in a no-holds barred production at the intimate Profiles Theatre; and the national touring production of Letts’ epic masterpiece, “August: Osage County,” the work that has brought him such unprecedented and award-winning attention and acclaim.

For those of us who missed the original Steppenwolf premiere back during the summer of 2007—which is when the play is set—or in its later incarnations on Broadway and on London’s West End and who therefore may wonder what all of the fuss was about and whether or not a play could possibly live up to all of the hype, the answer is a resounding “yes.” Read the rest of this entry »

Glenn Davis, Phillip James Brannon and K. Todd Freeman in "The Brothers Size"/Photo: Michael Brosilow.

RECOMMENDED

The question of whether the two separate “packages” of “The Brother/Sister Plays” can be seen on their own was a bit of a topic at the press opening on Saturday, one which those of us who saw both can only offer a hypothetical yes to. But we can unequivocally say that seen together they form an epic new work of theater with a power that grows deeper and richer with each installment. Not bad for a 29-year-old playwright, Tarell Alvin McCraney, who crafted the strongest of the three plays (the two shorter works are seen together) while still in school.

The loosely structured story of a Louisiana family across three somewhat timeless generations is told through a series of vignettes, dreams, songs, dances, etc.—a list of parts that can’t begin to sum its whole. “In the Red and the Brown Water,” the “sisters” play, chronicles the heartbreak and sacrifice that love in all its forms (familial, passionate) engenders when Oya, played with effusive joy and heartwrenching pathos by ensemble member Alana Arenas, seems to pay a life of consequences when she passes up a scholarship to care for her ailing mother. “The Brothers Size,” the second play chronologically and the first play of the second package (less confusing than it sounds) is a masterpiece of brotherly love, both the sparring and laughing that bonds real brothers, as well as the mysteries of friendships, perhaps even more, that can bond men. Phillip James Brannon and K. Todd Freeman will tear your heart apart and make you smile with pleasure as they jam to the sounds of Otis Redding’s “Try A Little Tenderness.” The final play, “Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet,” explores more explicitly a subject raised in the earlier plays, that is, the love that dare not speak its name, when the marvelous Glenn Davis, now playing the son of the character he’d inhabited in the earlier plays, goes through the experience of coming out, as filtered through the African-American experience. Read the rest of this entry »

The Addams Family at The Oriental/Photo: Samuel Adams

By Brian Hieggelke

As the wind blows the snow sideways this December evening, the weatherman is telling Chicagoans to stay bunkered; the deserted downtown streets reflect their obedience. All save the sidewalk near the intersection of State and Randolph, as TV crews jockey for faces on the red carpet in front of the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, where more than 2,000 patrons, including a who’s who of backstage Broadway, are gathering for the world premiere of a new musical featuring a AAA list of talent, onstage and off. “The Addams Family,” with multiple Tony winners Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth in its leads, a book from the librettists of “Jersey Boys” and so on, is certainly Broadway bound, but tonight—tonight—Chicago is the center of theater in the world.

That’s the story of Chicago theater in the zeroes: the decade in which it grew up and got big. Whether it’s the launch and monumental success of Broadway In Chicago, the maturation and astonishing quality of a remarkable number of small and mid-sized companies or the increasing demand for Chicago product and Chicago talent on Broadway, Chicago theater has fully come into its own. Read the rest of this entry »

Peter DeFaria and Randy Steinmeyer in "A Steady Rain" at Chicago Dramatists

Annoyance Theatre
Coed Prison Sluts: $64,000, 5,380 people

The Artistic Home
Peer Gynt: $19,044 box office, 1,200 people

Chicago Dramatists
A Steady Rain: $21,000 box office,1,500 people at CD, 10,000 at Royal George Theatre
Cadillac: $23,000 box office,1,600 people at CD, 1,500 at Theatre on the Lake

Collaboraction
The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, $150,000 box office, 6,500 people Read the rest of this entry »

Pizza? Theater Oobleck's "Strauss at Midnight"

As part of this story, we sent a few questions to leaders of the theater community in Chicago and received about forty written responses. Here are excerpts from some of their answers. The full text will also soon be published online.

Any observations or thoughts about Chicago theater in the last decade?

“When one theater has a hit show, its not just a hit for that show, it’s a hit for Chicago.”
—Deb Clapp, Executive Director, League of Chicago Theatres

“I love the shake-ups that are happening as a result of management changes, economic pressures, and influx of new artists. It’s exciting to see the landscape shifting so dramatically, the new work that is being created as a result, and the new artists and management teams that are getting a chance at bat.”
— Kevin Mayes, Executive Director, Bailiwick Chicago

“The first SKETCHBOOK was produced in January 2000 and has gone on to create 135 world premiere short plays with over 1000 different artists for over 30,000 audience members and launching numerous careers.”
— Anthony Moseley, Executive and Artistic Director, Collaboraction Read the rest of this entry »

2000

Milestones

500 Clown, Steep Theatre, the side project and Teatro Luna are founded

Broadway In Chicago launches as a joint venture between Live Nation and the Nederlander Organization

Goodman departs its original home in the Art Institute of Chicago and moves into $51 million new digs in the North Loop

Chicago Shakespeare moves into a $24 million theater on Navy Pier

Collaboraction produces its first Sketchbook

The City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs opens The Storefront Theater

Passings

Michael Maggio, Goodman Theatre Associate Artistic Director and Dean of The Theatre School at DePaul University Read the rest of this entry »

As part of our decade retrospective, we surveyed more than forty theater companies for their observations to a couple of questions. What follows are their formatted but unedited responses.

Deb Clapp
Executive Director, League of Chicago Theatres (founded 1979)

Any observations or thoughts about Chicago theater in the last decade?
Over the last decade, Chicago has seen the downtown theater district grow and thrive, Goodman moved downtown and several theaters were re-furbished. Lookingglass moved into their new digs on Michigan Avenue and theater has flourished. Several exciting new companies have been established including The House Theatre of Chicago, Silk Road Theatre Project, New Leaf Theatre and Rasaka, among many others.

Is there a “Chicago style” anymore (if there ever was) and has it changed? What, today, distinguishes Chicago theater from anywhere else?
A number of unique characteristics distinguish Chicago theater. We have a unique ecology encompassing a wide range of theater artistry, from spectacle to culturally specific, horror to improv, houses with thousands of seats to houses with 18 seats. Our community is very collegial and collaborative, sharing ideas and resources. When one theater has a hit show, its not just a hit for that show, it’s a hit for Chicago. Our directors, authors, actors, stagehands, producers, all are Chicagoans and all create for a Chicago audience.

Outside of your own company, who or what excites you most about local theater right now?
Chicago is the best place to see and to make theater in the world. A lot of attention from other parts of the country and the world is being paid to Chicago theater right now and while that is wonderful and will inevitably lead us to greater things, what continues to happen every night in Chicago theater brings me joy. Telling our stories and the stories of others, bringing the world on stage every night, that’s what excites me most. Read the rest of this entry »

Francis Guinan and Tracy Letts/Photo: Michael Brosilow

This is one of those groundbreaking plays—not just for Chicago, but American theater—that makes a remount particularly anxiety-provoking. Chicago native David Mamet wrote “American Buffalo” in 1975, and it premiered at The Goodman in a production that helped put both on the map. Mamet has gone on to an illustrious stage and film career, and “American Buffalo” has what are now his unmistakable calling cards: strikingly vulgar dialogue, usually in the form of long tragi-comic tirades, circling around questions of masculinity, power and identity. The plot is a simple, tight three-actor format centering around the ill-fated heist of a rare American Buffalo nickel by three generations of white male American losers. Amy Morton’s direction is astute but conservative; she’s clearly trying to hit all the original notes. But while Tracy Letts carries the show as the desperate misanthropic Teach, the way Francis Guinan and Patrick Andrews play their parts—the bumbling junk-shop owner and dependent young ex-junkie he’s adopted—feel one-dimensional. (Andrews takes on a strange stilted monotone that’s especially distracting.) Their limited performances mirror the play as a whole, which feels more like a fossil than a relevant work of art. (Monica Westin)

At Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 1650 N. Halsted, (312)335-1650. Through February 7.

By Fabrizio O. Almeida

“There are two things I hate a lot,” says Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble Member Amy Morton, “getting dressed up and talking to people publicly.  I’d rather pull the skin off my face.”

I’m sitting with the seasoned stage performer and director in the third-floor lobby of the Steppenwolf’s Upstairs Theater, and Morton looks confident and stylish in a smart getup that includes black slacks, a charcoal cable cardigan and a crimson scarf that unostentatiously hangs around her neck. There’s a slight chill in the air, and I equate it to the large uninsulated window next to our table where this interview takes place, and not to Morton’s blistering comment, typical of this tell-it-like-it-is gal.

I had first met Morton in 2002, when I was roaming the hallways of the Steppenwolf as an intern, and she had just finished directing David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross.”  Now, almost a decade later, on the heels of a Tony Award-nominated turn in playwright (and fellow Steppenwolf ensemble member) Tracy Letts’ “August: Osage County” (which she reprised on Broadway earlier this year), on the cusp of appearing on the big screen in a featured role opposite George Clooney in this month’s “Up in the Air” and on the verge of premiering a new revival of Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” Morton has remained Morton:  smart, salty and down to earth, the stalwart of the Steppenwolf set who refuses stardom, but who is finally earning the respect and recognition nationally that she’s had in Chicago for decades. Read the rest of this entry »