Steppenwolf Theater Company

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The Steppenwolf Theater Company is a 1974 by Terry Kinney , Jeff Perry and Gary Sinise in Chicago , founded the theater group . Numerous Hollywood actors later emerged from the group .

history

In January 1974, Gary Sinise was invited by his former school friends Rick Argosh and Leslie Wilson to take part in a production of Paul Zindel's And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little . Sinise brought Jeff Perry, whom he had met at Highland Park High School, into the group. Perry convinced Terry Kinney, his fellow student at Illinois State University , to participate.

Through a family friend, Sinise got in touch with the Unitarian Church in Deerfield , Illinois , where the first performance of the newly formed Steppenwolf Theater Company was taking place. The name points to Hermann Hesse's novel The Steppenwolf , which Argosh was reading at the time.

The next pieces were staged by the group Grease , in which Sinise took over the production, direction and leading role, as well as Die Glasmenagerie and Rosenkrantz and Güldenstern are dead . Argosh directed the latter two. Rosenkrantz and Güldenstern are dead was also the first piece in which Kinney, Perry and Sinise appeared together. During the production of the piece, the three decided to professionalize the group and put the next pieces in a fixed location. In February 1975 they founded the Steppenwolf Theater Company as a non-profit organization. The ensemble now consisted of the actors Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, Gary Sinise, HE Baccus, Nancy Evans, Moira Harris , John Malkovich , Laurie Metcalf and Alan Wilder . From the summer of 1976, the basement of a Catholic school in Highland Park was a permanent venue for the Steppenwolf Theater Company. In 1980 the company moved to Chicago. In the 1980s the group expanded further and the productions gained increasing national and international attention. In 1991, the company moved to the 1650 North Halsted Street building in Chicago. Martha Lavey was artistic director of the theater between 1995 and 2015, followed by Anna D. Shapiro .

The group and their productions have won numerous awards over the years, including the Tony Award for Regional Theater Excellence (1985) and the National Medal of Arts (1998).

Numerous actors who later became known as film actors began their careers with the theater group, including Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, Joan Allen , John Mahoney , Glenne Headly , Gary Cole , Kathryn Erbe , David Pasquesi , William Petersen , Michael Madsen and Jim True-Frost .

Web links

Commons : Steppenwolf Theater Company  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d History ( Memento from March 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) at steppenwolf.org, accessed on March 2, 2014
  2. ↑ Timeline ( memento of March 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) at steppenwolf.org, accessed on March 2, 2014