Steppenwolf Theatre Company on Wednesday announced programming plans for the company’s 42nd mainstage season. The slate, the second to be selected under current artistic director Anna D. Shapiro, comprises three world premieres and four Chicago premieres. The represented playwrights include Jessica Dickey, Tracy Letts, Aziza Barnes, Clare Barron, Matthew-Lee Erlbach, Rajiv Joseph and Jen Silverman.
Jessica Dickey’s The Rembrandt opens the proceedings (September 7–October 22 in the Upstairs Theatre). The new comedy from the author of The Amish Project sees a museum guard giving in to the urge to touch a famous painting, and thus setting off an eons-spanning lesson in art appreciation. Steppenwolf’s production will feature ensemble members Francis Guinan and John Mahoney, with direction by Hallie Gordon.
The Downstairs Theatre docket opens, as previously announced, with Tracy Letts’s Broadway-bound premiere The Minutes (November 9–December 31), directed by Shapiro and with ensemble members Ian Barford, Guinan and Tim Hopper.
Back upstairs, Nataki Garrett will stage the world premiere of BLKS (December 7–January 21), the first play by poet Aziza Barnes. Depicting a day in the life of four young women of color in New York City, BLKS will feature newly-minted ensemble member Namir Smallwood in the cast.
Jonathan Berry will helm the Chicago premiere of You Got Older (January 25–March 11 in the Downstairs), Clare Barron’s acclaimed comedy (read Time Out New York’s five-star review of the play’s 2014 debut) about the difficulty of getting one’s life underway. The cast will include ensemble members Audrey Francis and Caroline Neff.
Steppenwolf ensemble member Tina Landau will stage The Doppelgänger (an international farce), a world premiere by Matthew-Lee Erlbach (April 5–May 20 in the Downstairs). The new comedy about international dealings in natural resources will include ensemble members Alana Arenas, Gary Cole, Ora Jones, Sandra Marquez and James Vincent Meredith in its cast.
The Chicago premiere of Rajiv Joseph’s Guards at the Taj (May 31–July 15, Upstairs), a comedy set against the 17th-century completion of the Taj Mahal, will reunite the two-person cast of the play’s 2015 premiere at New York’s Atlantic Theatre Company, Omar Metwally and Arian Moayed, and that production’s director, Steppenwolf ensemble member Amy Morton.
Finally, the summer 2018 slot Downstairs goes to the Chicago premiere of Jen Silverman’s The Roommate (June 21–August 5), featuring ensemble members Ora Jones and Sandra Marquez as two diametrically opposed women in their 50s sharing an apartment; a director is yet to be announced.
Steppenwolf’s current production of Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men continues its extended run through March 26 in the Upstairs Theatre. The Steppenwolf for Young Adults production Monster closes this Saturday in the Downstairs Theatre; next up is another Tracy Letts premiere, Linda Vista, beginning previews March 30.
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