Sandro

Austin Pendleton began working with Steppenwolf in 1979 when he directed the Ensemble in Say Goodnight, Gracie by Ralph Pape. After that he returned to direct Loose Ends by Michael Weller, Three Sisters and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Then he was cast opposite Laurie Metcalf in Educating Rita, directed by Jeff Perry, and on the first day of rehearsal he was asked to join the Ensemble officially. Since then, he has acted and directed at Steppenwolf frequently, and most recently acted on Broadway in the Steppenwolf-originated The Minutes by Tracy Letts, directed by Anna Shapiro. He has acted over the years in several Broadway shows (the first being the original production of Fiddler on the Roof, in which he was the first Motel, the Tailor), and many off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway shows. He has also directed in these venues, winning a Tony nomination for The Little Foxes (with Elizabeth Taylor) and an Obie Award for Three Sisters (with Peter Sarsgaard and Maggie Gyllenhaal). He’s appeared in about 300 movies, and on TV in recurring roles in Oz and Homicide. He has written three plays: Orson’s Shadow (which started at Steppenwolf, in the production, directed by David Cromer, that moved to off-Broadway and ran for a little under a year); Uncle Bob (the second production of the play, after its New York premiere); and Booth, which, after its New York premiere played at Writers’ Theater in Glencoe. He was also commissioned by Writers’ Theatre to write the libretto for A Minister’s Wife, a musical adapted from Shaw’s Candida, with music by Josh Schmidt and lyrics by Jan Tranen, which then moved to the Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York. All these works are published and have been frequently produced around the country, and in the case of Orson’s Shadow, in London, and in the case of Uncle Bob, in Paris, translated by Jean-Marie Besset

See you tonight!!

Audrey Francis​ currently serves as Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre, alongside Glenn Davis, where she has been an Ensemble member since 2017. Audrey directed You Will Get Sick in Steppenwolf’s 2024/25 season and POTUS in the 2023/24 season. She has performed on stage in Noises Off, The Thanksgiving Play, The Herd, Between Riverside and Crazy, The Fundamentals, The Doppelgänger (an international farce) and Dance Nation. TV and film credits include Justified: City Primeval, Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, Empire, Perpetrator, Knives and Skin and Later Days. Audrey is an acting coach for NBC, Fox, Showtime and Amazon. She is also the co-founder of Black Box Acting and the co-creator of Steppenwolf’s corporate training program, Steppenwolf IMPACT

Please join us on May 15th to celebrate our great Chicago theatre, Steppenwolf as they go into their 50th year of delivering theatre like no other company on this planet. Steppenwolf 50: Through the Eye of Sandro Miller an Exhibtion exploring my 20 plus years working with the company, expressed with over 100 emotional portraits of the Ensemble. The exhibition takes place at the beautiful Highland Park Arts Center, opens at 5.30 with a jazz performance at 8pm by world renowned Jazz musician, Kahil El Zabar and his band. Join us for an evening of art, music and a gathering of fabulous people. See you there!!

Join us in celebration on May 15th!

Carrie C**n joined the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble in 2019. Steppenwolf: Mary Page Marlowe, Tracy Letts’s adaptation of Three Sisters, The March, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Broadway: Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Tony nomination–Best Featured Actress in a Play; Theatre World Award). Off Broadway: Mary Jane (2018 Lucille Lortel Award, Obie Award, Drama Desk nomination); Placebo (Playwrights Horizons). Film: Gone Girl, The Post, Widows, Avengers: Infinity War, The Nest. Upcoming: Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Television: The Sinner (Critics’ Choice Television Award nomination), HBO’s The Leftovers, FX’s Fargo. She won a Critics’ Choice Television Award for her performance in HBO’s The Leftovers and a TCA Award forIndividual Achievement in Drama for her performances in The Leftovers and Fargo. Upcoming:The Gilded Age.

Swipe for the FINAL…

Gary Sinise is a co-founder of Steppenwolf Theatre Company. He is a three-time Tony Award nominee, twice for acting in Steppenwolf’s productions of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Grapes of Wrath and once for Best Director of Buried Child. His many acting credits at Steppenwolf include A Streetcar Named Desire, The Caretaker, Loose Ends and Balm in Gilead . Gary has also directed some of Steppenwolf’s most notable productions, including Orphans, the Vietnam veteran drama Tracers and Sam Shepard’s True West, which he also performed in with John Malkovich Off Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre and received an Obie award for Best Director. He’s appeared in many films, including Of Mice and Men, Apollo 13, Ransom, Snake Eyes and received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting actor for Forrest Gump. On the small screen, he’s won the Emmy and SAG awards for Best Actor in George Wallace and a Golden Globe and SAG award for Truman. For nine seasons he appeared as Detective Mac Taylor on the CBS hit series CSI: New York.
He plays electric bass in his band, Gary Sinise and The Lt. Dan Band, a program of the Gary Sinise Foundation which he founded in 2011 to serve and honor the needs of active duty military, veterans, first responders and their families. His first book, Grateful American: a journey from self to service was released in February 2019 and is a New York Times Best Seller. Among many awards for his humanitarian work, in 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Citizen Medal, the second highest honor an American can receive.

Swipe for the FINAL…

Francis Guinan has been a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble since 1979. He has appeared in more than 30 Steppenwolf productions including Noises Off, Downstate, The Rembrandt, The Herd, The Night Alive, Tribes, The Birthday Party, The Book Thief, Time Stands Still, Endgame, American Buffalo, Fake, The Seafarer, Balm in Gilead and August: Osage County. He has also appeared in productions for Northlight Theatre, Goodman Theatre (appearing in Chekhov’s The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard), Writers Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, TimeLine Theatre Company and American Blues Theater. Television appearances include The Exorcist, Boss, Mike & Molly, Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, Frasier, and several Star Trek episodes. Film work includes roles in The Last Airbender, Typing, Low Tide, Ghostlight and Constantine. For Kate.

Swipe for the FINAL!!

MARTHA LAVEY, FEBURARY 1957 - APRIL 2017
Martha Lavey became a Steppenwolf ensemble member in 1993 and served as Artistic Director from 1995 to 2015. Under her transformative leadership, Steppenwolf became a national leader in producing new plays and commissioning playwrights, doubled the size of its ensemble and diversified its base of artists, added two performance spaces, expanded and deepened its partnerships in public schools and the community, created Steppenwolf for Young Adults, and instituted a platform for engaging audiences after every performance. She oversaw the production of hundreds of plays and transferred dozens of Steppenwolf productions to Broadway and abroad, gaining national and international recognition for the company and Chicago as a vital theater destination. During her tenure, Steppenwolf was awarded the National Medal of the Arts, the only theater to ever receive the honor, as well as the Illinois Arts Legend Award, Equity Special Award and nine of the company’s 12 Tony Awards. Lavey catapulted Steppenwolf to the forefront of new play development and production with a robust commissioning program that cultivates ongoing creative relationships with some of the most compelling playwrights today.

Read more at Steppenwolf.org

Tracy Letts is a multifaceted award-winning actor and playwright. Letts received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play August: Osage County and a Tony Award for his portrayal of George in the revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He has written the screenplays of three films adapted from his own plays: BUG and Killer Joe, both directed by William Friedkin, and August: Osage County directed by John Wells.
In 2019, Letts was seen portraying Henry Ford II in James Mangold’s Academy Award-nominated racing drama “Ford v Ferrari,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. He also starred in the Academy nominated and critically-acclaimed adaption of Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women.”

Upcoming, Letts will star opposite Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck in the 20th Century Studios thriller “Deep Water.” Letts stars and also penned the screenplay for the film adaptation of A.J. Finn’s best-seller, The Woman in the Window, which he will be released on Netflix later this year.

Letts’ play The Minutes will make its return to Broadway in March 2022. The play, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama, shows the inner workings of a city council meeting in the fictional town of Big Cherry. Other recent stage projects include Letts’ play Linda Vista, which saw a successful limited run at Broadway’s Hayes Theatre in late 2019.

In 2017, Letts appeared in Steven Spielberg’s “The Post” alongside Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep. The film was selected as the Best Film of 2017 by the National Board of Review and nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture and for a Critics’ Choice Award in the category of Best Acting Ensemble.
….Read more at Steppenwolf.org

Tarell Alvin McCraney (he/him) is Artistic Director of Geffen Playhouse. McCraney is best known for his acclaimed trilogy, The Brother/Sister Plays. His script In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue is the basis for the Oscar–winning film Moonlight directed by Barry Jenkins, for which McCraney and Jenkins also won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. He is an ensemble member at Steppenwolf Theatre and a member of Teo Castellanos D-Projects in Miami, a graduate of New World School of the Arts, The Theatre School at DePaul University, and the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Warwick. He is an associate at the Royal Shakespeare Company, London, and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Writers Branch).

Come join us on May 15th!

Joan Allen has been an ensemble member since 1977, where she has performed in more than 25 productions. A few include Reckless, Cloud 9, Three Sisters, A Lesson from Aloes, Balm in Gilead and her personal favorite, …And a Nightingale Sang. Her Broadway credits include: Burn This (Tony Award for Best Actress), The Heidi Chronicles (Tony nomination for Best Actress), Impressionism and Waverly Gallery. Off-Broadway credits include The Marriage of Bette and Boo. She has appeared in more than 20 feature films including Compromising Positions, Peggy Sue Got Married, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Manhunter, Nixon (Academy Award nomination, Best Supporting Actress), The Ice Storm, The Crucible (Academy Award nomination, Best Supporting Actress), The Contender (Academy Award nomination, Best Actress), Pleasantville, Face Off, Yes, The Upside of Anger, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, a cameo appearance in The Bourne Legacy, and A Good Marriage a film version of Stephen King’s novella. Television credits include O’Keefe (Lifetime), The Mists of Avalon (TNT), Without Warning: The James Brady Story (HBO), and All My Sons (PBS). Joan is currently filming a limited series for Apple TV based on Stephen King’s novel Lisey’s Story.

Don’t forget to join us in celebration of Steppenwolf’s 50th year on May 15!

Alana Arenas joined the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble in 2007 and created the role of Pecola Breedlove for the Steppenwolf for Young Adults production of The Bluest Eye, which also played at the New Victory Theater Off-Broadway. Recent Steppenwolf appearances include: Purpose, Marie Antoinette, Tribes, Head of Passes, Good People, Three Sisters and The Brother/Sister Plays. Broadway: Purpose. Other theatre credits include Disgraced (American Theater Company), The Arabian Nights (Lookingglass Theatre Company) and Hecuba (Chicago Shakespeare Theater). Television and film credits include David Makes Man, Canal Street, Crisis, Boss, The Beast, Kabuku Rides and Lioness of Lisabi.

Sphere Design: David Krause