Inside Chicago's innovative Steppenwolf Theatre Company as it marks 50 years

[0:00] Steppenwolf Theatre Company has long been one of the nation's most influential ensemble [0:05] companies, known for the actors it's launched and the groundbreaking work it's produced. [0:10] Now it's marking its 50th season, at a moment of real uncertainty for theaters across the [0:16] country. [0:17] Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown traveled to Chicago for our arts and culture series, [0:22] Canvas. [0:23] JEFFREY BROWN, A production of Dance of Death, a play by August Strindberg being presented [0:30] in a modern adaptation. [0:31] JEFF PERRY, And growing old, it's horrible, but it is interesting, I'd imagine. [0:36] JEFFREY BROWN, For actor Jeff Perry, it's yet another opportunity to do his thing, now 50 [0:42] years on, at the theater company he helped create. [0:45] JEFF PERRY, It feels like wishes fulfilled. [0:50] JEFFREY BROWN, It does? [0:51] JEFF PERRY, Yes. [0:52] JEFF PERRY, A place built of artists, by artists and for artists is an exceedingly rare experiment. [1:00] JEFFREY BROWN, Rare to start. [1:02] JEFF PERRY, Steppenwolf Theater's roots go back to the early 1970s, a group of teenage [1:09] friends in a Chicago-area high school, then at Illinois State University, and then a do-it-yourself [1:15] theater company, co-founded by Perry, Terry Kinney, and Gary Sinise, putting on shows in [1:21] a church basement in Chicago. [1:23] JEFF PERRY, Here's what we thought simultaneously, I think, is the truth. [1:27] We're going to change the face of American theater. [1:29] JEFF PERRY, You tell him that I got a couple projects, he might be incident. [1:36] JEFFREY BROWN, It would become an important incubator of American theater, actors including [1:42] John Malkovich, here with Sinise in a groundbreaking 1984 production of Sam Shepard's True West. [1:48] JEFF PERRY, I never thanked you for saving my life. [1:51] JEFF PERRY, Sinise himself would become best known as Lieutenant Dan in the 1994 film Forrest Gump, [1:58] Lori Metcalf, well-known for her time on the hit series Roseanne, Joan Allen, Amy Morton, [2:05] Martha Plimpton, more recently Carrie Coon, playwrights including Tracy Letts, whose August [2:12] Osage County won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize, and Rajif Joseph and Terrell Alvin McCraney. [2:19] All of them and more, along with several directors, are to this day ensemble members of Steppenwolf, [2:25] meaning they work together in different shows over many years. [2:29] RAYIF JOSEPH, It sounds different every time you do it. [2:32] JEFF PERRY, It sounds different every time you do it. [2:32] JEFF PERRY, And whatever else they do in theater, TV or film, [2:35] they can and do come back to work at Steppenwolf. [2:38] JEFF PERRY, In 2016, as he rehearsed a new play written for his Steppenwolf colleagues, [2:43] Letts told me that the freedom and sense of security that comes with the ensemble approach is priceless. [2:49] LETTS, I can afford to take chances. [2:51] I can afford to make a fool of myself. [2:54] JEFF PERRY, They'll keep you around anyway. [2:55] LETTS, They'll keep me around anyway, and they'll tell me. [2:59] They'll tell me to my face, you didn't get this right. [3:01] JEFF PERRY, Success can be counted in many ways, [3:04] including the number of shows 18 that have transferred to Broadway over the years, winning 14 Tony Awards. [3:11] LETTS, You said your daddy was some sort of reverend, but not like this kind of reverend. [3:17] JEFF PERRY, Among them, Purpose, a Steppenwolf commission, [3:21] which also won a 2025 Pulitzer for playwright Brandon Jacobs Jenkins. [3:26] He told me then what it meant to work directly with the theater company. [3:30] LETTS, I'm designing these, the game board for these incredible artists to, like, [3:34] every night find a new way through the story that might ping differently, create different emotions. [3:39] Everything in this play was sort of inspired by the acting ensemble that emerged from it. [3:43] LETTS, You can't be sneaking up on a man like that when he's fresh out. [3:46] JEFF PERRY, Among the Purpose cast, Glenn Davis, who now has an even more daunting offstage role, [3:52] serving with fellow ensemble member, director and actor Audrey Francis, [3:57] as Steppenwolf's co-artistic directors. [3:59] LETTS, 50 years is a long time to keep a group of 17-year-olds together [4:05] and still performing together and still, you know, liking each other and enjoying being in the room [4:09] together. So that's an accomplishment. [4:10] LETTS, You're getting new generations of 17-year-olds. [4:12] LETTS, Yeah, and then adding new folks. [4:14] LETTS, I think that when Glenn and I took the role on, it was really as we were coming out of the pandemic. [4:19] Why would anyone take on a leadership role of a nonprofit arts organization, in particular, live theater at that time? [4:26] LETTS, The answer, to keep a place that has nourished them and several previous generations [4:32] alive and thriving. But Francis and Davis, who both, in a sense, grew up as theater professionals here, [4:38] face a host of challenges. Steppenwolf, in recent years, greatly expanded its theater and public areas, [4:45] more space to use, but also to fill. And it's not immune from the societal and other changes [4:52] now roiling American theater generally. LETTS, The structural mechanics of doing theater today [4:57] are very difficult. We used to do twice as many shows as we do now. So being able to employ [5:03] the same number of artists becomes more difficult, because you don't have as many shows, you don't [5:07] have as many roles. Those difficulties are all over the place. So we try as best we can to manage those [5:14] and move through them as seamlessly as we can. LETTS, There's also the reality of American politics today. [5:20] Chicago has been one center of the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration. [5:25] Davis and Francis say the theater's core values and programming won't change. [5:30] LETTS, I don't feel necessarily a pressure to program something that is commenting on something [5:36] that's happening right now, because everything is happening so fast. What I do feel is an obligation [5:41] to our city to make sure that we're providing a place that is thoughtful, intentional, can be fun, [5:48] can be challenging. LETTS, The President, The President, The President, The President, [5:52] Every one of these bring up memories. LETTS, The President, The President, The President, [5:55] And so, 50 years on, Jeff Perry and his colleagues are still at it. [5:59] LETTS, The President, The President, It's almost entirely a nomadic profession. [6:03] LETTS, The President, The President, This held the promise, at least, [6:10] of an ongoing family of choice. And it proved, as the years went on, how it really is that. [6:19] LETTS, The President, The President, For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Jeffrey Brown at Steppenwolf [6:27] Theatre in Chicago. LETTS, The President, The President, [6:40] Support journalism you trust. Support PBS News. Donate now, or even better, [6:46] start a monthly contribution today.