Theater
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Ensemble theatre born in a basement, now staging some of America's most acclaimed new drama.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago traces how three Illinois teenagers, Gary Sinise, Jeff Perry and Terry Kinney, started staging plays in borrowed rooms in 1974 before landing in an eighty-eight-seat basement under a Catholic school. It follows the choice of name, drawn from Hermann Hesse's novel about a man who can't fit into the world around him, and the arrival of actors like John Malkovich and Laurie Metcalf. Listen for how a 1982 production of Sam Shepard's True West changed how Chicago theatre was seen.
This audio guide was created using AI.