Photo Flash: First Look at John Mahoney in Steppenwolf's PENELOPE

Steppenwolf Theatre Company continues its 2011/12 season with Penelope by Enda Walsh, directed by ensemble member Amy Morton, playing December 1, 2011 - February 5, 2012 in Steppenwolf's Downstairs Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St. Penelope features ensemble members Ian Barford, Yasen Peyankov and John Mahoney with Scott Jaeck and Logan Vaughn. 

On a sun-scorched island off the coast of Greece, beautiful Penelope awaits the return of her husband from war. Beneath her window, four Speedo-clad men camp in an empty swimming pool, a cock-eyed internment where both provisions and time are running low. Locked in a do-or-die competition to win Penelope's love, they preen and posture and connive in a last ditch effort to cheat a grisly fate. Penelope, the newest play by powerhouse Irish playwright Enda Walsh, is an eloquent, wildly funny riff on life, love and the war at home.

Enda Walsh is an Obie Award-winning playwright and screenwriter whose plays include Disco Pig, The Walworth Farce,The New Electric Ballroom and Chatroom. His 2008 biopic, Hunger, won numerous awards including the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Amy Morton's many Steppenwolf directing credits include Clybourne Park, American Buffalo, Dublin Carol, The Weir, The Pillowman, Love-Lies-Bleeding (also Kennedy Center) and Glengarry Glen Ross (also Dublin and Toronto).

Steppenwolf's 2011/12 season, Dispatches from the Homefront, explores how everyday lives are touched by war. In each of the five plays, war exerts a pressure-sometimes centrally, sometimes obliquely-on the lives of the characters-and moves them to action. The plays are alive with the humor, the tenderness and the urgency of lives struggling to find home.

The production team for Penelope includes: Walt Spangler (scenic design), Ana Kuzmanic (costume design), James F. Ingalls (lighting design) and Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen (original music and sound design). Additional credits include: Erica Daniels (casting), Malcolm Ewen (stage manager) and Christine D. Freeburg (assistant stage manager).

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