Broadway-Bound THE MINUTES, GUARDS AT THE TAJ, BLKS and More Highlight 2017-18 at Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf Theatre Company Artistic Director Anna D. Shapiro and Executive Director David Schmitz announced today the 2017/18 Season. The nation's premier ensemble theater, Steppenwolf celebrates its 42nd season with seven captivating shows - three world premieres and four Chicago premieres - that embrace diversity, compassion and imagination.

"The plays we programmed this season embrace conversations about what American culture is, the stories we tell ourselves and the truths we all share," shares Artistic Director Anna D. Shapiro.

Highlights include Aziza Barnes's ingenious portrait of a day in the life of four young women of color in New York City; the return of ensemble members Francis Guinan and John Mahoney in a beautifully moving play by fast-rising star Jessica Dickey; a dangerous and timely international farce from Matthew-Lee Erlbach, directed by ensemble member Tina Landau; the Chicago premiere of Rajiv Joseph's Guards at the Taj with the original cast - Omar Metwally and Arian Moayed - and director, ensemble member Amy Morton; an offbeat and touching Chicago premiere of an Obie award-winning play from Clare Barron, directed by Jonathan Berry; and Jen Silverman's bold, wickedly funny play The Roommate featuring ensemble members Ora Jones and Sandra Marquez.

As previously announced, ensemble member Tracy Letts's new political play, The Minutes, directed by Anna D. Shapiro, will receive its world premiere production at Steppenwolf before transferring directly to Broadway in spring 2018.

"With plays filled with humor and joy, introspection and irreverence, Steppenwolf Theatre is poised and ready to join the art we make with the moment we are in, and we plan on being a vital, uplifting and humane cultural leader for our city and our country, both of which need us now more than ever," adds Shapiro.

Next season features ensemble members Alana Arenas, Ian Barford, Gary Cole, Audrey Francis, Francis Guinan, Tim Hopper, Ora Jones, Tina Landau, Sandra Marquez,John Mahoney, James Vincent Meredith, Amy Morton, Caroline Neff and newest ensemble member Namir Smallwood.

2017/18 Subscription Memberships are now on sale. Pricing starts at $100; and there are several options available. Subscription Memberships are for audiences who prefer to lock in their seats and dates in advance, while enjoying perks such as easy and free exchanges, ticket discounts and access to seats before the public. For audiences looking for more flexibility with all the perks, Steppenwolf Flex Card Memberships provide six ticket credits for use anytime, to any show. Student, educator and access discounts offered. To purchase, visit Audience Services at 1650 N Halsted St, call 312-335-1650 or visit steppenwolf.org/memberships.

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Steppenwolf Theatre Company's 2017/18 Season:

(All plays, artists and dates are subject to change)

Chicago Premiere

The Rembrandt

By Jessica Dickey

Directed by Hallie Gordon

Featuring ensemble members Francis Guinan and John Mahoney

September 7 - October 22, 2017

In the Upstairs Theatre

When a museum guard decides to touch a famous Rembrandt painting, a remarkable journey across the ages ensues. Spanning centuries of human experience, Jessica Dickey'sThe Rembrandt movingly explores the power of creative expression and the sacrifices we make in the pursuit of love and beauty, reminding us that though our beliefs may die with the sound of our voice, it's the love we share-and the art that love inspires-that finds eternity.

Hailed as a "talent to watch" by the New York Times, Jessica Dickey is an award-winning actor and playwright most known for her play The Amish Project, which opened Off Broadway at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater (Helen Hayes Award, Barrymore Award, among others). The Rembrandt was commissioned and produced (then titled The Guard) by the Ford's Theatre as part of the Women's Voices Festival and was awarded the Stavis Award for Playwriting.

Hallie Gordon is the Artistic Director of Steppenwolf for Young Adults (SYA) and an artistic producer at Steppenwolf. Gordon will direct Taylor Mac's Hir this summer, and has directed several shows for SYA including Monster (currently playing through March 9), George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, The Book Thief, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The House on Mango Street and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, which transferred Off-Broadway, among others.

World Premiere

The Minutes

By ensemble member Tracy Letts

Directed by artistic director Anna D. Shapiro

Featuring ensemble members Ian Barford, Francis Guinan and Tim Hopper

November 9 - December 31, 2017

In the Downstairs Theatre

Steppenwolf's production of The Minutes will premiere at Steppenwolf and then move directly to Broadway in Spring 2018. Remaining casting TBA. The Minutes will mark the fifth collaboration between Shapiro and Letts; and the seventh play by Letts that will premiere at Steppenwolf.

The Minutes, Tracy Letts's scathing new comedy about small-town politics and real-world power, the writer who brought you August: Osage County exposes the ugliness behind some of our most closely-held American narratives while asking each of us what we would do to keep from becoming history's losers.

Tracy Letts is a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright, actor and Steppenwolf ensemble member. He is the author of the plays Linda Vista (running March 30 - May 21, 2017), Mary Page Marlowe, The Scavenger's Daughter, Superior Donuts, August: Osage County (Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award), Man from Nebraska (Pulitzer Prize finalist), Bug and Killer Joe. Also an actor, he received the 2013 Tony Award for Best Actor in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. TV and film credits include Lady Bird, The Lovers, Christine, Elvis and Nixon, The Big Short, HBO's "Divorce" and two seasons as Sen. Lockhart on Showtime's "Homeland."

Anna D. Shapiro is a Tony Award-winning director and Artistic Director of Steppenwolf. She has directed several notable productions at Steppenwolf, including Visiting Edna, Mary Page Marlowe, August: Osage County (2008 Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards), Man from Nebraska and The Motherf**ker with the Hat (also on Broadway, 2011 Tony nomination for Best Director). Broadway credits include Larry David's Fish in the Dark, Of Mice and Men and the Steppenwolf revival of This Is Our Youth.

World Premiere

BLKS

By Aziza Barnes

Directed by Nataki Garrett

Featuring ensemble member Namir Smallwood

December 7, 2017 - January 21, 2018

In the Upstairs Theatre

Some days feel like they will never end. After a morning that includes a cancer scare and kicking her girlfriend out of the house, Octavia decides to have a last turn up with her best friends. In poet Aziza Barnes's ingenious portrait of a day in the life of four young women of color in New York City, BLKS explores the joy and anguish of growing up and out. Riotously funny and magically rendered, Barnes's playwriting debut marks the arrival of a truly original contemporary American voice.

Winner of the 2015 Pamet River Prize, Aziza Barnes's first full length collection, i be but i ain't is from YesYes Books, 2016. They are a Cave Canem Fellow, co-founder of The Conversation Literary Festival and co-host of the podcast, The Poetry Gods. Barnes is a graduate of New York University and participant in the 2016 Ojai Playwrights Conference.

Named in American Theatre Magazine's "One to Watch", Nataki Garrett is the Associate Artistic Director of Denver Center for the Performing Arts, a Company Member at Woolly Mammoth, and co-Artistic Director of BLANK THE DOG PRODUCTIONS (BTD). Most recently for BTD she directed Carolyn Bryant, which focuses on the decades-long silence of the woman for whom Emmett Till was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955. Garrett directed An Octaroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins at Woolly Mammoth, which will be remounted this July.

Chicago Premiere

You Got Older

By Clare Barron

Directed by Jonathan Berry

Featuring ensemble members Audrey Francis and Caroline Neff

January 25 - March 11, 2018

In the Downstairs Theatre

There's a haunted place between where we started and where we need to be that finds the most tender among us-and breaks them open. In You Got Older, Clare Barron's bawdy, irreverent and touching play, Mae, brokenhearted and unemployed, returns home to care for her ailing father and escape the loneliness of a life that just can't seem to get off the ground.

Clare Barron's plays have been produced by Page 73, Woolly Mammoth, Clubbed Thumb and The Bushwick Starr, and will be presented by Playwright Horizons in 2018. She is the recipient of an Obie Award, the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship. Barron was also the co-winner of the inaugural 2015 Relentless Award established in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman for her play Dance Nation.

Jonathan Berry is an artistic producer at Steppenwolf and prolific Chicago director. His Steppenwolf directing credits include Constellations, MeLinda Lopez's Gary for the First Look new play series and A Separate Peace for Steppenwolf for Young Adults. A company member of both Steep and Griffin Theatres, Berry has also directed for many Chicago companies, including Goodman Theatre, Steep, Griffin, Remy Bumppo, Lifeline and The Gift.

World Premiere

The Doppelgänger (an international farce)

By Matthew-Lee Erlbach

Directed by ensemble member Tina Landau

Featuring ensemble members Alana Arenas, Gary Cole, Ora Jones, Sandra Marquez and James Vincent Meredith

April 5 - May 20, 2018

In the Downstairs Theatre

In the dangerous back channels of international resource politics, a wealthy British businessman suffers an untimely accident just before a critical African copper deal is signed. So when his unwitting (and witless) American doppelgänger is thrust into negotiations to avert intercontinental disaster, chaos erupts, leaving us wondering: whose side are we supposed to be on... and who will save Africa? This new American farce is a hilarious, irreverent and timely look at the back-room deals that shape our world and the unlikely cast of characters who make them.

Matthew-Lee Erlbach is an actor and playwright from Chicago and NYC whose plays include the acclaimed solo play, Handbook for an American Revolutionary and Eager to Lose, a Burlesque Farce in Rhyming Verse (Ars Nova). His plays have been developed with The New Group, Vineyard, Ars Nova, MCC and Williamstown, among others. A recipient of the 2017 Humanitas Prize New Voices Award and member of Ars Nova's 2014/15 Play Group, he has written for Showtime's Masters of Sex as well as for Nickelodeon, MTV, WWE and The Huffington Post.

Acclaimed writer, director and teacher, Tina Landau has been a Steppenwolf ensemble member since 1998. Recent work includes directing/conceiving The SpongeBob Musical and ensemble member Tarell Alvin McCraney's Head of Passes (The Public, upcoming at Mark Taper Forum), among others. On Broadway, Landau has directed Tracy Letts'sSuperior Donuts and the revival of Bells are Ringing. For Steppenwolf, she has directed The Wheel, Hot L Baltimore, The Brother/Sister Plays, The Tempest and more.

Chicago Premiere

Guards at the Taj

By Rajiv Joseph

Directed by ensemble member Amy Morton

Featuring original cast members Omar Metwally and Arian Moayed

May 31 - July 15, 2018

In the Upstairs Theatre

India 1648. The dawn will reveal for the first time the extraordinary beauty of the Taj Mahal, built as a tribute to the ruler who demanded its construction. But for two hapless imperial guards, the morning light brings with it an unspeakable task that will shake their faith in God, the empire and their lifelong friendship. This boldly funny and deeply moving play examines the true meaning of beauty and the cost of transcendence in a world that confuses the value of both.

Rajiv Joseph's Broadway play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for drama, and also awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to Guards at the Taj, New York credits include The North Pool (Vineyard Theater), Gruesome Playground Injuries (Second Stage Theatre) and Animals Out of Paper (Second Stage Theatre), among others. He wrote for the Showtime series "Nurse Jackie" and was the co-screenwriter of the film Draft Day, starring Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner.

Amy Morton directed the world premiere of Guards at the Taj at the Atlantic Theater Company in 2015, and returns with the original cast for the Chicago debut. Morton has been an ensemble member since 1997 and directed several Steppenwolf productions including Clybourne Park, American Buffalo, Dublin Carol, The Pillowman, among others. She has performed in more than 30 Steppenwolf productions, including Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (also on Broadway, Tony nomination) and August: Osage County (also at the National Theatre and Broadway, Tony nomination). Currently she stars as Trudy Platt in the NBC drama series Chicago P.D.

Chicago Premiere

The Roommate

By Jen Silverman

Directed by TBD

Featuring ensemble members Ora Jones and Sandra Marquez

June 21 - August 5, 2018

In the Downstairs Theatre

Sharon is Midwestern nice. But to Robyn, her new roommate from the Bronx, that just means nosy and very, very talkative. A comical mismatch leads to a surprising and touching friendship in this new comedy about how early-life choices lead to mid-life challenges and the unexpected rewards of bridging the divide.

Jen Silverman's The Roommate premiered at the Actor's Theatre of Louisville in 2015, and has received subsequent productions at South Coast Rep, Williamstown and SF Playhouse. Additional work includes The Moors, Phoebe in Winter, The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane (Barrymore Award) and Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Boops (Woolly Mammoth). She is a member of New Dramatists, and has developed work with the O'Neill, New York Theatre Workshop, Portland Center Stage, Berkeley Rep and the Royal Court in London. A recipient of the Helen Merrill and Yale Drama Series Awards, she's also a two-time MacDowell Fellow and 16/17 Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellow at the Lark.

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Last season Steppenwolf expanded from a 5-play to 7-play season and with that has expanded the ways in which audiences can experience all the offerings. Steppenwolf Flex Card Memberships include the Steppenwolf Black Card and the Red Card. The Black Card provides six ticket credits that can be used at any time for any production; credits are valid for one year with the option to add on credits as needed. Membership perks include easy and free exchanges, access to seats before the general public, savings on single ticket prices and bar and restaurant discounts for pre- and post-show socializing. The Red Card offers audiences under the age of 30 the option to purchase six ticket credits at a discounted price to use towards any play, anytime.

Steppenwolf's Subscription Memberships allow audiences to lock in dates and confirm seats in advance and receive all the membership perks. Options include 7-Play, 6-Play and 5-Play Subscription Memberships, in addition to discounted Student/Educator Series and Accessible Series.

To purchase a 2017/18 Subscription Membership, visit Audience Services at 1650 N Halsted St, call 312-335-1650 or visit steppenwolf.org/memberships. Single tickets to the 2017/18 will go on sale at a later date.

Located in front of the 1700 Theatre is Steppenwolf's café & bar, Front Bar: Coffee and Drinks. Open daily from 8am to midnight, Front Bar is a creative space to grab a drink, have a bite, or meet up with friends and collaborators, day or night. A morning and evening menu is curated by Chef Chris Pandel, and artisanal coffee and expresso is provided by La Colombe. Functioning as a stand-alone entity, the café & bar also connects to Steppenwolf's existing main building creating an expanded lobby space. Front Bar was developed with consultation from Steppenwolf's friends and neighbors, Boka Restaurant Group (BRG), along with interior designers Karen Herold and Kayce Carter of Studio K and the marketing and design firm Grip. More info at front-bar.com.

Steppenwolf is located at 1650 N Halsted St near all forms of public transportation and is wheelchair accessible. Our parking facility consists of both a covered garage and an open-air lot, located just south of our theater at 1624 N Halsted. Valet parking service ($14 cash) is available directly in front of the main entrance and street and lot parking are also available. For last minute questions and concerns, patrons can call the Steppenwolf Parking Hotline at 312-335-1774.

Committed to making the Steppenwolf experience accessible to everyone, performances featuring American Sign Language interpretation, open captioning and audio description are offered during the run of each play. Assistive listening devices and large-print programs are available for every performance. Steppenwolf has an induction loop on both the main and balcony levels of our Downstairs Theatre and in the 1700 Theatre.More info at steppenwolf.org/access.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company is the nation's premier ensemble theater. Formed by a collective of actors in 1976, the ensemble has grown to 48 members who represent a remarkable cross-section of actors, directors and playwrights who continue to redefine the landscape of acting and performance. Thrilling and powerful productions from Balm in Gilead to August: Osage County-and accolades that include the National Medal of Arts and 12 Tony Awards-have made the theater legendary. Steppenwolf produces hundreds of performances and events annually in its three spaces: the 515-seat Downstairs Theatre, the 299-seat Upstairs Theatre and the 80-seat 1700 Theatre. Artistic programing includes a seven-play season; a two-play Steppenwolf for Young Adults season; Visiting Company engagements; and LookOut, a multi-genre performances series. Education initiatives include Steppenwolf for Young Adults, which engages 15,000 participants annually from Chicago's diverse communities; the School at Steppenwolf for actors; and Professional Leadership Programs for arts administration training. While firmly grounded in the Chicago community, nearly 40 original Steppenwolf productions have enjoyed success both nationally and internationally. Anna D. Shapiro is the Artistic Director and David Schmitz is the Executive Director. Eric Lefkofsky is Chair of Steppenwolf's Board of Trustees. For additional information, visit steppenwolf.org, facebook.com/steppenwolftheatre, twitter.com/steppenwolfthtr and instagram.com/steppenwolfthtr.