Clybourne Park, Three Sisters Set For Steppenwolf's 2011/12 Subscription Season

Steppenwolf Theatre Company is pleased to announce its 2011/12 Subscription Season. Season subscriptions go on-sale to the public on Wednesday, March 2 at 11 am.

Clybourne Park
By Bruce Norris, directed by ensemble member Amy Morton
Featuring ensemble member James Vincent Meredith

Penelope
By Enda Walsh, directed by ensemble member Amy Morton
Featuring ensemble member John Mahoney

Time Stands Still
By Donald Margulies, directed by ensemble member Austin Pendleton
Featuring ensemble members Francis Guinan and Sally Murphy

The March
Based on the novel by E.L. Doctorow
Adapted for the stage and directed by ensemble member Frank Galati
Featuring ensemble members Alana Arenas, Ian Barford, Tim Hopper, Martha Lavey,
Mariann Mayberry, James Vincent Meredith, William Petersen, Yasen Peyankov and Alan Wilder
with Will Allan, Patrick Clear, Stephen Louis Grush, Michael Mahler and Shannon Matesky

Three Sisters
By Anton Chekhov, adapted by ensemble member Tracy Letts
Directed by ensemble member Anna D. Shapiro
Featuring ensemble members Ian Barford, Ora Jones and Sally Murphy

"For Steppenwolf's 2011/12 season, we are exploring what happens when everyday lives are touched by war. In each of our five plays, war exerts a pressure-sometimes centrally, sometimes obliquely-on the lives of the characters," comments Steppenwolf Artistic Director Martha Lavey. "We are moved to engage a conversation about the spectre of war because war is a deep presence in our contemporary life in America. Throughout these stories, war incites a purpose, a deep need in its characters that moves them into action. These dispatches from the homefront are alive with the humor, the tenderness and the urgency of lives struggling to find home," adds Lavey.

Steppenwolf ensemble members currently confirmed for the 2011/12 Season include: Alana Arenas, Ian Barford, Frank Galati, Francis Guinan, Tim Hopper, Ora Jones, Martha Lavey, Tracy Letts, John Mahoney, Mariann Mayberry, James Vincent Meredith, Amy Morton, Sally Murphy, Austin Pendleton, William Petersen, Yasen Peyankov, Anna D. Shapiro and Alan Wilder. Additional casting to be announced.

Subscription Series packages start at $135. To purchase a 2011/12 subscription, contact Audience Services at 1650 N. Halsted, (312) 335-1650 or visit www.steppenwolf.org/subscribe.

The Steppenwolf Theatre Company 2011/12 Subscription Season includes:

September 8 - November 6, 2011
Clybourne Park
By Bruce Norris
Directed by ensemble member Amy Morton
Featuring ensemble member James Vincent Meredith
In the Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre

On two separate afternoons, 50 years apart, a modest bungalow on Chicago's northwest side becomes a contested site in the politics of race. September 1959: Russ and Bev are moving out to the suburbs. They've inadvertently sold the house to the neighborhood's first black family and ignited a community showdown. September 2009: the neighborhood is ripe for gentrification and the house is again changing hands. This time to a young white couple with plans for demolition and a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. In a provocative nod to A Raisin in the Sun, long-time Steppenwolf collaborator Bruce Norris takes a hilarious look at what happens when home becomes a battleground.

Bruce Norris returns to Steppenwolf, where his works include A Parallelogram, The Unmentionables, The Pain and the Itch, We All Went Down to Amsterdam, Purple Heart and The Infidel. An ensemble member since 1997, Amy Morton's many Steppenwolf directing credits include American Buffalo, Dublin Carol, The Weir, The Pillowman, Love-Lies-Bleeding (also Kennedy Center) and Glengarry Glen Ross (also Dublin and Toronto).

December 1, 2011 - February 5, 2012
Penelope
By Enda Walsh
Directed by ensemble member Amy Morton
Featuring ensemble member John Mahoney
In the Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre

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.

January 19 - May 13, 2012
Time Stands Still
By Donald Margulies
Directed by ensemble member Austin Pendleton
Featuring ensemble members Francis Guinan and Sally Murphy
In the Steppenwolf Upstairs Theatre

For photojournalist Sarah Goodwin, happiness is rushing from hotspot to hotspot capturing images of global conflict. When she barely survives a bomb blast in Iraq, she's forced to return home into the care of her long-time lover, James. She's caught off-guard by James's desire for family and by the simple domestic life pursued by Richard, her editor, and his much younger girlfriend, Mandy. Pressed to consider settling into a "normal" life, Sarah must confront her addiction to the drama and chaos of war. From Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies, Time Stands Still is a witty, intelligent look at what happens when ordinary life is refracted through the lens of war.

Donald Margulies received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Dinner with Friends and was a Pulitzer finalist for Sight Unseen and Collected Stories. Austin Pendleton began his artistic relationship with Steppenwolf directing 1979's Say Goodnight, Gracie. His award-winning plays include Booth, Uncle Bob and Orson's Shadow, which premiered in the Steppenwolf Garage. He most recently directed Steppenwolf's Detroit, slated to open on Broadway in fall 2011.

April 5 - June 10, 2012
The March
Based on the novel by E. L. Doctorow
Adapted for the stage and directed by ensemble member Frank Galati
Featuring ensemble members Alana Arenas, Ian Barford, Tim Hopper, Martha Lavey, Mariann Mayberry, James Vincent Meredith, William Petersen, Yasen Peyankov and Alan Wilder with Will Allan, Patrick Clear, Stephen Louis Grush, Michael Mahler and Shannon Matesky
In the Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre

General William Tecumseh Sherman, Uncle Billy to his men, marches 62,000 Union soldiers through lush Georgia countryside. Bearing along both black and white refugees, the march destroys everything in its path, turning home into exile and exile into home. Its epic force forever changes the lives of those caught up in its sweep: a liberated slave, a sheltered daughter of a Southern judge, a pair of Confederate deserters and Uncle Billy himself. The March is a story of momentous upheaval and the limits of courage and love.

E.L. Doctorow is perhaps best known for his novel Ragtime, which was adapted into a feature film and a Tony®-nominated Broadway musical (directed by Frank Galati). He was a Pulitzer finalist for both The March and Billy Bathgate. Tony® Award-winner Frank Galati's many directing credits at Steppenwolf include Endgame, Homebody/Kabul, The Grapes of Wrath and You Can't Take It With You. Other Steppenwolf adaptations include after the quake and Kafka on the Shore.

June 28 - August 26, 2012
Three Sisters
By Anton Chekhov, adapted by ensemble member Tracy Letts
Directed by ensemble member Anna D. Shapiro
Featuring ensemble members Ian Barford, Ora Jones and Sally Murphy
In the Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre

The Prozorov family chafes at the constraints of life in their small provincial town, once a bustling army garrison where their late father served as general. Attempts to shore up their crumbling social status lay bare the larger forces of unrest that will soon engulf them all. Tony® Award-winning ensemble members Tracy Letts and Anna D. Shapiro continue their celebrated collaboration, bringing fresh insight to this classic story of a privileged family's changing fortunes.

Tracy Letts received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony® Award for Best Play for August: Osage County. His other plays include Killer Joe, Bug, Man from Nebraska and Superior Donuts. Anna D. Shapiro received the 2008 Tony® Award for Best Direction for Letts' August: Osage County. Other recent Steppenwolf directing credits include A Parallelogram, Up, The Crucible, The Unmentionables and The Pain and the Itch.

Free post-show discussions are offered after every performance in the subscription season.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago, IL (Martha Lavey, Artistic Director; David Hawkanson, Executive Director) is one of the nation's leading ensemble theatres, producing up to 16 productions each year in its three Chicago theater spaces - including programming dedicated to the development of new plays and theatre for young adults. Steppenwolf's productions have enjoyed success both nationally and internationally, including off-Broadway, Broadway, London, Sydney and Dublin. Formed in 1976 by a collective of actors, Steppenwolf has grown into an ensemble of 43 actors, writers and directors. For additional information, visit www.steppenwolf.org, www.facebook.com/SteppenwolfTheatre and www.twitter.com/SteppenwolfThtr.

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