Directors Phylicia Rashad and Jess McLeod Join Steppenwolf Theatre Company's 2023/24 Season
Exciting additions to the acclaimed theater company's upcoming season.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Aug. 16, 2023
Phylicia Rashad and Jess McLeod will join Steppenwolf Theatre Company2023/24 Season. Rashad, a two-time Tony Award winner, will direct the world premiere ofBranden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Purpose, an epic drama that confronts family, faith and Black American Politics featuring ensemble members Alana Arenas, Glenn Davis and Jon Michael Hill. McLeod, who served as Resident Director of Hamilton Chicago, will helm Steppenwolf’s Chicago premiere ofLarissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play, a skewering comedy about everything right, wrong and woke in America, featuring ensemble membersAudrey Francis and Tim Hopper.
Artistic Directors Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis comment, “A successful production requires an exceptional director, and we’re thrilled to have hired two incredible leaders to helm these projects next year. First, we are ecstatic to welcome the legendary Phylicia Rashad back to Steppenwolf, where she last directed 2018’s The Roommate. Phylicia is an honored friend of the theatre, and we’re looking forward to her partnership with the brilliant Branden Jacobs-Jenkins on his new play. And for our production of The Thanksgiving Play, who better than Jess McLeod, a highly skilled and thoughtful director who brings a passion for social justice and a healthy sense of humor to Larissa FastHorse’s shrewd and biting comedy.”
Classic Memberships are now on sale for Steppenwolf’s 2023/24 season at steppenwolf.org/myseason. Steppenwolf Flex Memberships are also currently on sale: Black Card Memberships with six tickets for use any time for any production and RED Card Memberships for theatergoers under 30. Single tickets for both productions will go on sale at a later date.
About the Productions:
Purpose – World Premiere!
Directed by Phylicia Rashad
Featuring ensemble members Alana Arenas, Glenn Davis and Jon Michael Hill
March 14 – April 21, 2024
In the Downstairs Theater
Press opening: Sunday, March 24, 2024 at 6 pm
For decades, the influential Jasper family has been a pillar of Black American Politics: civil rights leaders, pastors and congressmen. But like all families, there are cracks and secrets just under the surface. When the youngest son Nazareth returns home to Illinois with an uninvited friend in tow, the family is forced into a reckoning with itself, its faith and the legacies of Black radicalism. Rowdy, hilarious and filled with intrigue, Purpose is an epic family drama – a long-awaited world premiere from one of the country’s most celebrated voices.
The Thanksgiving Play – Chicago Premiere!
Directed by Jess McLeod
Featuring ensemble members Audrey Francis and Tim Hopper
April 25 – June 2, 2024
In the Ensemble Theater in Honor of Helen Zell
Press opening: Sunday, May 5, 2024 at 6 pm
Four (very) well-intentioned theatre people walk into an elementary school. The work at hand: a Thanksgiving pageant that won’t ruffle any feathers. What could possibly go wrong? In MacArthur Genius Larissa FastHorse’s skewering and satirical comedy, well, just about everything. Rambunctious, thorny and not altogether politically correct, The Thanksgiving Play serves up the hypocrisies of woke America on a big, family-style platter. Come get ya some.
For information on Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s full 2023/24 Season, visit steppenwolf.org/myseason.
Director Biographies:
Phylicia Rashad
(Director, Purpose) An accomplished actor and stage director, Phylicia Rashad became a household name when she portrayed Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show, a character whose enduring appeal has earned her numerous honors and awards. She has appeared in NBC’s This Is Us, in the popular Fox TV series Empire, in Tarell Alvin McCraney's Peabody Award-winning series David Makes Man on the OWN Network, Diarra From Detroit, The Good Fight, Little America, and The Crossover.
While television was a catalyst in the rise of Ms. Rashad's career, she has also been a force on the stage, appearing both on and Off Broadway, often in projects that showcase her musical talent such as Jelly's Last Jam, Into the Woods, Dreamgirls and The Wiz.
In 2016, Ms. Rashad was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame and received the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Leading Actress in a Play for her performance as Shelah in Tarell Alvin McCraney's Head of Passes at The Public Theater. Ms. Rashad performed the role of the Duchess of Gloucester inRichard II, the 2020 Shakespeare on the Radio collaboration between The Public Theater and New York public radio station, WNYC.
On Broadway, Ms. Rashad has performed in Dominique Morriseau’s Skeleton Crew (Tony and Drama Desk Awards), August: Osage County, Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (a role that she reprised on the London stage), August Wilson’s Gem of The Ocean (Tony Award nomination) and in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline at Lincoln Center. Ms. Rashad received both the Drama Desk and the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her riveting performance as Lena Younger in the 2004 Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in The Sun.
Among Ms. Rashad’s film credits are Creed, Creed II, Creed III, Just Wright, Tyler Perry's Good Deeds, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf and the 2020 release, A Fall From Grace. Recent film projects include Black Box, Soul and the Netflix holiday musical, Jingle Jangle.
Ms. Rashad made her critically acclaimed directorial debut at the Seattle Repertory Theater with August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean. She has also directed Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Our Lady of 121st Street, The Roommate, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (2014 NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director), Immediate Family, Fences, A Raisin in the Sun and Four Little Girls.
Respected in the academic world, Ms. Rashad has served as Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University since May 2021. In February 2023, she was appointed Howard University’s inaugural holder of the Toni Morrison Endowed Chair in Arts and Humanities. Ms. Rashad has conducted Master Classes at many colleges, universities and arts organizations including Howard University, New York University, Carnegie Mellon, The Black Arts Institute of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting and the prestigious Ten Chimneys Foundation. Ms. Rashad also holds the distinction of being the first recipient of the Denzel Washington Chair in Theatre at Fordham University.
Rashad’s commitment to excellence in the performing arts has been recognized by the numerous colleges and universities that have presented her with Honorary Doctorates.
Ms. Rashad has also received countless esteemed awards including the BET Honors Theatrical Arts Award, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre's Spirit of Shakespeare Award and the Inaugural Legacy Award of the Ruben Santiago Hudson Fine Arts Learning Center.
She serves on several important boards including Brainerd Institute Heritage (which is steering the restoration of Kumler Hall at the historic site of Brainerd Institute in Chester, South Carolina) and DADA, the Debbie Allen Dance Academy. Since 2017, Ms. Rashad has been the Brand Ambassador of the National Trust for Historic Preservation African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.
Phylicia Rashad graduated Magna Cum Laude from Howard University and is the mother of two adult children.
Jess McLeod
(Director, The Thanksgiving Play) is a director and social justice advocate specializing in risky new work about America. Steppenwolf: Venus. Chicago: Resident Director, Hamilton; Wolf Play, Hang Man (The Gift); Earth To Kenzie (Lyric Opera of Chicago); Do You Feel Anger?, Fulfillment Center (A Red Orchid); Landladies (Northlight); How We Got On (Haven), Short Shakes! Midsummer (CST), Marry Me A Little (Porchlight). Regional: Radical (IAMA); There’s Always The Hudson (Woolly Mammoth); Pride And Prejudice (Long Wharf), The Great Khan (San Diego Rep); Hype Man (Actors Theatre of Louisville). Jess has developed new plays and musicals at Roundabout, the Atlantic Theatre Company, the O’Neill, Williamstown and Berkeley Rep Ground Floor. She is an NYCLU/Creatives Rebuild Artist-In-Residence; Woolly Mammoth’s BOLD Resident Director; and Co-Chair, with Michael Korie, of the Dramatists Guild Foundation Musical Theatre Fellows Program. www.jess-mcleod.com.
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