Mark Ulrich Joins the Cast of Steppenwolf's NO MAN'S LAND - Playing Through Late August

Steppenwolf Theatre Company will welcome Chicago actor Mark Ulrich to the cast of its revival of Harold Pinter’scelebrated masterwork No Man’s Land directed by Les Waters. Ulrich will step into the role of Spooner, previously held by ensemble member Austin Pendleton, who is leaving the production for personal reasons. No Man’s Land continues through August 20, 2023 in Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Theater, 1650 N. Halsted St. in Chicago. The cast also includes ensemble member Jeff Perry, Jon Hudson Odom and Samuel Roukin.

Single tickets starting at $20 are now on sale at steppenwolf.org or the Box Office at (312) 335-1650. The press opening is Sunday, July 23 at 6 pm.

In the drawing room of his stately Hampstead mansion, the wealthy, aging Hirst hosts his newfound acquaintance, the enigmatic Spooner, for an evening of endless beer, scotch and vodka. The night winds on, the drinks keep pouring and the ground keeps shifting – until two sinister younger men arrive and interrupt the bacchanal. Steppenwolf returns to Harold Pinter’s modern masterpiece: a generational power struggle, a tug of war between expert wordsmiths, a maze of murky meaning. Or perhaps it's just two old English sots waxing nostalgic and waiting for the sun to rise. In No Man’s Land, you can never be certain, and nothing is as is seems. 

The creative team includes Andrew Boyce (Scenic Design), Janice Pytel (Costume Design), Yi Zhao (Lighting Design), Mikhail Fiksel (Sound Design), Courtney Abbott (Fight Choreographer), Gigi Buffington (Company Voice, Text and Dialect Coach), Tom Pearl (Producing Director), JC Clementz, CSA(Casting Director), Laura D. Glenn (Production Stage Manager) and Jaclynn Joslin (Assistant Stage Manager). For full cast and creative team bios, click here.

Performance Details: 

Title: No Man’s Land

Playwright: Harold Pinter

Director: Les Waters

Cast: Ensemble member Jeff Perry (Hirst) with Jon Hudson Odom (Briggs), Samuel Roukin (Foster) and Mark Ulrich (Spooner).

Location: Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Theater, 1650 N. Halsted St., Chicago

Dates: Previews: July 13 – 22, 2023

Press performance/Opening: Sunday, July 23 at 6 pm

Regular run: Tuesday, July 26 – Sunday, August 20, 2023

Curtain Times: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays and Friday at 8 pm; Saturdays at 3 pm & 8 pm and Sundays at 3 pm. Please note: there will be a 2:30 pm performance on Wednesday, August 9; there will not be an 8 pm performance on Wednesday, August 9.

Tickets: Single tickets ($20 - $98) are now on sale at steppenwolf.org and the Box Office at (312) 335-1650. Classic Memberships are on sale for Steppenwolf’s 2023/24 season featuring two world premieres and three Chicago premieres at steppenwolf.org/myseason. Steppenwolf Flex Memberships are also available: Black Card Memberships with six tickets for use any time for any production and RED Card Memberships for theatergoers under 30.

No Man's Land will also feature Pit Seating for a truly up close and intimate theater experience. Pit Seating is a row of temporary seats in front of "Row A," where Steppenwolf's standard theater seating begins.

Accessible Performance Dates:

Open-captioned: Thursday, August 3 at 8 pm and Saturday, August 12 at 3 pm

ASL-interpreted: Friday, August 11 at 8 pm

Audio-described and touch tour: Sunday, August 13 at 3 pm (1:30 pm touch tour, 3 pm curtain)

Mask-required performance: Wednesday, August 9 at 2:30 pm

Artist Biographies:

Harold Pinter (Playwright) was born in London in 1930. He lived with Antonia Fraser from 1975 until his death on Christmas Eve 2008. (They were married in 1980). After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Central School of Speech and Drama, he worked as an actor under the stage name David Baron. Following his success as a playwright, he continued to act under his own name, on stage and screen. He last acted in 2006 when he appeared in Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape at The Royal Court Theatre, directed by Ian Rickson. He wrote twenty-nine plays including The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter, A Slight Ache, The Hothouse, The Caretaker, The Collection, The Lover, The Homecoming, Old Times, No Man’s Land, Betrayal, A Kind of Alaska, One for the Road, The New World Order, Moonlight and Ashes to Ashes. Sketches include The Black and White, Request Stop, That’s Your Trouble, Night, Precisely, Apart From That and the recently rediscovered, Umbrellas. He directed twenty-seven theatre productions, including James Joyce's Exiles, David Mamet's Oleanna, seven plays by Simon Gray (one of which was Butley in 1971, which he directed the film of three years later) and many of his own plays including his last, Celebration, paired with his first, The Room at The Almeida Theatre, London in the spring of 2000. He wrote twenty-one screenplays including The Pumpkin Eater, The Servant, The Go-Between, The French Lieutenant's Woman and Sleuth. In 2005, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Other awards include the Companion of Honour for services to Literature, the Legion D’Honneur, the European Theatre Prize the Laurence Olivier Award and the Moliere D'Honneur for lifetime achievement. In 1999, he was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature. Harold Pinter was awarded eighteen honorary degrees.

Les Waters (Director) is a multi Obie Award-winning and Tony Award-nominated director. Previous shows at Steppenwolf are The Designated Mourner by Wallace Shawn, The Memory of Water by Shelagh Stephenson and Middletown by Will Eno. He has directed on Broadway, Off Broadway and many theatres throughout the U.S. From 2003-11 he was Associate Artistic Director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and from 2012-18 he was the Artistic Director of Actors Theatre of Louisville. He is both the subject and co-author of The Theatre of Les Waters: More Like the Weather, edited by Scott T. Cummings, published by Routledge, 2022.

Jon Hudson Odom (Briggs) MS. BLAKK FOR PRESIDENT, The Seagull, Describe the Night (Steppenwolf Theatre Company) Chicago: Witch (Writers Theatre); Toni Stone, A Christmas Carol (Goodman Theatre); On Clover Road (American Blues Theater) Regional: Ain’t No Mo’, An Octoroon, Botticelli in the Fire, Shipwreck (Woolly Mammoth Theatre); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Denver Center for the Performing Arts); The Magic Play (Actors Theatre of Louisville); Angels in America (Round House Theatre & Olney Theatre Center) TV: Lovecraft Country (HBO), Somebody Somewhere (HBO Max), South Side (HBO Max), Chicago PD (NBC) Film: A Savage Nature, The Year Between, Crafted for Christmas. Five time nominee and recipient of the Helen Hayes Awards. Education: University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Represented by Paonessa Talent and Kaplan Mills Entertainment. 

Jeff Perry (Hirst) is a co-founder of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and has acted and directed in over 40 Steppenwolf productions. Regional: Seagull, Streamers, Time of Your Life, Anna Christie, A Steady Rain. International: The Grapes of Wrath, August: Osage County. Television: Nash Bridges, Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, $1, Dirty John, Inventing Anna, Alaska Daily. Upcoming: Co-Producer The Steppenwolf Theatre Documentary. “I owe my life in art to the guidance of every teacher, artist, student and storytelling colleague I’ve been blessed to share time and space with.”

Samuel Roukin (Foster) makes his Steppenwolf Theatre Company debut. Broadway: Cyrano de Bergerac (Roundabout). International: His Dark Materials, Henry IV 1&2, The Kitchen (National Theatre); Great Expectations (Royal Shakespeare Company); Hamlet (Old Vic); Seven Jewish Children (Royal Court); The Taming of the Shrew (Bristol Old Vic); The Lieutenant of Inishmore (Curve). Film: Happy-Go-Lucky, Bright Star, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Solomon Kane, Equity, A Call to Spy, All Souls, Canvas. Television: Turn: Washington’s Spies, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Counterpart, Pantheon, The Librarians, Salem, The Magicians, The Hollow Crown, Appropriate Adult. Video Game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. Education: Bristol Old Vic, University of Hull.

Mark Ulrich (Spooner) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: The Children (u/s), How Long Will I Cry?, The Book Thief. Chicago: Goodman Theatre, Northlight, TimeLine, A Red Orchid, Marriott Theatre, Writer’s Theatre, Remy Bumppo, Artistic Home, Silk Road Rising, 16th Street Theatre, and Rivendell Theater Ensemble, where he is a proud company member.  Film: Other People’s Heads. Television: Chicago Med, Chicago Justice, Power Book IV.

Accessibility

As a commitment to make the Steppenwolf experience accessible to everyone, performances featuring American Sign Language Interpretation, Open Captioning and Audio Description are offered during the run of each STC production (see dates above). Assistive listening devices and large-print programs are available for every performance and all our spaces are equipped with an induction hearing loop. Our building features wheelchair accessible seating and restrooms, push-button entrances, a courtesy wheelchair and all-gender restrooms, with accessible counter and table spaces at our bars. For additional information regarding accessibility, visit steppenwolf.org/plan-your-visit/accessibility/ or e-mail access@steppenwolf.org.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theater that is home to America’s ensemble. The company began performing in the mid-1970s in the basement of a Highland Park, IL church—today Steppenwolf is the nation’s premier ensemble theater with 49 members who are among the top actors, playwrights and directors in the field. Deeply rooted in its ensemble ethos, the company is committed to equity, diversity, inclusion and making the Steppenwolf experience accessible to all. Groundbreaking productions from Balm in Gilead and August: Osage County to Downstate and Pass Over—and accolades that include the National Medal of Arts and 12 Tony® Awards—have made the theatre legendary. Artistic programming includes a membership series; a Steppenwolf for Young Adults season; and LookOut, a multi-genre performance series. The nationally recognized work of Steppenwolf Education engages more than 20,000 participants annually in Chicagoland communities promoting compassion, encouraging curiosity and inspiring action. While firmly grounded in the Chicago community, more than 40 original Steppenwolf productions have enjoyed success nationally and internationally, including Broadway, Off-Broadway, London, Sydney, Galway and Dublin. 2021 marked the opening of Steppenwolf’s landmark Lefkofsky Arts & Education Center—deepening the company’s commitment to Chicagoland teens and serving as a cultural nexus for Chicago. Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis are the Artistic Directors and E. Brooke Flanagan is Executive Director. Keating Crown is Chair of Steppenwolf’s Board of Trustees.

Steppenwolf’s Mission: Steppenwolf strives to create thrilling, courageous and provocative art in a thoughtful and inclusive environment. We succeed when we disrupt your routine with experiences that spark curiosity, empathy and joy. We invite you to join our ensemble as we navigate, together, our complex world. steppenwolf.org, facebook.com/steppenwolftheatre, twitter.com/steppenwolfthtr and instagram.com/steppenwolfthtr.