Mellon Foundation Awards Steppenwolf 600K Grant

The trustees of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation have awarded Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company a three-year, $600,000 grant as part of a new initiative to expand the commissioning for the development of new plays for the American stage – while providing audiences greater transparency into the artistic process.

"The Mellon Foundation has been instrumental in supporting the efforts we have undertaken over the past several years to make Steppenwolf a national leader in the creation and development of new work," comments Artistic Director Martha Lavey.  "We deeply value the Foundation's commitment to our common cause of contributing to the national cultural landscape," adds Lavey.

Steppenwolf will utilize the grant to leverage the full potential of its First Look Repertory of New Work and First Look 101.  Since its launch in 2005, Steppenwolf's First Look Repertory of New Work has featured three annual developmental productions of new plays presented in rotation and accompanied by a series of readings, lectures and events around the development of new work.  It is a significant component of the theatre's New Plays Initiative, a program for commissioning and developing new work.  First Look 101 takes enrolled members on a rare backstage journey, allowing them to observe Steppenwolf's new play development process.

"The Mellon Foundation grant will allow us to better integrate our play development process with our existing ensemble of artists and to increase transparency of the process to our audiences," explains Director of New Play Development Ed Sobel.  "Our plan is to create a playwriting residency that will engage four writers over three years to develop work specifically crafted with our ensemble in mind.  In the course of their residency, we will charge these writers with freeing themselves from the customary parameters they may feel bound by when writing on order from a regional theater.  We will ask them to dream big and write big. At the same time, we will develop opportunities for audiences to interact with the development process along the way," adds Sobel.

Steppenwolf's First Look Repertory of New Work has gained both local and national recognition since its inception four years ago. Seven of the twelve plays presented during First Look's first  four seasons have enjoyed subsequent productions at other theaters, including:  Perfect Mendacity and Men of Tortuga by Jason Wells, both produced by Asolo Repertory Theatre in Florida; Butcher of Baraboo by Marisa Wegrzyn produced by 2econd Stage Theatre in New York; 100 Saints You Should Know by Kate Fodor produced by Playwrights Horizons in New York; Spare Change by Mia McCullough produced by Stage Left Theatre in Chicago; Gary by Melinda Lopez produced by Boston Playwrights' Theatre in Massachusetts; and When The Messenger is Hot by Laura Eason produced by 59E59 Theaters in New York.

Committed to the principle of ensemble performance through the collaboration of a company of actors, directors and playwrights, Steppenwolf Theatre Company's mission is to advance the vitality and diversity of American theater by nurturing artists, encouraging repeatable creative relationships and contributing new works to the national canon.  The company, formed in 1976 by a collective of actors, is dedicated to perpetuating an ethic of mutual respect and the development of artists through on-going group work.  Steppenwolf has grown into an internationally renowned company of forty-one artists whose talents include acting, directing, playwriting, filmmaking and textual adaptation.  For additional information, visit www.steppenwolf.org.

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