Michael Patrick Thornton & Cyd Blakewell to Star in OBLITERATION at Steppenwolf's 1700 Theatre

On creating this piece, Andrew Hinderaker states, “I’ve loved stand-up comedy my whole adult life. But I’d never attempted to write it—I’m a playwright, not a comedian. Then, a couple years ago, I stumbled upon this quote from the brilliant Phoebe Waller-Bridge: ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you get a lot for free from an audience if you can make them laugh.’ Immediately an idea for a play unspooled in my mind: a fusion of stand-up and theater that would tell the story of two comedians, trying to make sense of a world that’s falling apart, even while their own lives are hanging on by a thread. I wrote the piece for two of my fellow ensemble members of Chicago’s Gift Theatre: Michael Patrick Thornton: an actor/improviser/comedian with whom I’ve collaborated for over a decade; and Cyd Blakewell, an actor and artist I’ve been desperate to work with for years. Our process was simple: I’d write some pages, hoping they would make Cyd and Mike laugh and/or cry. Then they’d read the pages and make me laugh and cry (more a testament to their talent than mine). Over a year, we built the ‘play’ like this, gradually folding an audience into our process. And once we got people in the room, that’s when we realized, holy shit, there’s something here.”