Steep Theatre to Welcome Original Cast of HARPER REGAN for 15th Anniversary Reading

Steep Theatre Company opened its first show, Keith Reddin's Life During Wartime, in early March 2001. On March 7, 2016, the ensemble will celebrate its 15th anniversary with a one-night-only staged reading of Simon Stephens' HARPER REGAN, held in Steppenwolf Theatre's upstairs performance space.

Steep's 2010 production of HARPER REGAN was a landmark production for the ensemble and an iconic example of Steep's daring, powerful, and ensemble-driven brand of theatre.

The reading will feature almost the entire cast from the original production, including Caroline Neff, Kendra Thulin (who won the 2010 Jeff Award for Best Actress for her work in HARPER REGAN), and numerous other Steep ensemble members. A reception with the cast and company will follow the reading.

Steep's U.S. premiere of Simon Stephens' HARPER REGAN was one of the biggest shows in Chicago theatre in 2010, making best of year lists for the Chicago Tribune, TimeOut Chicago, and many others. Harper enjoyed an extended fourteen-week run - selling out every single performance and making it one of the toughest tickets in town in the winter of 2010. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune described the production as "exquisitely directed, gorgeously acted and profoundly moving new show." It was the first of Simon Stephens' plays produced by Steep and began a long and fruitful relationship between the ensemble and the Tony Award winning playwright, who is now Steep's Associate Playwright.

Steep ensemble members Jonathan Edwards (In Arabia We'd All Be Kings, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui), Alex Gillmor (Moment, Motortown), Peter Moore (The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle, Brilliant Adventures), Jim Poole (Luther, The Knowledge), Caroline Neff (Pornography, The Knowledge), Melissa Riemer (Moment, The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle), Julia Siple (Motortown, Moment), and Kendra Thulin (Pornography, Motortown) will be joined by guest artists Dan Flannery and Curtis Jackson.

The reading will be held at Steppenwolf Theatre, upstairs, 1650 N Halsted Ave, Chicago, IL 60614, on Monday, March 7, 2016 at 7:30 pm. General Admission Tickets: $25; Patron Level Tickets: $75. Call (773) 649-3186 or visit www.steeptheatre.com for more information.

Director Robin Witt, a Steep ensemble member, has been at the helm for many of Steep's most successful UK imports, including Simon Stephens' Motortown, Pornography, and HARPER REGAN; Alistair McDowall's Brilliant Adventures, Dennis Kelly's Love and Money; Jez Butterworth's Parlour Song; and Laura Wade's Breathing Corpses. Her HARPER REGAN is still the best-selling show in Steep history and was named one of the Top Ten shows of 2010 by both the Chicago Tribune and Timeout Chicago, and her Breathing Corpses was named one of TimeOut's Top Ten Shows of 2008. Ms. Witt received Best Director Jeff Award nominations for her 2013 Flare Path and 2014 Men Should Weep, both with Griffin Theatre.

Simon Stephens is an award-winning playwright. His early work at the Royal Court includes Bluebird (1998); Herons (2001), Country Music (2004) and Motortown (2006). In 2008 his play HARPER REGAN opened at the National Theatre, and Sea Wall, starring Andrew Scott, played at the Bush. Mr. Stephens then had success with his plays Pornography (2007) and Punk Rock (2009), which won the 2009 Manchester Evening News Award for Best Production. In 2011, I Am the Wind, an adaptation from Jon Fosse's original, opened at the Young Vic. 2012 saw Three Kingdoms performed in London, Tallinnand Munich, Morning at the Lyric Theatre, and a new version of Ibsen's A Doll's House at the Young Vic. In 2014 Mr. Stephens premiered Carmen Disruption at Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. His adaptation of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard also opened at the Young Vic in 2014. Simon's most recent plays include, Songs from Faraway (2015), directed by award-winning Belgian director Ivo van Hove, Heisenberg (2015), and The Funfair (2015), Simon's new version of Ödön von Horváth's Kasimir and Karoline.

His adaption of Mark Haddon's novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won the Tony Award for Best Play in 2015 and the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2013. Other awards include the 2001 Pearson Award for Best Play for Port and the 2005 Olivier Award for Best New Play for On the Shore of the Wide World. Simon has won the Theater Heute's Award for Motortown in 2007, Pornography in 2008 and Wastwater in 2011.

Simon is Artistic Associate at the Lyric Theatre, Associate Playwright at the Royal Court, and Associate Playwright at Steep Theatre. He was also on the board for Paines Plough between 2009 and 2014, and was a Writers' Tutor for the Young Writers' Programme at the Royal Court between 2001 and 2005.

Steep Theatre has become known as a home for hard-hitting, finely tuned ensemble work. With each production, the company has shepherded a growing community of audiences and artists into bold new territories of story and performance. Over the past fifteen years, Steep productions have been named in TimeOut Chicago's Top Ten Shows of the Year list five times, the Tribune's Top Ten List twice, the Tribune's Best of the Fringe list twice, the Sun Times' best of the year list twice, and WBEZ's Top Ten Shows of the Decade. Steep has received 24 Jeff Nominations and has won the 2009 Jeff Award for Best Ensemble, the 2010 Jeff Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the 2011 Jeff Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and the 2015 Jeff Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Steep was named the 2010 Broadway in Chicago Emerging Theatre Award Winner.