Polly Carl Set As Steppenwolf's Playwrights' Center Producing Artistic Director

Steppenwolf Theatre Company is pleased to announce Polly Carl, Producing Artistic Director of the Playwrights' Center of Minneapolis, will join the Steppenwolf staff in the newly-created position of Director of Artistic Development.

"We are delighted to have Polly Carl join the artistic team at Steppenwolf Theatre," comments Steppenwolf Artistic Director Martha Lavey. "In her newly-created position, Polly will be overseeing our new play development efforts and spearheading our work on the artistic initiatives facilitated through our grants from the Duke and Mellon Foundations. These initiatives, dedicated to cultivating a new generation of artists and audiences and creating transparency in the process of new play development, will continue our engagement with audiences in the public square of Steppenwolf. We are honored to be able to welcome a leader of Polly's acumen and experience to Steppenwolf and look forward to the contribution she will make to Steppenwolf and to Chicago," adds Lavey.

Polly K. Carl Ph.D. is one of the nation's foremost experts in the field of new play development. She has served for eleven years at the Playwrights' Center - the last seven as Artistic Director. Under her leadership, the Center has grown from a local playwrights' service organization to a national hub for playwrights, theater artists and theater companies that write, develop and produce new work. Carl has sat on numerous boards, panels and committees including the Steinberg Advisory Committee to select their distinguished playwright award-the Mimi, the NEA Theater panel, the MAP Fund panel, and the board of Ten Thousand Things Theatre. Her Ph.D. in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society with an emphasis on performance theory is from the University of Minnesota.

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 42 artists whose talents include acting, directing, playwriting, filmmaking and textual adaptation. For additional information, visit www.steppenwolf.org.