Kate Arrington (Playwright) has been a proud member of The Steppenwolf Ensemble since 2007 where some of her favorite plays include The Violet Hour, The Pain and the Itch, Hot L Baltimore, A Parallelogram, Detroit, Belleville and East of Eden. New York: The Iceman Cometh, Grace, The Wolves, Our Mother's Brief Affair, When the Messenger is Hot, The American Plan, The Qualms, Sexy Saint James, Happy Now? Film and TV: Winning Time, Mare of Easttown, Succession, Ray Donovan, Billions, Abandoned, Brittany Runs a Marathon, Knives and Skin, East New York, Evil, Madam Secretary, Blacklist, The Good Wife. She has two amazing daughters, Sylvie and Mae. This play is for Martha Lavey. And for her mother, Jean Arrington, who at the end of life, published her book.
Terry Kinney (Director) co-founder and acting member of Steppenwolf Theatre. His acting work includes: Balm in Gilead, Orphans, Tracers, The Grapes of Wrath (Tony nomination), and Buried Child on Broadway. Steppenwolf (directing): And a Nightingale Sang…, A Clockwork Orange, A Streetcar Named Desire, Of Mice and Men, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (also Broadway, winner Tony award, Best Revival), and The Violet Hour. Other work: reasons to be pretty (Tony nomination, best play), The Price (Broadway), The Babylon Line (LCT), and Curse of the Starving Class. Film: Fly Away Home, Sleepers, The Firm, Last of the Mohicans, The Little Things, among others. Television: Oz, Good Behavior, Fargo, Billions, Inventing Anna, and recently, The Watcher (Netflix).
Robert Brill (Scenic Design) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: The Well-Appointed Room, The Violet Hour, A Streetcar Named Desire, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Buried Child, A Clockwork Orange. Regional: Goodman, La Jolla Playhouse, Stratford Festival, Center Theatre Group, Old Globe, American Conservatory Theatre, McCarter Theatre, and many others. Broadway: Dancin, Ain't Too Proud (Tony nomination), Thoughts of A Colored Man, Assassins (Tony nomination), Cabaret, Jesus Christ Superstar, Guys and Dolls (Tony nomination), Design for Living, Buried Child and others. Founding member of Sledgehammer Theatre, recipient of the Michael Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration, and member of the design faculty at University of California San Diego. robertbrilldesign.com
Mieka van der Ploeg (Costume Design) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: The Brothers Size (TYA). Chicago credits include designs with Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Court Theater, Writers Theatre, Lyric Opera Unlimited, Lookingglass Theatre, Paramount Theatre, Marriott Theatre, Remy Bumppo, Second City, Redmoon, The Hypocrites, Chicago Children’s Theatre, About Face Theatre, Steep Theatre, Theater Wit, Albany Park Theater Project, and Manual Cinema. Region credits include shows with American Players Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, People's Light, Great Lakes Theater, Children's Theatre of Charlotte, and the Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theatre. She won a non-Equity Jeff award in 2020 for First Love is the Revolution, at Steep Theatre. She is proud to be a member of USA829. @mieka.designs on Insta.
Heather Gilbert (Lighting Design) Steppenwolf Theatre Company credits include Bug (Jeff Award), Dance Nation, MS. BLAKK FOR PRESIDENT, Constellations, A Separate Peace, First Look 2013, The Infidel, Pot Mom. Broadway credits include Parade and The Sound Inside (Drama Desk Award, Tony nomination). Regional credits include Actor’s Theatre Louisville; The Muny St Louis; Goodman Theatre; Center Theatre Group; Studio Theatre; Berkeley Repertory Theatre; Williamstown Theatre Festival; Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Kansas City Rep; Alley Theatre; American Repertory Theater; Magic Theatre; Pasadena Playhouse. Off Broadway credits include Barrow Street Theatre. International credits include Almeida Theatre in London; Singapore Rep; Encuentro Festival Teatro Buendia, Montreal. Additional credits include NEA/ TCG Career Development Grant and the 3Arts Award; Head of Lighting Design at Columbia College Chicago; M.F.A. The Theatre School at DePaul University.
Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen (Sound Design) have created music or sound at Steppenwolf for King James, American Clock (digital production), Lindiwe, The Roommate, Guards at the Taj, The Doppelgänger, The Christians, Visiting Edna, East of Eden and many others since 1987. They have composed music and sound for the Broadway productions of No Man’s Land & Waiting for Godot, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Miracle Worker, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Speed of Darkness; and sound for Sweat, The Price, Larry David’s Fish in the Dark, This Is Our Youth, Of Mice and Men, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Superior Donuts, reasons to be pretty, A Year with Frog and Toad, The Song of Jacob Zulu and The Grapes of Wrath. They have also created music and sound Off Broadway, at many of America’s resident theatres, London’s West End and at several other international venues. Please visit milbomusic.com.
Michael Salvatore Commendatore (Projection Designer) Chicago: It Came From Outer Space (Jeff Award, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre); When Harry Met Rehab (The Greenhouse Theater Center); Let’s Explore! (Chicago Symphony Orchestra); Oresteia (Watts Theatre); Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical (Emerald City Theatre); Oh! Colonizers, Encounter Series (Collaboraction); Little Red Cyrano (Strawdog Theatre) Regional: Arizona Opera, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, TheatreSquared, Spoleto Festival USA, The Public Theater, Portland Stage, Musical Theatre West, Music Theatre Wichita, Boston Lyric Opera, Le Petit Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Gamm Theatre, The Wilbury Theatre Group. Education: MFA in Design, Yale School of Drama. Website: MichaelCommendatore.com
Kristina Fluty (Intimacy Consultant) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: Describe the Night, The Children. Chicago: The 39 Steps (Drury Lane); Mies Julie, Indecent (Victory Gardens); Frankenstein, Top Girls (Remy Bumppo); Cardboard Piano (TimeLine); The Last Match (Writer’s); Spring Awakening (Porchlight); The Sound of Music (Marriott); Private Lives (Raven). Regional: Linda Vista (Center Theatre Group – Los Angeles). Kristina's main creative home since 2003 is Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak, a modern dance company based in Chicago. MA in Dance/Movement Therapy and Counseling, Laban Movement Analyst, Movement Pattern Analyst. Associate Professor of Movement - The Theatre School at DePaul University.
Gigi Buffington (Company Voice & Text Coach) has worked at Steppenwolf Theatre Company as Company Vocal Coach for seven seasons. Steppenwolf: Last Night & the Night Before, Describe the Night, Bald Sisters, Miz Martha, Seagull, King James, BUG, Dance Nation, and many more. Broadway: Between Riverside and Crazy, Grey House, Cost of Living, The Minutes, Clyde’s, Slave Play, Pass Over, Linda Vista, Straight White Men, King Kong Live on Broadway. Off- Broadway: Lucy; Evanston Salt Cost’s Climbing, Catch As Catch Can, Camp Siegfried, Corsicana, On Sugarland, Prayer For The French Republic. International: Downstate (The National), The Merchant of Venice (Venice); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet (with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart), Love’s Labour’s Lost (Royal Shakespeare Company); Regional: The Outsiders; The Devil Wears Prada, The Maids (director), Pericles, Othello. Film: Text Consultant for Spike Lee’s Prince of Cats. Buffington is an Arts Professor at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. AEA, SAG-AFTRA, VASTA.
Christian Parker (Dramaturg) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: debut, Regional: Gulfshore Playhouse, City Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, Sundance Theatre Lab, O’Neill Center, Playwrights Center, New Harmony, Perry-Mansfield, Broadway: Proof, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Spring Awakening, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Off Broadway: Associate Artistic Director, Atlantic Theater Company, 2001-2014, Literary Manager & Dramaturg, Manhattan Theatre Club, 1998-2001, Keen Company, EST, others. Upcoming: untitled Irish play by Dan O’Brien for Lucille Lortel Foundation. Christian is also a Professor of Professional Practice in the Columbia University School of the Arts Theatre Program, where he heads the Dramaturgy concentration. Education: MFA, Columbia University, BA, Middlebury College. Thanks to Terry and Kate. I’m honored.
Jenna Worsham (Dramaturg) Steppenwolf Debut! Regional: Belleville (Pasadena Playhouse); Arrowhead (IAMA); Summer’s Soldier (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Big Black Sun Hats (O’Neill Theater Center, NPC). Broadway: The Heidi Chronicles; The Parisian Woman (Associate Director); Picnic. Off-Broadway includes: At The Wedding (Lincoln Center Theater, NYT Critic’s Pick); Superstitions (The Pool Plays); The Siblings Play (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater); The Climb (Cherry Lane), Agnes (Lesser America/59E59 Theaters, NYT Critic’s Pick); Street Children (Vertigo Theater, NYT Critic’s Pick); Our Town (Pride Plays); Gun Country (A.R.T./New York). Jenna is a Stage Director, Dramaturg, Playwright and Arts Activist. She is the recipient of a Drama League Fellowship, a Jonathan Alper Award (MTC), and a National Directing Fellowship (O’Neill Theater Center).
Christine D. Freeburg (Production Stage Manager) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: Describe the Night, Miz Martha, Seagull, BUG, Wally World, Animal Farm, MS. BLAKK FOR PRESIDENT, La Ruta, Downstate, The Doppelgänger (an international farce), The Minutes, Linda Vista, Constellations, The Flick, John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, The Herd, Airline Highway, The Motherf**ker with the Hat, American Buffalo (also at McCarter Theatre), The Tempest, The Seafarer, The Diary of Anne Frank, after the quake, Cherry Orchard. Chicago: Northlight Theatre, Court Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre, Apple Tree Theatre. Freeburg is the interim Head of Stage Management at The Theatre School at DePaul University. She is happily married to Thom Cox and the proud mother of Joan Marie. For Malcolm.
Kathleen Barrett (Assistant Stage Manager) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: Describe the Night, Miz Martha, Seagull, BUG, Dance Nation, The Great Leap, MS. BLAKK FOR PRESIDENT, The Crucible, Pass Over, Constellations, East of Eden, The Herd, Airline Highway. Chicago: The Steadfast Tin Soldier (2018, 2022), 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (Lookingglass Theatre Company); Groundhog Day, The Secret of My Success (Paramount Theatre); additional work for The Hypocrites, Victory Gardens Theater, Porchlight Music Theatre, Broadway in Chicago. Regional: world premieres of Cambodian Rock Band, A Doll’s House Part 2, Office Hour (South Coast Repertory) and productions with Geva Theatre Center, Florida Repertory Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Mason Street Warehouse. Kat is a graduate of Kalamazoo College in Michigan.