Branden-Jacobs Jenkins (Playwright) is a Brooklyn-based playwright and producer and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. Recent theater credits include The Comeuppance (Signature Theatre), Girls (Yale Rep), Everybody (Signature Theatre), War (Yale Rep; Lincoln Center/LCT3), Gloria (Vineyard Theatre), Appropriate (Obie Award; Signature Theatre), An Octoroon (Obie Award; Soho Rep, Theatre for a New Audience) and Neighbors (The Public Theater). He was showrunner, executive producer, and writer for HULU/FX’s drama series, Kindred, based on Octavia E. Butler’s groundbreaking novel. He currently teaches at Yale University and serves as Vice President of the Dramatists Guild council and on the boards of Soho Rep, Park Avenue Armory, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the Dramatists Guild Foundation. Honors include a USA Artists fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, the MacArthur fellowship, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award.
Phylicia Rashad (Director) A two-time Tony Award winner (A Raisin in the Sun and Skeleton Crew), her directing credits include Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Our Lady of 121st Street, The Roommate, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (2014 NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director), Immediate Family, Fences, A Raisin in the Sun, Four Little Girls and Gem of the Ocean. Producing credits include and Ossie Davis’ revival of Purlie Victorious on Broadway and PBS film (KCET-TV) The Old Settler. Ms. Rashad currently serves as Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University.
Todd Rosenthall (Scenic Design) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: Downstate, The Doppelgänger (an international farce), Mary Page Marlowe and many others. Select Broadway: August Osage County (Tony), The Motherfucker with the Hat (Tony Nom), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Of Mice and Men, This is Our Youth, Straight White Men, Linda Vista. International: August Osage County (London, Australia); Nice Fish, Downstate (London); Madama Butterfly, The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Ireland). Exhibitions: Mythbusters: The Explosive Exhibition; International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes, Victoria: T-Rex. Rosenthal also designs in Chicago and at many regional theaters. Awards: USITT Distinguished Achievement, Olivier, Helen Hayes, Ovation, Joseph Jefferson, Michael Merritt. Professor, Northwestern. Graduate, Yale Drama.
Dede Ayite (Costume Design) Two-time Tony award nominated costume designer working in theater, opera and film. She recently designed X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X at The Metropolitan Opera. Ayite, has previously worked at Steppenwolf Theatre Company on Marie Antoinette (2015 Jeff Award). Her select Broadway credits include: Jaja’s African Hairbraiding, Appropriate, Topdog /Underdog and Slave Play. Select Off-Broadway: Hell’s Kitchen, Merry Wives (The Public Theater), Buena Vista Social Club, Days of Wine and Roses (Atlantic). Regional: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Arena Stage and more. Television: Netflix, Comedy Central. Awards: TDF/Kitty Leech Young Master Award, Obie, Drama Desk, Henry Hewes, Lucille Lortel, Helen Hayes, Theatre Bay Area, an Audelco and Jeff Awards.
Amith Chandrashaker (Lighting Design) Steppenwolf Theater Co.: The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington. Chicago: Judgement Day (Chicago Shakespeare). Broadway: Merrily We Roll Along and Prayer for the French Republic. NYCC Encores!: Bring me to Light with Sutton Foster, Dear World, and Once Upon a Mattress. Regional Theaters: Steppenwolf, Chicago Shakespeare, The Geffen, The Huntington. Opera: The Glimmerglass Festival, Houston Grand Opera, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Washington National Opera. Dance: Staatstheater Nuremberg, The Lyon Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet of New Zealand, and The National Dance Company of Wales. He is the recipient of The Drama Desk and Henry Hewes awards; Union Trustee for United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829, IATSE; MFA, NYU Tisch School of the Arts and faculty at The University of Maryland’s School for Theatre Dance and Performance Studies.
Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen (Sound Design) have created music or sound at Steppenwolf for Another Marriage, 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.
Tyrone Phillips (Associate Director) Steppenwolf Theatre Company directing debut. Chicago: Twelfth Night, I,Cinna (Chicago Shakespeare Theater); Fairview (Jeff Nomination), Byhalia, Mississippi (Jeff Nomination), Dutchman (Definition Theatre), An Octoroon (Goodman Theatre/Definition Theatre), The MLK Project (Writers Theatre). Regional: The Royale (American Players Theatre), The Tale of Despereaux (Old Globe, Berkeley Rep). Off Broadway: Trevor, the Musical. Film: America v2.1. Awards: Newcity Stage Hall of Fame (2024), Arts Midwest's Peter Capell Award for Midwestern Creativity & Entrepreneurship (2022), University of Illinois Alumni Association's Diversity & Inclusion Award (2022). Upcoming: An Educated Guess (Definition Theatre), Nat Turner in Jerusalem (American Players Theatre). Education: University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), Shakespeare’s Globe. Tyrone is the Founding Artistic Director of Chicago’s Definition Theatre and a proud member of the NAACP, SAG-AFTRA, and SDC.
Matt Hawkins (Fight Choreography) is a Chicago-based director, actor, fight choreographer and movement director. Awards: five Jeff Awards, seventeen nominations. Education: MFA (directing), The University of Iowa; BFA (acting), Southern Methodist University. He is currently an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame, where he serves as Director of Musical Theatre and Creative Producer of the New Works Lab for the Department of Film, Television and Theatre. He is married to actor/director/documentarian Stacy Stoltz.
Kate DeVore (Vocal Coach) returns to Steppenwolf Theatre Company where she coached a home what howls (or the house what was ravine), POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, Sanctuary City, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and fml: how Carson McCullers saved my life. Kate also happily taught Voice at The School at Steppenwolf for 11 years. She has served as voice and/or dialect coach at Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Lyric Opera of Chicago, A Red Orchid Theatre, Drury Lane, Second City, Piven Theatre Workshop, Theo Ubique, and Chicago Dramatists. Film/TV credits include The Outfit and Ripley. More about her books and coaching services at TotalVoice.net.
Jonathan L. Green (Dramaturg) is the Director of New Play Development for Steppenwolf. Previously Green was the Director of New Works for Goodman Theatre, where his dramaturgy credits included the world premieres of Christina Anderson’s How to Catch Creation, Rogelio Martinez’s Blind Date, Charles Smith’s Objects in the Mirror, and Doug Wright’s, Scott Frankel’s and Michael Korie’s War Paint, as well as works in development by Charise Castro Smith, Octavio Solis, Abe Koogler, Bess Wohl, Paola Lázaro, and Dave Harris. As a director, he has worked with Sideshow Theatre, Steppenwolf, Diversionary Theatre, TheatreWorks, Greenhouse Theater Center, Silk Road Rising, Playwrights’ Center, Chicago Dramatists, and more. Green served as the Artistic Director of Sideshow Theatre Company from 2007-2020, where his directing credits include X, HeLa, truth and reconciliation, Antigonick, The Happiest Place on Earth, and Stupid F**king Bird.
Laura D. Glenn (Production Stage Manager) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: 85+ productions over the past 35 years, most recently POTUS. Chicago: 22 productions between 2002-2016 (Northlight Theatre). Galway International Arts Festival: True West, Orange Flower Water, Purple Heart (Steppenwolf), Better Late (Northlight Theatre). BITE Festival Barbican Center London: The Man Who Came to Dinner (Steppenwolf). Broadway: Buried Child (Steppenwolf). Laura has proudly worked with all 55 Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble members and has been a member of Actors Equity Association for 33 years.
Jaclynn Joslin (Assistant Stage Manager) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: No Man's Land, Last Night and the Night Before, Bald Sisters, King James, Bug, True West, Familiar, Guards at the Taj, BLKS, The Crucible, Between Riverside and Crazy, The Flick, East of Eden. Chicago: The Lion in Winter, Arsenic and Old Lace, Two Trains Running, Othello, Oedipus Rex, The Adventures of Augie March, For Colored Girls, Photograph 51, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, All My Sons, Harvey, The Hard Problem, Blues for an Alabama Sky (Court Theatre); Continuity, The King of Hell’s Palace (Goodman Theatre); Hard Times (Lookingglass Theatre); Roz and Ray (Victory Gardens). Regional: Linda Vista (Center Theatre Group); The Outgoing Tide, Oceanside, 13 Things About Ed Carpolotti, Year Zero (Merrimack Repertory Theatre). Touring: Oklahoma!