STEPPENWOLF THEATRE COMPANY - Key Persons

Alan Wilder

Job Titles:

Company Ensemble Member

Biography Alan Wilder has been a Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble member since 1976 and has appeared in over 70 Steppenwolf productions in Chicago, Dublin, London, Perth, New York, Toronto and Washington, D.C. Steppenwolf (select credits): The Diary of Anne Frank, The Grapes of Wrath, The Caretaker, The Fundamentals, Marie Antoinette, Russian Transport, Fake, The Tempest, The Seafarer, The March, The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Weir, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Alana Arenas

Biography Alana Arenas joined the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble in 2007 and created the role of Pecola Breedlove for the Steppenwolf for Young Adults production of The Bluest Eye, which also played at the New Victory Theater Off-Broadway. Recent Steppenwolf appearences include the Steppenwolf for Young Adults production of Monster, The Fundamentals, Marie Antoinette, Tribes, Belleville, Head of Passes, Good People, Three Sisters, The March, Man in Love, Middletown, The Hot L Baltimore, The Etiquette of Vigilance, The Brother/Sister Plays, The Tempest, The Crucible, Spare Change and The Sparrow Project. Other theatre credits include Disgraced (American Theater Company), The Arabian Nights (Lookingglass Theatre Company, Berkeley Reperatory Theatre and Kansas City Reperatory Theatre), Eyes (eta Creative Arts), SOST (MPAACT), WVON (Black Ensemble Theater) and Hecuba (Chicago Shakespeare Theater). Television and film credits include David Makes Man, Canal Street, Crisis, Boss, The Beast, Kabuku Rides and Lioness of Lisabi. She is originally from Miami, Florida, where she began her training at the New World School of the Arts. Alana holds a BFA from The Theatre School at DePaul University.

Amy Bluhm

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Trustee
Civic Leader

Amy Eshleman

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Partnerships Lead

Amy Morton

Job Titles:

Director

Biography Amy Morton is a director, actor and associate artist at Steppenwolf. She has directed or performed in over 30 plays at Steppenwolf including Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Tony nomination), August: Osage County (Tony nomination), One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (also on Broadway), Hir, Cherry Orchard, The Berline Circle, Three Days of Rain, The Unmentionables, Space, The Royal Family and many others. She has directed Guards at the Taj (both Atlantic Theatre and Steppenwolf), Glengary Glen Ross, Clybourne Park, America Buffalo, The Dresser, The Pillowman, Topdog/Underdog, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Alliance Theatre), Awake and Sing (Northlight Theatre), and many others. Film: Rookie of the Year, 8MM, Falling Down, Backdraft, Up in the Air, Bluebird. Television: Bluebloods, Girls, Homeland, currently on Chicago PD as Trudy Platt. Before joining Steppenwolf, Amy was a member of the Remains Theatre for 15 years.

Anna D. Shapiro

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Sanborn Kilcollin Partner
Ensemble Member
Tony Award - Winning Director

Biography Anna D. Shapiro is a Tony Award-winning director and served as Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre Company from 2014 to 2021, where she remains an ensemble member. She joined the Steppenwolf ensemble in 2005 and was awarded the 2008 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for August: Osage County (Steppenwolf, Broadway, London). She was nominated in 2011 in the same category for The Motherf**ker with the Hat (Public Theater, Labyrinth Theater). Other Steppenwolf directing credits include the world premiere production of The Minutes (also on Broadway); Mary Page Marlowe, Visiting Edna, Three Sisters, A Parallelogram, Up, The Crucible, The Unmentionables (also at Yale Repertory Theatre), The Pain and the Itch (also in New York), I Never Sang for My Father, Man from Nebraska, Purple Heart (also in Galway, Ireland), The Drawer Boy, Side Man (also in Ireland, Australia and Vail, Colorado), Three Days of Rain, The Infidel and This Is Our Youth (which transferred to Broadway). Additional Broadway credits include Of Mice and Men (with James Franco) and Fish in the Dark (with Larry David), and Off Broadway Domesticated (Lincoln Center Theater). She is directing the new Broadway musical The Devil Wears Prada with music by Sir Elton John, lyrics by Shaina Taub and book by Paul Rudnick. Shapiro is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and Columbia. She is a professor in Northwestern University's Department of Theatre.

Anne M. Phillips

Job Titles:

Arundel Way Partner
Member of the Executive Committee
Owner, Managing Director / the Edge Theater

Asheesh Goel

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Trustee
Partner, Co - Head of Government Enforcement Defense and Internal Investigations Group Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Audrey Francis

Job Titles:

Director
Member of the Executive Committee
Trustee
Co - Artistic Director, Ensemble Member

Biography Audrey Francis is an acclaimed actor, director, teaching artist and currently serves as Steppenwolf Co-Artistic Director alongside fellow ensemble member Glenn Davis. In 2009, Francis co-founded the acting conservatory that started with 12 students and within three years, served over 1,000 Chicago artists. She created the original curriculum, The Black Box Method, which is based on and inspired by the Meisner and Viewpoints techniques. After running the company for a decade, Francis and her business partner sold the company. Black Box is still going strong and serving the Chicago community. Audrey Francis attended The School at Steppenwolf in 2004, and since then has been acting professionally in Chicago, working with an array of companies in the storefront and regional theater scene. Audrey became a Steppenwolf ensemble member in 2017 and has performed in 10 productions with the company to date, including The Doppelgänger (an international farce), Dance Nation, The Fundamentals, Between Riverside and Crazy and The Herd. Francis has also been in many acclaimed independent films, namely Knives and Skin, Later Days, Signature Move and the award-winning web series Distant Learners. Her most recent directing credits include Plano with First Floor Theatre that debuted in the 1700 Theater at Steppenwolf, The Invisible Hand at Steep Theatre and the audio play of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter in Steppenwolf's most recent virtual Steppenwolf NOW season. Francis also works as a professional acting coach for Showtime, NBC, Fox and Amazon. She works closely with executive producers, showrunners and directors to provide actors with off-stage rehearsals that bring more of a theatre process to the world of television. She has most recently worked with The Chi, Empire, Patriot, and Chicago PD. She has taught at The University of Chicago, DePaul Theatre School, Loyola, Black Box Acting and The School at Steppenwolf. She has also taught workshops in Los Angeles, Toronto, Sydney and Melbourne.

Austin Pendleton

Biography Austin Pendleton began working with Steppenwolf in 1979, when he directed the Ensemble in Say Goodnight, Gracie, by Ralph Pape. After that he returned to direct Loose Ends (by Michael Weller), Three Sisters, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Then he was cast opposite Laurie Metcalf in Educating Rita, directed by Jeff Perry, and on the first day of rehearsal for that was asked to join the Ensemble officially. Since then he has acted and directed at Steppenwolf frequently, and most recently acted on Broadway in the Steppenwolf-originated The Minutes, by Tracy Letts, directed by Anna Shapiro. He has acted over the years in several Broadway shows (the first being the original production of Fiddler on the Roof, in which he was the first Motel, the Tailor), and many off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway shows. He has also directed in these venues, winning a Tony nomination for The Little Foxes (with Elizabeth Taylor) and an Obie Award for Three Sisters (with Peter Sarsgaard and Maggie Gyllenhaal). He's appeared in about 300 movies, and on TV in recurring roles in Oz and Homicide. He has written three plays: Orson's Shadow (which started at Steppenwolf, in the production, directed by David Cromer, that moved to off-Broadway and ran for a little under a year); Uncle Bob (the second production of the play, after its New York premiere); and Booth, which, after its New York premiere played at Writers' Theater in Glencoe. He was also commissioned by Writers' Theatre to write the libretto for A Minister's Wife, a musical adapted from Shaw's Candida, with music by Josh Schmidt and lyrics by Jan Tranen, conceived and directed by Michael Halberstam, which then moved to the Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center, in New York. All these works are published and have been frequently produced around the country, and -- in the case of Orson's Shadow, in London, and in the case of Uncle Bob, in Paris, translated by Jean-Marie Besset.

Beth Boosalis Davis

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Trustee
Retired Attorney

Brenda Robinson

Job Titles:

Arundel Way Partner
Member of the Executive Committee
Partner

Bruce Norris

Biography Bruce Norris is the author of Clybourne Park, which premiered in 2010 at Playwrights Horizons, New York and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the Olivier, Evening Standard, and Tony Awards for productions at Playwrights Horizons, West End and Broadway. In 2018-2019, his play Downstate was seen at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago and subsequently at the National Theatre, London. Other plays include The Low Road, (Royal Court Theatre, Public Theatre), an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Donmar Warehouse) as well as The Qualms, A Parallelogram, The Unmentionables, The Pain and the Itch, and Purple Heart, all of which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago, where he is an ensemble member. He lives in New York.

Bruce Sagan

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Publisher

Bryan Traubert

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Trustee

Cari B. Sacks

Job Titles:

Arundel Way Partner
Member of the Executive Committee
Civic Leader

Carole L. Brown

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Treasurer of the Executive Committee

Caroline Neff

Caroline Neff (Nina Zarechnaya) is a Steppenwolf ensemble member. At Steppenwolf, she was last seen in Dance Nation, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, You Got OIder, Linda Vista (also at the Taper Forum and Second Stage Broadway), The Fundamentals, The Flick, Airline Highway (also the Broadway production at Manhattan Theatre Club), The Way West, Three Sisters, Annie Bosh is Missing and Where We're Born. Select theatre credits include Lettie (Jeff Award Best Actress; Victory Gardens Theater); Uncle Vanya (Goodman Theatre); A Brief History of Helen of Troy (Jeff Award for Best Actress), The Knowledge, Harper Regan, In Arabia We'd All Be Kings (Steep Theatre); The Downpour (Route 66 Theatre); Port (Griffin Theatre); 4000 Miles (Northlight Theatre) and Moonshiner (Jackalope Theatre). Regional credits include: Peerless (Yale Repertory Theatre). Film and television credits include: The Red Line, Chicago PD, Chicago Fire, Open Tables and Older Children. She can also be seen in recurring roles in the upcoming Let the Right One in, and Three Women, both on Showtime. She is a proud company member of Steep Theatre and holds her BA from Columbia College Chicago.

Carrie Coon

Carrie Coon joined the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble in 2019. Steppenwolf: Mary Page Marlowe, Tracy Letts's adaptation of Three Sisters, The March, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Broadway: Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Tony nomination-Best Featured Actress in a Play; Theatre World Award). Off Broadway: Mary Jane (2018 Lucille Lortel Award, Obie Award, Drama Desk nomination); Placebo (Playwrights Horizons). Film: Gone Girl, The Post, Widows, Avengers: Infinity War, The Nest. Upcoming: Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Television: The Sinner (Critics' Choice Television Award nomination), HBO's The Leftovers, FX's Fargo. She won a Critics' Choice Television Award for her performance in HBO's The Leftovers and a TCA Award forIndividual Achievement in Drama for her performances in The Leftovers and Fargo. Upcoming:The Gilded Age.

Celeste M. Cooper

Job Titles:

Company Ensemble Member

Biography Celeste M. Cooper has been a Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble member since 2018. Steppenwolf: BLKS, The Doppelgänger (an international farce), Familiar, A Doll's House, Part 2. Chicago: Blues for an Alabama Sky, The Hard Problem (Court Theatre); Measure for Measure (Goodman Theatre); Stick Fly (Windy City Playhouse); Never the Sinner (Victory Gardens Theater); Our Lady of 121st Street, Ruined (Eclipse Theatre); Fight 4 Your Life/The Incredible Cece (MPAACT and Stage 773). Regional: For Colored Girls… (Kansas City Repertory); Building The Wall (Curious Theatre Company); The Hammer Trinity (The House Theatre/Adrienne Arsht). TV: Chicago PD, Sense8. Film: Chiraq, Range Runners. Awards: The Phylicia Rashad- Most Promising Actress award (Black Theater Alliance); Best Actress/Range Runners (Twister Alley Film Festival); listed in the NewCity Stage Players magazine as one of the 50 people who really perform for Chicago in 2020. Celeste is also an ensemble member and casting associate with Eclipse Theatre Company. She has a B.A. in Speech Communications & Theatre from Tennessee State University and an M.F.A. in Acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University. In 2014, Celeste won The Phylicia Rashad- Most Promising Actress award from the Black Theater Alliance, in 2019 she won Best Actress for her work in Range Runners at the Twister Alley Film Festival, and in 2020 she was listed in the NewCity Stage Players magazine as one of the 50 people who really perform for Chicago.

Christopher M. Murphy

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Secretary of the Executive Committee

Colette Cachey

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Sanborn Kilcollin Partner
Real Estate Broker @Properties

D. Cameron Findlay

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary / Archer Daniels Midland Company

David E. Mendelsohn

Job Titles:

Arundel Way Partner
Member of the Executive Committee
Partner, Chicago Office

Deborah Quazzo

Job Titles:

Arundel Way Partner
Member of the Executive Committee
Managing Partner / GSV Ventures

Dennis Chookaszian - CEO

Job Titles:

CEO
Member of the Executive Committee
Retired Chairman

Dennis D. Howarter

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Trustee
Retired Partner / PricewaterhouseCoopers

Donna LaPietra

Job Titles:

Emeritus Trustee
Member of the Executive Committee
Executive Producer / Kurtis Productions, Ltd.

Douglas R. Brown

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Civic Leader

Dream Chicago

Job Titles:

Head

Ebs Burnough - Founder, President

Job Titles:

Founder
Member of the Executive Committee
President
Trustee

Elizabeth Ingram

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Trustee
Associate / McCullough

Elliot A. Stultz - SVP

Job Titles:

Assistant Secretary
Deputy General Counsel
Member of the Executive Committee
Senior Vice President
Trustee

Eric Lefkofsky - Chairman, Founder

Job Titles:

Chairman
Co - Founder
Member of the Executive Committee

Eric Simonson

Biography Eric's plays and adaptations at Steppenwolf include Fake, Nomathemba (written with Ntozake Shange and Joseph Shabalala), Carter's Way, Slaughterhouse-five, Honest (for First Look) and most recently, Lindiwe. Other plays include Louder Faster, Bang the Drum Slowly, The Last Hurrah, Work Song: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright (with Jeffrey Hatcher), Moby Dick, The Only Thing and Speak American. Writing credits on Broadway include Magic/Bird, Bronx Bombers and Lombardi. His work has been produced in Japan and throughout the United States at theaters including The Huntington Theatre Company, L.A. Theatre Works, City Theatre of Pittsburgh, The Kennedy Center, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Arizona Theatre Company, Madison Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre and Crossroads Theatre Company. Eric has directed opera across the country and in internationally, but mostly at Minnesota Opera, where he directed premieres of The Grapes of Wrath, the Shining, Silent Night (2011 Pulitzer Prize) and The Fix (libretto also). His production of Steppenwolf's The Song of Jacob Zulu received six Tony® Award nominations, including one for best direction. Television writing credits include film Hamlet (featuring Campbell Scott, for Hallmark), Killing Reagan (NatGeo), and television shows Homecoming (WGA nomination), The Man in the High Castle (both on Amazon) and Swagger (Apple TV). He has directed documentary films featured on HBO, including A Note of Triumph (Academy Award), On Tiptoe (Academy Award nomination), and Studs Terkel: Listening to America (Emmy nomination). Eric had received a 2005 Princess Grace Statue Award for sustained artistic achievement, and is the Artistic Director of DKAF, an Arts Festival he founded in Door County Wisconsin.

Francis Guinan

Biography Francis Guinan has been a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble since 1979. He has appeared in more than 30 Steppenwolf productions including The Herd, The Night Alive, Tribes, The Birthday Party, The Book Thief, Time Stands Still, Endgame, American Buffalo, Fake, The Seafarer and August: Osage County. He has also appeared in productions for Northlight Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Writers Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, TimeLine Theatre Company and American Blues Theater. Television appearances include The Exorcist, Boss, Mike and Molly, Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, Frasier and several Star Trek episodes. Film work includes roles in The Last Airbender, Typing, Low Tide and Constantine. For Kate.

Frank Galati

Biography Frank Galati has been a member of the Steppenwolf ensemble since 1985. Frank won two Tony Awards for his adaptation and direction of Steppenwolf's production of The Grapes of Wrath on Broadway and was nominated for a Tony Award in 1998 for directing the musical Ragtime. Although he is known primarily as a director of epic plays and musicals (Steppenwolf's Homebody/Kabul, Broadway's Ragtime) he is an equally adept actor (Steppenwolf's The Drawer Boy, The Tempest) and adaptor (Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay for The Accidental Tourist.) he directed his adaptation of Murakami's Kafka on the Shore at Steppenwolf in 2008. His productions at the Goodman Theatre, where he was an associate director from 1986-2008, include She Always Said Pablo, The Winter's Tale, The Good Person of Setzuan and Cry the Beloved Country.and Mr. Galati is a professor emeritus in the department of performance studies at Northwestern University. He now is an artistic associate at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida where his adaptation of James Agee's novel A Death in the Family is set to open in April. His adaption of Kafka on the Shore, which premiered at Steppenwolf will open in Zagreb, Croatia on May 22, 2020. Frank is also currently working on a new musical called Knoxville with Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty.

Gary Cole

Biography Gary Cole joined Steppenwolf after appearing in the landmark production of Balm in Gilead in 1985. He last appeared in both the London and Sydney productions of August: Osage County and also appeared off-Broadway in Steppenwolf's production of True West, directed by Gary Sinise. Other Steppenwolf productions include Closer, Sideman, Bang and Tracers. Gary was also a founding member of Remains Theatre Ensemble. Television and Film appearances include Veep, The Good Wife, Mercy Street, The West Wing, Office Space, A Simple Plan, One Hour Photo, Talladega Nights, Pineapple Express, Fatal Vision, Midnight Caller, American Gothic and The Brady Bunch Movie. Gary will star in Steppenwolf's production of Catch as Catch Can, which opens June 2020.

Glenn Davis

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Trustee
Co - Artistic Director, Ensemble Member

Gloria Scoby

Job Titles:

Emeritus Trustee
Member of the Executive Committee

Hart Davis Hart Wine

Job Titles:

Emeritus Trustee
Member of the Executive Committee
Founder - Chairman Emeritus

Helen Zell

Job Titles:

Member of the Executive Committee
Executive Director / Zell Family Foundation

J. Robert Barr

Job Titles:

Emeritus Trustee
Member of the Executive Committee
Retired Partner / Sidley Austin LLP

Jeff Perry - Founder

Job Titles:

Co - Founder

Biography Jeff Perry is a co-founder of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, The School At Steppenwolf, Steppenwolf Classes West, Steppenwolf Films and has acted and directed in over 40 productions. Broadway: The Caretaker, The Grapes of Wrath, August: Osage County. Off Broadway: Balm in Gilead, Tribes, Educating Rita. Regional: Streamers, Time of Your Life, Anna Christie, A Steady Rain. International: The Grapes of Wrath, August: Osage County. Film: A Wedding, Remember My Name, Trial By Fire. Television: Nash Bridges, Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, $1, Dirty John, Inventing Anna. Upcoming: Co-Producer The Steppenwolf Theatre Documentary. "I owe my life in art to the guidance & inspiring sustenance of every teacher, artist, student, and storytelling colleague I've been blessed to share time and space with."