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Past News From Steep Theatre
Under the Blue Sky (2011)
"closely observed, carefully built... ideal for Chicago's
intimate and unstinting Steep Theatre... feature[s] some blistering acting"
- Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
"Eldridge...demonstrates he is a master at building heated dramatic encounters between men and women.
And the actors at Steep Theatre...prove they can act the stuffing out of these scenes."
- Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
Highly Recommended!
"nothing short of captivating throughout... Brad Akin directs an extremely talented cast with care and precision."
- Zach Freeman, New City
"the most important, and thought-provoking play I've seen this summer"
- Monica Westin, New City
Jeff Recommended
more information about this show >
Pornography (2011)
Five out of Five Stars!
"an outstandingly compassionate staging...director Robin Witt and a marvelous ensemble capture the joys, terrors and banalities of this modern moment."
- Kris Vire, Timeout Chicago
"a superb young cast...a superbly detailed piece of direction"
- Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
Highly Recommended!
"powerhouse director Robin Witt...and her exceptional actors clearly have a feverish understanding of life's darkness."
- Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
Critic's Choice! Highly Recommended!
"Robin Witt's production for Steep Theatre is so incredibly sharp, with nothing
but smart, clear-eyed performances"
- Tony Adler, Chicago Reader
"the most important, and thought-provoking play I've seen this summer"
- Monica Westin, New City
more information about this show >
Festen (2011)
Four out of Four Stars!
"riveting...the acting is simply extraordinary...must-see"
- Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
Highly Recommended!
"absolutely riveting...gorgeously orchestrated"
- Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
"Four Stars...seething performances...a fine ensemble"
- Timeout Chicago
"Four stars...sure to be a highlight of the season"
- chicagotheaterblog.com
"Highly Recommend...endlessly watchable"
- New City Chicago
"Highly Recommended. The story is raw, and with the excellent ensemble Steep produces, "Festen" is handled extremely well."
- Chicago Stage Style
"Highly Recommended...a riveting ensemble work that builds into riveting ensemble drama...it will hit you hard"
- chicagocritic.com
more information about this show >
David Mamet's Lakeboat (2011)
"endlessly watchable...a superb production...first-rate cast"
- Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune
"hilarious...a rare and rip-roaring revival"
- Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
"This is in fact a play about boredom, the stories we tell ourselves to combat it, and the beauty we miss in the workaday. Don't miss the details, says Mamet's version of Life on the Mississippi. Steep's sharply rendered, deeply lived revival certainly doesn't."
- Kris Vire, Timeout Chicago
"Highly Recommended.....With an all-male cast feasting on the play's unbridled testosterone, Steep Theatre's production is a perfect showcase for why this shoestring company is so highly regarded."
- Brian Hieggelke, New City
more information about this show >
A Brief History of Helen of Troy (2010)
"well crafted, intensely acted, shrewdly cast and frequently moving."
- Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
"agonizing but ultimately powerful...[finds] comedy in Charlotte's misadventures until the pain kicks in in earnest."
- Tony Adler, Chicago Reader
"eliciting gasps and laughs at once...[a] searing production"
- Zac Thompson, Timeout Chicago
"compelling and at times even funny amid all the emotional brutality. And director Joanie Schultz has clearly encouraged her actors to give almost unbearably raw performances. In fact, you might just start to worry for their mental health over a protracted run."
- Hedy Weiss, The Sun Times
Jeff Recommended
more information about this show >
Harper Regan (2010)
Four out of Four Stars!
"exquisitely directed, gorgeously acted and profoundly moving new show at the storefront Steep Theatre...this is one of those great, not-to-be-missed, only-in-Chicago productions."
- Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
Four out of Four Stars!
"It's the kind of play tailor made for Steep's gifted ensemble...Thulin marvelously inhabits the awkward and reticent figure at the piece's center"
- John Beer, Timeout Chicago
Highly Recommended! Harper receives an "outstanding U.S. debut at Steep Theatre." "Under the searing, finely tuned direction of Robin Witt -- who has assembled a large and tremendously impressive cast -- the play feels at once deeply realistic and quasi-hallucinatory."
- Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
"if you're lucky, a flawless play comes along and recalibrates you...Harper Regan is such a play."
- Sarah Terez Rosenblun, centerstagechicago.com
"Steep Theatre's American premiere features finely wrought ensemble acting..."
- Albert Williams, Chicago Reader
"Thulin's bedraggled vulnerability keeps the audience rooting for Harper..."
- Lisa Buscani, New City
Jeff Recommended
more information about this show >
The Hollow Lands (2009)
"an immensely engrossing epic...that could not have been realized on a higher level at any other theater in the city."
- Hedy Weiss, The Sun Times, July 6, 2009
"For a mere 18 bucks at Steep, you get 30 weird characters, 14 intensely committed Chicago actors, 3 hours of entertainment and enough heady contemplation of issues of nascent American identity to last you until July 4, 2109. If not well beyond."
"Director Jonathan Berry and his Steep colleagues approach this epic...with such visual imagination, unbridled enthusiasm, appealing verve...that The Hollow Lands turns out to be quite a distinctive evening of Chicago theater."
- Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune, July 1, 2009
The Hollow Lands is the Chicago Reader's "Critic's Choice"!
"[Korder's] vision of the continent as a violent landscape filled with zealots, con men, thugs, and dupes both capitivates and convinces. Jonathan Berry's scrappy production is distinguished chiefly by the intensity and immediacy of the acting... gripping from start to finish."
- Zac Thompson, Chicago Reader
"time flies with the necessary weight and pace given to each moment and scene. Berry moves the cast of 14 through the intimate space with grace and ease, creating beautiful and detailed stage pictures...The Hollow Lands is a fine display of Steep Theatre's signature ensemble acting"
- Chris Arnold, chicagocritic.com
"Steep Theatre usually mounts terrific ensemble works–this one is an example of how ensemble theatre should work...Steep's new digs are a treat. Storefront theatre shines here."
- Tom Williams, chicagocritic.com
more information about this show >
Parlour Song (2009)
"Jez Butterworth's acid etching of midlife crisis in a cookie-cutter British suburb feels like a cross between a Pinterian comedy of menace and Mike Leigh's portraits ofordinary people enduring the dual burdens of mundane humiliation and existential dread...Robin Witt's deft staging stays on its toes, with fearless, vanity-free performances by the cast."
- Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader
"This very new play—the Chicago premiere is concurrent with its London premiere—is given a first-class production by Steep Theatre at its handsome new space in Andersonville. Alex Gillmor ( Dale ), Julia Siple ( Joy ) and Tim Curtis ( Ned ) are on top of the material and its rhythms under Robin Witt's customarily intelligent direction."
- Jonathan Abarbanel, Windy City Times
"Steep's Chicago premiere features the kind of acting one expects from the company—smart and muscular without turning showy"
- Kris Vire, Timeout Chicago
"Steep Theatre Company has long been a beacon of intriguing, intimate works with fine actors pulling off some the best performances of their careers. Such is the case in their latest endeavor, the Midwest premiere of Jez Butterworth's Parlour Song."
- Michael J. Robbins, Showbiz Chicago
Jeff Recommended
more information about this show >
In Arabia We'd All Be Kings (2009)
JEFF AWARD WINNER: "Best Ensemble"
Timeout's Critic's pick
"An evening with homeless junkies and rough trade probably shouldn't be this good."
"Schultz's blistering production is part of the storefront scene's decade's long tradition of excelling at, as it were, ghetto Chekhov...to single out one cast member would do an injustice to the other ten."
- Christopher Piatt, Timeout Chicago
"...astonishing and redemptive."
"Eleven actors seem to erase everything they've been to become 13 sad survivors drifting through three perfectly pointless days. Authenticity this precise thrills."
- Lawrence Bommer, Chicago Reader
"Excellent ensemble acting under Joanie Schultz's tight direction makes for a powerful drama that'll give you chills. Steep Theatre's production is first-class."
- Tom Willimas, chicagocritic.com
"hilarious, brilliantly agonizing play...an excellent ensemble effort"
- Richard Green, talkinbroadway.com
"Whatever you do, do not miss this play."
- Laurie Grauer, theurbancoaster.com
more information about this show >
Greensboro: A Requiem (2008)
Four out of Four Stars!
"Akin's fluid, minimalist staging allows the ensemble to shine."
- Kris Vire, TimeOut Chicago
Highly Recommended
"...a threnody of sorrow, rage, and regret runs through the script, and Akin's cast captures this still-overlooked dark chapter with grace and power."
- Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader
Jeff Recommended
more information about this show >
Breathing Corpses (2008)
"One of the Top Ten Shows of 2008!"
- Timeout Chicago
"Steep Theatre Company Earns Its Buzz! This is a juicy, tightly packed and exceedingly smart play."
- Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
#2 on Timeout Chicago's "Don't Miss" List
"...in this brisk Steep production, director Robin Witt handles the material.the way British mysteries are best delivered: tart and lively, even with all the dead bodies lying about."
- Christopher Piatt, Timeout Chicago
more information about this show >
Coronado (2007)
The Chicago Tribune, "On The Fringe, Best of 2007"
- Nina Metz
"this is a thriller...[Lehane's] heightened realities work better on stage than film. The Steep production -- in its wonderfully crammed storefront manner --...burrows deep into the psyche."
- Nina Metz, The Chicago Tribune
"So tightly-constructed is Lehane's intricate narrative and so riveting his preternaturally-eloquent personnel that we never lose our way...director Kevin Gladish and his stalwart cast...generate ensemble performance at its most exemplary."
- Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City Times
more information about this show >
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (2007)
Four out of Four Stars! Don't Miss
- TimeOut Chicago
Highly Recommended!
"...one of those red-hot, astonishingly accomplished storefront productions for which Chicago is famous..."
- Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
"cunning staging...smart, fast-moving, hard-boiled burlesque...not to be missed production."
- Kerry Reid, Chicago Tribune
"perfectly clear, thrilling production…not to be missed!"
- Kelly Kleinman, Dueling Critics, 848, WBEZ
"Dazzling swiftly paced spectacle"
- Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City Times
Highly Recommended, Not to be Missed!
"excellent theatre…a marvelous show."
- Tom Williams, chicagocritic.com
NPR's Kelly Kleiman Names Arturo Ui One of the Top Ten Shows of the Decade!
Named to TimeOut Chicago's Ten Most Wanted '07
"the ten we loved the most"
Hedy Weiss of The Sun Times Names Arturo Ui to Her "Things I Really Dug This Year" list.
The Chicago Tribune, "On The Fringe, Best of 2007"
- Kerry Reid
Jeff Nominated "Best Production"
more information about this show >
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