In 1974, a group of determined, young high school actors started doing plays under the name of Steppenwolf Theatre Company, eventually taking residence in the basement of a church in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago. Thus began their unlikely journey to become one of the most prominent theatre companies in the world. Steppenwolf Theatre Company has changed the face of American Theatre with its innovative approach that blends dynamic ensemble performance, honest, straightforward acting, and bold, thought-provoking stories to create compelling theatre. This is the first book to chronicle this iconic theatre company, offering an account of its early years and development, its work, and the methodologies that have made it one of the most influential ensemble theatres today. Through extensive, in-depth interviews conducted by the author with ensemble members, this book reveals the story of Steppenwolf's miraculous rise from basement to Broadway and beyond. Interviewees include co-founders Jeff Perry, Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney, along a myriad of ensemble, staff, board members and others.

To celebrate 25 years of extraordinary achievement by the legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago, acclaimed photographer Victor Skrebneski has created an impressive photography book featuring historical production highlights and exclusive portraits of America's most gifted ensemble of artists. Steppenwolf at 25 also contains personal essays penned by several notable American authors and playwrights, including Kurt Vonnegut, Sam Shepard, Don DeLillo, Richard Christiansen, Terry Johnson and Charles L Mee.

Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Zindel's brilliant Broadway success. This biting, touching and often wildly funny play probes deeply into the tortured relationship of three sisters whose lives have reached a point of crisis. "In Paul Zindel we seem to have that rarity—a playwright who can write intelligent, sensitive, entertaining plays for a wide public." —Newsweek. "It is funny and fierce and, well, absolutely extraordinary." —Boston Globe. "...he has created three parts that most actresses would trade their souls to play." —Hollywood Reporter. The Story: Their father having deserted them in their childhood, the three Reardon sisters have grown up in a house of women, dominated by their mother, who is only recently dead. But time has erased the tender closeness of girlhood; one sister has married and cut herself off; another has begun to drink more than she should; and the third, after a scandalous incident at the school where she teaches, is on the brink of madness. When the married sister comes to dinner to press the need for committing her sibling to an institution, the simmering resentments of many years burst alive and are exacerbated by the intrusion of a well-meaning but boorish neighbor couple, whose unexpected arrival impels the action towards its shattering conclusion—in which all the pathos, humor and searing honesty of the play combine with overwhelming effect.

Stanley Webber is visited in his boarding house by strangers, Goldberg and McCann. An innocent-seeming birthday party for Stanley turns into a nightmare.The Birthday Party was first performed in 1958 and is now a modern classic, produced and studied throughout the world.

This dark comedy takes place in a seedy motel room outside Oklahoma City, where Agnes, a drug-addled cocktail waitress, is hiding from her ex-con ex-husband. Her lesbian biker friend R.C. introduces her to Peter, a handsome drifter who might be an AWOL Gulf War veteran. They soon begin a relationship that takes place almost entirely within the increasingly claustrophobic confines of her motel room. Peter begins to rant about the war in Iraq, UFOs, the Oklahoma City bombings, cult suicides, and then secret government experiment on soldiers, of which he believes he is a victim. His delusions infect Agnes and the tension mounts as mysterious strangers appear at their door, past events haunt them at every turn and they are attacked by real bugs. Tracy Letts's tale of love, paranoia, and government conspiracy is a thought-provoking psycho-thriller that mixes terror and laughter at a fever pitch.

In the last years of the Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman marched 60,000 Union troops through Georgia and the Carolinas, cutting a 60-mile wide swath of pillage and destruction. That event comes back in this magisterial novel. High school & older.

Who produced the first stage adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz" in 1902-nearly forty years before the movie classic?