Steppenwolf Theatre’s First Look Repertory of New Work is as clever as they come. Not only does the five-year-old program offer selected playwrights a chance to take their scripts through a to-die-for development process (access to the resources of America’s greatest ensemble theater, a full-out staging at the end), it also works as an incubator for patrons. Theater lovers can sign up to be flies on the wall at First Look meetings and rehearsals, learning what goes into preparing a play for its premiere and supplying feedback if anybody asks. Imagine the investment you’d have in the show after an experience like that. Steppenwolf is developing stakeholders as well as art—a cadre of institutional BFFs.
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Still, it would be a little greater yet if more of those new works had come from new playwrights. Of the writers, two are well-established, well-connected old hands who have other high-quality workshopping opportunities at their disposal. Eric Simonson (Honest) is a Steppenwolf ensemble member and Oscar-winning documentarian whose Fake will open Steppenwolf’s main-stage season this fall; Laura Eason (Sex With Strangers) is a Lookingglass Theatre ensemble member with loads of production credits, including a previous First Look stint. Even the relative kid of the bunch—26-year-old Laura Jacqmin (Ski Dubai)—is already plugged in to the national nonprofit network. Her bona fides include a $25,000 Wasserstein Award.
Martin doesn’t know the half of it. Nor is he prepared for the smooth, fierce hardball Guy’s willing to play to protect his story, his book, his success, and his self-created persona.
Sex With Strangers telegraphs its structure, and Olivia and Ethan talk so much. But the telegraphing doesn’t necessarily make it predictable, and the play probably speaks better to a demographic of which I’m not a member. Eason’s play is essentially a chick flick for the stage: the talking is the point.
