The Steppenwolf Scenario: Establishing the habitus of Chicago’s Off-Loop theatre community

Epplett, Shannon

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/101527 Copy

Description

Title

The Steppenwolf Scenario: Establishing the habitus of Chicago’s Off-Loop theatre community

Author(s)

Epplett, Shannon

Issue Date

2018-07-05

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Robinson, Valleri

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Robinson, Valleri

Committee Member(s)

• Graves, Robert
• Pullen, KIrsten
• Hecht, Stuart J.

Department of Study

Theatre

Discipline

Theatre

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Chicago
• Off-Loop
• Theatre
• community
• Steppenwolf
• habitus
• Diana Taylor
• Pierre Bourdieu
• Hull-House
• Hull-House Players
• Jane Addams
• Laura Dainty Pelham
• Anna Morgan
• New Theatre
• Donald Robertson
• Chicago Little Theatre
• Maurice Browne
• Ellen Van Volkenburg
• Kenneth Sawyer Goodman
• Aldis
• Lake Forest Players
• Players' Workshop
• Philistine Theatre
• B. Iden Payne, Chicago Theatre Society
• Chicago Civic Theatre
• Alice Gerstenberg
• Goodman Memorial Theatre
• Thomas Wood Stevens
• Federal Theatre Project, Harry Minturn
• Chicago Negro Unit
• When Chicago Was Young
• Swing Mikado
• Minnie Galatzer
• Actors Company
• Mayor Daley
• A Program for the Arts in Chicago
• Daggett Harvey
• John Reich
• American Repertory Theatre
• Ravinia
• Robert Sickinger
• Paul Jans
• David Mamet
• Hattie Callner
• The Connection
• Paul Sills
• The Compass
• Playwright's Theatre Club
• Sheldon Patinkin
• David Shepherd
• Mike Nichols, Elaine May
• Ed Asner
• Barbara Harris
• Viola Spolin
• Jess Ogden
• Charlotte Carr
• The Game Theatre
• Playwrights at Second City
• Second City
• Bernie Sahlins
• Studebaker Theatre
• Rev. Jim Shiflett
• Body Politic
• Story Theatre
• Byrne Piven
• Joyce Piven
• Community Arts Foundation
• Chicago City Players
• Byron Hildreth
• June Pyskacek
• Lincoln Ave.
• Storefront Theatre
• Stuart Hecht
• Catherine Gleason
• League of Chicago Theatres
• Claudia Cassidy
• Richard Christiansen
• Glenna Syse
• Steppenwolf Scenario
• Shannon Epplett
• collegiality
• ensemble
• Scott Fosdick
• Larry Russo
• Kingston Mines
• Grease
• Gary Sinise
• John Malkovitch
• Laurie Metcalf
• Warp!
• True West
• Balm in Gilead
• St. Nicholas
• Wisdom Bridge
• Victory Gardens

Abstract

This study focuses on the history, development, and structuring elements of Chicago’s Off-Loop theatre community. My research, grounded in Diana Taylor’s concept of scenarios and Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, takes a sociological lens to the historical antecedents and theatrical predecessors of Chicago’s Off-Loop theatre community to find the origins and bases of the qualities which structure the contemporary theatre scene. These qualities; which I identify as community, collegiality, ensemble, hard work, perseverance, small stages, converted spaces, and contemporary and realistic plays; became the dispositions of the habitus that created the Off-Loop theatre scene. Starting in 1969, this scene developed and grew quickly, and within a matter of fifteen years, a motivating mythology – which I term “the Steppenwolf Scenario” – had emerged. This scenario, centered on the story of Steppenwolf Theatre, drives and structures the city’s theatre scene to the present day. The Off-Loop theatre scene began in 1969 with the founding of Body Politic and Kingston Mines theatres, but the conditions and ideas (in Bourdieu’s terminology dispositions) that created the Off-Loop theatre habitus in some cases date to the end of the nineteenth century, and evolved and coalesced slowly over time. This study looks at the history of non-commercial and non-profit theatre efforts in Chicago, breaking it into three eras divided by the World Wars, leading up to the establishment of the Off-Loop theatre scene. In each era, I trace how the dispositions that serve as the basis for Chicago’s Off-Loop theatre habitus became incorporated into the evolving habitus of the city’s theatrical practitioners. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the social, political, cultural, aesthetic and economic conditions had become favorable for Chicago’s alternative theatrical scene (now dubbed “Off-Loop theatre”) to burst into existence. Within a period of fifteen years, this once alternative theatre scene had become hegemonic, due in large part to the well-established habitus and the development of the Steppenwolf Scenario. While the scenario that I identify bears Steppenwolf’s name, this is not a study of Steppenwolf Theatre – rather, it is the story of a theatre community spinning itself into existence over time, and generating a story to perpetuate itself into the future. This study looks at, to use Diana Taylor’s words, “the ghosts, the images, the stereotypes” that constituted the habitus that created the Off-Loop community, and the scenario that subsequently carries the Off-Loop community forward.

Graduation Semester

2018-08

Type of Resource

text

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101527

Copyright and License Information

© 2018 Shannon Epplett

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