Steep’s Season 12 Opens with ‘Making Noise Quietly’

Steep Theatre Company’s Twelfth Season will begin on Thursday, October 4th, with their production of Robert Holman’s Making Noise Quietly. Mr. Holman’s body of work has served as an inspiration to many of today’s most exciting playwrights, including Steep favorites Simon Stephens (Harper Regan, Pornography) and David Eldridge (Festen, Under the Blue Sky). Steep brings Mr. Holman’s seminal work, Making Noise Quietly, to the Chicago stage for the first time in 23 years. Erica Weiss, Associate Artistic Director of Route 66 Theatre Company and director of their 2011 hit Twist of Water, will be making her Steep directing debut.

Making Noise Quietly will open on the heels of Steep’s stunningly successful production of the U.S. Premiere of Deirdre Kinahan’s Moment, which received rave reviews from critics across the board and has been sold out for its extended nine-week run. Moment has been a fitting close to an enormously successful season for the company, which featured four critically acclaimed, Jeff Recommended productions: David Eldridge’s Under the Blue Sky, Dennis Kelly’s Love and Money, Adam Bock’s The Receptionist, and Moment. Both Moment and Love and Money enjoyed extended runs which played to largely sold-out houses throughout.

Making Noise Quietly debuted in 1987 at the Bush Theatre in London and, more recently, enjoyed a critically- acclaimed revival at the Donmar Warehouse in London in May of this year. This powerful, poetic triptych of plays portrays the subtle and far-reaching consequences of war and the comfort and strength that we can find in the least expected places. Robert Holman’s work has been produced steadily over the last thirty years at some some of England’s most prestigious theaters, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal Exchange Theatre, and the Bush Theatre. Some of today’s most exciting writers, Samantha Ellis, Duncan Macmillan, Ben Musgrave, David Eldridge, and Simon Stephens among them, have cited Mr. Holman’s work as immensely influential. “Every time I read his plays I am turned into a slightly better writer,” Simon Stephens wrote in reference to Holman’s work. In spite of all this, Mr. Holman’s work is rarely produced in the U.S.; in fact, Steep’s production of Making Noise Quietly will be the first production of the work in Chicago since it made its Midwest debut in 1989. His other plays include German Skerries (George Devine Award, 1977), Other Worlds, Across Oka, Rafts and Dreams, Jonah and Otto, Bad Weather, and Holes in the Skin, among others. In 2010, Holman co-wrote A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky, with Eldridge and Stephens.

Director Erica Weiss is a freelance director, new play dramaturg, and the Associate Artistic Director of Route 66 Theatre Company. Last year, she directed Route 66’s World Premiere production of A Twist of Water, which was named one of the top shows of 2011 by the Chicago Tribune, Timeout Chicago and Chicago Theater Beat. Chicago Magazine named it “the best box office hit of 2011”. Along with playwright Caitlin Montanye Parrish, she was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for “Best New Work” for the piece. Ms. Weiss will direct A Twist of Water’s New York Premiere this fall. She also recently directed and conceived “NEXT STOP: A New Chicago Musical” with composer Diana Lawrence and six Chicago playwrights for Route 66 Theatre.

Making Noise Quietly will feature Steep Ensemble Members Patricia Donegan(Love and Money, Book of Days) and Peter Moore (Love and Money, Harper Regan). They are joined by Steep newcomers Craig Cunningham, Nick Goodman, Lorraine Freund, Theo Tongue, and Josh Salt. The production’s Design Team includes Set Designer Stephen Michael Carmody, Lighting Designer Elizabeth Patterson, Costume Designer Alarie Hammock, Jeff Award- winning Sound Designer Christopher Kriz, Props Designer Maria DeFabo, and Stage Manager Lauren Lassus.

Steep Theatre has become known as a home for hard-hitting, finely tuned ensemble work. With each production, the company has shepherded a growing community of audiences and stakeholders into bold new territories of story and performance. Over the years, Steep productions have been named to TimeOut Chicago’s Top Ten Shows of the Year list five times, the Tribune’s Top Ten List once, the Tribune’s Best of the Fringe list twice, the Sun Times’s best of the year list twice, and WBEZ’s Top Ten Shows of the Decade. In six years of Jeff Eligibility, Steep has received 11 Jeff Nominations and has won the 2009 Jeff Award for Best Ensemble (In Arabia We’d All Be Kings), the 2010 Jeff Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Harper Regan), and the 2011 Jeff Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role (A Brief History of Helen of Troy). Steep was named the 2010 Broadway in Chicago Emerging Theatre Award Winner.

Making Noise Quietly runs Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at 8pm from Thursday, October 4th through Saturday, November 10th. Saturday, November 3rd’s performance will be held at 4:00pm. There will be no evening performance on that date. Tickets for the production range from $20-$22. Reservations can be made by calling (866) 811-4111 or by visiting www.steeptheatre.com. Steep Theatre is conveniently located by the Berwyn Red Line stop and is within blocks of the #92, #36, #146, #147, and #151 buses.