Two-time Tony nominee Lois Smith will pack up her cart and clear out as the Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of Mother Courage and Her Children, which opened the 26th mainstage season Sept. 23 (previews begin Sept. 13), ends on Nov. 4.

Ensemble member Eric Simonson directed David Hare's adaptation of Brecht's darkly comic look at a woman struggling to survive in the war torn landscape of the Thirty Years War. The production also stars Robert Breuler as Cook and Sally Murphy as Mother Courage's mute daughter and features original music by T Bone Burnett and Darrel Leonard.

Also in the cast are Sara Antunovich, Eric Aviles, Ian Brennan, Hans Fleischman, Joe Foust, Jesse Geiger, David Gray, Russell Heller, Leonard Kraft, Elizabeth Levy, Michael Macias, Taj McCord, Bruch Reed, Wendy Robie, Nicholas Rudall, John Sierros, Jeff Still, Amy Warren, E. Milton Wheeler, Jay Whittaker and Larry Yando.

Allen Moyer (set), Ken Posner (lights), James Schuette (costumes) and Barry Funderburg (sound) are the designers.

Smith, who will return to Steppenwolf later in the season in The Royal Family, was a Tony nominee for the Steppenwolf productions of The Grapes of Wrath and Buried Child. Murphy and Breuler most recently appeared at the Steppenwolf in the Studio production of Uncle Vanya. On Broadway, she was seen in The Wild Party and he, Death of a Salesman. Simonson, who has directed several other Steppenwolf productions, received an Oscar nomination for On Tiptoe: Gentle Steps to Freedom, a documentary about Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Simonson, (the brother of Playbill On-Line editor Robert Simonson) recently directed a film version of Hamlet starring Campbell Scott.

Tickets are $35 to $50. For more information, call (312) 335-1650 or visit www.steppenwolf.org.

—By Robert Simonson