The tale of a prep school scandal features the famed company's artistic director/ensemble member Martha Lavey, Stephen Louis Grush, Nick Horst, Mark Minton, Kelly O'Sullivan, John Procaccino, Tim Rock and Kelli Simpkins. Pam MacKinnon directs.
According to Steppenwolf production notes, "Brandon Hardy is brilliant, athletic and charming, the kind of young man that makes St. Joe's Preparatory School proud. When the Ivy League-bound senior becomes the center of a scandal that threatens to destroy his future, his mother must sort fact from fiction."
"Good Boys and True continues our season-long conversation about what it means to be an American," stated Lavey. "Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has set the play in 1980s America, in a world of cultural privilege. The assumption of that environment is that the young boys of St. Joseph's have the same aspirations as their parents: a life in the professions, a marriage and family, a lifestyle of economic privilege. Good Boys and True interrogates what happens when that assumption is inauthentic. What if one does not — or cannot — share the goals of one's parents? What happens to a young man when his own sense of self — however unformed and as-yet mysterious to him — is at odds with the identity his parents and peers assume of him?"
Performances at Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre, in Chicago, will play though Feb. 16, 2008. Opening is Dec. 21.
Playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama who has been regularly produced in recent years. His works include Based on a Totally True Story, Dark Matters and Say You Love Satan. He is also known for his work on the Marvel comic books "Fantastic Four" and "The Sensational Spider-Man." Martha Lavey has been a Steppenwolf ensemble member since 1993, and has been artistic director since 1995. She's appeared in Steppenwolf's Lost Land, The Memory of Water and I Never Sang For My Father, among many other productions.
The creative team for Good Boys and True includes scenic designer Todd Rosenthal, costume designer Nan Cibula-Jenkins, lighting designer Ann Wrightston, sound designer Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen and stage manager Christine D. Freeburg.
Edward Sobel is the dramaturg and Alyson Roux is the assistant director. Jonathan Templeton is the assistant stage manager.
Steppenwolf is located at 1650 N. Halsted. For more information visit www.steppenwolf.org.
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"Committed to the principle of ensemble performance through the collaboration of a company of actors, directors and playwrights, Steppenwolf Theatre Company's mission is to advance the vitality and diversity of American theater by nurturing artists, encouraging repeatable creative relationships and contributing new works to the national canon."
Steppenwolf was founded in 1976 by "a collective of actors, [and] is dedicated to perpetuating an ethic of mutual respect and the development of artists through on-going group work. Steppenwolf has grown into an internationally renowned company of 41 artists whose talents include acting, directing, playwriting, filmmaking and textual adaptation."
Steppenwolf is currently represented on Broadway by Tracy Letts' August: Osage County, which received rave reviews.
Good Boys and True will make its Off-Broadway debut at Second Stage in 2008, in a separate production.
