Steppenwolf Theatre's 25th Anniversary: Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney.

DATE September 20, 2000 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Terry Kinney and Gary Sinise discuss their early years
with the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Steppenwolf Theatre, the acclaimed Chicago company, is celebrating its 25th
anniversary this season, and as President Clinton said when giving the company
a National Medal of the Arts, `Steppenwolf stages edgy, experimental
productions that still manage to attract mainstream audiences. It's an
ensemble company that shuns the star system, and yet it has launched its fair
share of stars.'

Among the company's best-known alumni are John Malkovich, John Mahoney, Laurie
Metcalf and Joan Allen. Today we'll hear from four of the stars who were
shaped by their experiences with Steppenwolf. We'll start with two of the
three founders of the company, Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney. Sinise is the
co-star of such films as "Mission to Mars," "The Green Mile," "Apollo 13" and
"Forrest Gump." Terry Kinney stars in the HBO prison series "Oz" as a prison
administrator. He was also a regular on "Thirtysomething." Gary Sinise went
to high school with the company's third founder, Jeff Perry. Perry met Terry
Kinney in college.

Their first productions were staged in a Unitarian church, but in 1976, when
the company grew to nine members, they moved to the basement of a Catholic
school in Highland Park. I asked Gary Sinise if there was anyone in the
audience when they started.

Mr. GARY SINISE: There were nights where people came. And there were nights
where people didn't come. You know, we actually really did in the beginning
have to do a lot of selling of ourselves to try to get an audience. Here
you've got these, you know, college graduates and college folks that come and
they're down in this basement of a Catholic school. And how are you going to
get people to come? Well, in the early days we did have a man who was helping
us with business and trying to sell subscriptions. And I think maybe we sold
50 subscriptions or 100 subscriptions maybe at the most in the first couple
years. But we would do all kinds of things to try to get audiences in there.
We'd walk in parades, and we had bake sales and try to have, you know,
benefits.

And, you know, in the beginning it was sort of a cool novelty. What's going
on down there? There's these guys that are beating each other up in this
basement, you know? So, you know, for--we can get in and watch it for three
bucks. Let's go, you know? And so it was kind of an interesting novelty.

But as the winter months came along, though, we started to go into, you know,
serious audience emptiness. And I remember there was one show we did called
"Look, We've Come Through." And I think--for that particular show I remember
we did a performance, I think, for maybe two people out of 88 seats. And
there were times where we just didn't have much of an audience, but, you know,
after a while we started getting reviewed by the Chicago Tribune. And some of
the Chicago papers started coming out and watching us. And we started to
actually build an audience, build one to the point where it became clear that
it was time to move into the city.

GROSS: Terry, when Gary was talking about how people would come to watch
people beating each other up in the Steppenwolf company, what did he mean by
that?

Mr. TERRY KINNEY: Well, I mean, one of the theater rules that we completely
ignored was staged violence with the quotation marks around `staged.' We
tended--when there was violence on stage--and there quite often was in our
plays--we found these one-acts that we like to call now the `acts murderer
plays.' It was "Indian Wants the Bronx," plays by Leonard Melfi and Lanford
Wilson and, you know, very bleak, early-'70s plays. And we liked these plays
a lot because they offered great roles for our actors, but there was usually
some kind of violence and despair going on.

And in--it was one of our first four plays, "Indian Wants the Bronx"--Gary and
I beat up our artistic director at the time, H.E. Baccus. He played the
Indian with a lot of makeup, by the way. And we just beat him to a pulp. I
mean, we really didn't mean to. We really loved the guy, but we did it to
each other as well. And the audience truly felt they were in danger sometimes
because we would almost spill into the audience quite often.

And we spent an hour before the show while the other one-act before us was
running improving about 100 yards away where we would--there was this young
kid that liked to hang out at our theater named Michael Unger. And he used to
let us chase him around with knives in the neighborhood, etc. We would
pretend to vandalize the neighborhood. We didn't really vandalize anything,
but we became these kids. We just had a lot of fun playing. And the stage
manager would open the back door to the theater and wave at us when it was
time for the stage lights to come up. And we would sprint that 100 yards
straight on to the stage. And it was, you know, a lot of fun. But we were so
into it that we really did hit each other when we had to hit each other.
We've learned to stop that now in our old age.

GROSS: Why did you want to go so far as to actually hitting each other on
stage as opposed to faking it, theatrically?

Mr. KINNEY: Well, because we hated fake theatrical stuff. I mean, one of
the really visceral reactions we had as a group to seeing the theater that we
were seeing in Chicago was the phoniness of it. And, you know, not to
disparage anyone's work, but at the time we were extremely cocky and
narcissistic youths. And we really felt that we could take it to another
level--realism and hyperrealism. And so we tried to introduce this sort of
filmic dynamic in the technical end. And we also tried to introduce a kind of
a realism that we didn't feel people had seen.

Mr. SINISE: I think, too, there was something that was really developing
between the nine of us in the early days that was a lot about trust and that,
you know, we were smart enough not to do each other real damage on stage, but
also, you know, we knew how to hit each other, how to punch each other where
it's not going to make the guy go to the hospital either, you know? And there
was something about just the trust that was going on between us that was very,
very important and that you could trust somebody to be in control of
themselves on stage enough that they could make it look really good but that
you weren't going to get, you know, seriously injured or something like that.
I--you know, we did have our cuts and bruises, but--in fact, there was one
night I closed a knife on my finger and had to get four or five stitches after
the play. The play went on and I just wrapped my finger up in some dirty
newspaper that was laying on the ground and carried on with the play.

So we got a little crazy, but we also really trusted each other on stage. And
that was an important ingredient. You can't just have actors go wild without
any sense of what's going on out there. And we always did have a good sense
of how far we could go and what we could do and how far we could push each
other.

GROSS: In those early day when there were times when no one showed up or a
couple of people showed up, would the show go on anyways? And if it did,
would you put as much into it as if it were a full house?

Mr. KINNEY: Yeah, absolutely, we did. The show always went on if they
wanted it to. I remember we did a musical. And it was a big mistake. It was
called "Mac, Anything Goes Over the Rainbow(ph)," which was music by Harold
Arlen, Kurt Weill and who's the third one, Gary?

Mr. SINISE: Cole Porter.

Mr. KINNEY: And Cole Porter, I'm sorry. And so it was sort of a cabaret
show in which, again, the artistic director, H.E. Baccus, felt that it would
be interesting to have non-singers singing these songs because they were, you
know, songs to be acted. And we acted them badly and we sang them badly in
gray turtlenecks and gray--no, black turtlenecks and gray polyester pants.
They all matched. And it was a bad idea.

Mr. SINISE: From Kmart, by the way.

Mr. KINNEY: From Kmart, and they were quite inexpensive. We had, as
somebody said, a budget in the tens of dollars back then. So one night there
were two people there sitting in the audience, an elderly couple. And we were
all peaking around the curtain saying, `Oh, gosh, I wonder--I hope they stay.
And, you know, I wonder if anyone else will show up,' but no one did, so we
went out. We walked out on stage, and we said, `Well, you're the only people
here. Would it embarrass you to have us do the show?' And they said, `Oh,
gosh, no. It's like a command performance. We'd be pleased to have you do
your show.' So we did it. I mean, we did it full throttle because these two
very grateful people were sitting out there beaming at us the entire time.

GROSS: Did you get a standing ovation?

Mr. KINNEY: No, I don't believe so. They just sat and clapped at the end.

Mr. SINISE: `Well, thank you.'

Mr. KINNEY: `Thanks very much. Good luck to you kids.'

GROSS: My guests are Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney, two of the three founding
members of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. More after a break.
This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guests are Gary Sinise and Terry
Kinney, two of the three founders of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in
Chicago. And Steppenwolf is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Terry, so when Steppenwolf got together and there were nine players, were you
all about the same age?

Mr. KINNEY: Yeah, we were basically all the same age. We had mostly just
graduated. We were in the range of 22, 23 years old, all of us.

GROSS: So did you have to impersonate older people, if there were older
people in your show?

Mr. KINNEY: Oh, yeah. We were the world's worst makeup artists, but, -you
know, we played all varieties of age. And I remember I did--well, it was not
in the first year but when I played the king in "Exit the King"...

Mr. SINISE: Yes.

Mr. KINNEY: ...I did the worst makeup you've ever seen in your life. I
mean, we drew lines on our foreheads and, you know, made jowls with eyebrow
pencils and, you know, kind of rubbed dark stuff on our eyelids and stippled
on things, you know, to make our skin look older and talked in old voices.

GROSS: Did it ever occur to you to invite actors who were older into the
company?

Mr. KINNEY: Never.

Mr. SINISE: No.

GROSS: Why not?

Mr. KINNEY: Well, like I said, we were com--we lived in a vacuum, in a way.
We didn't know anybody except each other. Most of us worked in the same areas
in the daytime so that we could support ourselves. We--most of us worked at
this mall called Northbrook Court Mall, which I understand is quite a booming,
successful mall now. Well, at the time it was like a ghost town. And Gary
worked on a loading dock there at Neiman Marcus, and I worked at a clothing
store. And Jeff Perry worked in an egg roll factory sometimes. And, you
know, the other people were kind of spread around there doing office jobs,
etc. And at night we built sets and we rehearsed. And we actually built the
theater when we first started by night before we would rehearse. And we just
didn't know how to ask anybody to be in a play--not for a few years at least.
In 1978, we did invite someone to come play Amanda Wingfield for us, who was a
local Highland Park woman who did a remarkable job in the play, but that was
the first time we'd gone outside.

GROSS: Steppenwolf was, especially in the early days, it's probably fair to
say, a very close-knit company and very much like a family, though often,
probably, very much like a dysfunctional family. And I think, you know,
actors had affairs with each other. Some actors married each other within the
company. Is it possible to know the people you're working with so well that
it might interfere with your ability to act with each other, to really become
different people with each other?

Mr. KINNEY: Gary and I talked about this earlier today, actually. We could
do a major expose of all the affairs in the company. Well--and again, we were
a group of people living in a town which was a suburb of Chicago, so it was
mostly people older than us and settled and married with children and then
high school kids and grade school kids--so nobody of post-college age. That
being said, we all became embroiled in many, many ways, you know? There were
lots of switching of relationships and broken hearts and friendships that
needed to sort of, like, mend for a long time. Somehow we always got the work
on stage to, I guess, I would have to say, transcend that. Maybe it was
because of it that there was such energy on stage.

But there was always a great deal of loyalty to the cause, which was to put on
this great theater and, hopefully, have somebody recognize the fact that we
were doing great theater. So no matter how we felt personally, there was
always a lot of peer pressure to get over it and move on.

And so, yeah, we did that. We feuded. And our company meetings were the most
remarkably dysfunctional thing you could ever see, screaming and yelling. And
we even had the police show up once because it was--we got along in these
groups. We were like a tribe of cave people. But somehow we would get on
stage, and the space between the actors would always be full.

GROSS: I think the company wanted to be very non-hierarchical. How much
power does a director have in a company that's trying to not have any
hierarchies? Does it inhibit the ability of the director to direct?

Mr. KINNEY: That was always something very clear in our company. There were
leader figures, people with ideas, people with plays to bring in and direct,
people with administrative ideas, and there were people that acted in plays.
There was always friction about, you know, who should have power and who does
have power, etc., again, in the company meeting situation. But the leader
figures always remained the leader figures. And there was never any
proletariat that was very real. There was a hierarchy.

GROSS: Terry, you once resigned in protest or in anger--I'm not sure of what
the circumstances were--and then you decided you wanted to go back into the
Steppenwolf company, and the members of the company had to vote to decide
whether to let you come back. What was that about? Why did you resign and
then why did you decide you wanted to come back in?

Mr. KINNEY: Oh, gosh, who have you been talking to?

Mr. SINISE: It wasn't me.

Mr. KINNEY: No, no. Well, I think I resigned over the fact that I was
breaking up with a girl. I was very upset and the current executive
director--we had so many that we considered doing a benefit where we chained
them all together and paraded them across the front of the stage. No. But
the current guy had this plan where we would clean out an entire crawl space
of all the stuff that was in there. And it was in there before we ever came
into this church basement--clean it out and then assign bathroom duties, you
know, and I think I got assigned the first bathroom duty. And I said, `Well,
I'll clean the toilet every day but not by assignment.' You know, this was
where I--the proletariat was important to me.

And I think I quit in protest, but it was probably some personal problem that
I was having. I left for a while. And then I missed everybody, and my
friends missed me. When I came back, somebody decided that there should be a
company meeting just to make it official, since I had left the company, that I
should, you know, be brought in by vote. I...

GROSS: Gary, were you at that meeting?

Mr. SINISE: Oh, yeah.

Mr. KINNEY: Yes, I was shocked, and I had to wait upstairs. But I also felt
it was kind of right, you know? It'd been a while. It'd been about three or
four months. So I waited upstairs with a friend. And an hour passed, and
then two hours passed. And I started to become very concerned about, you
know, `What are they talking about?' You know, `Are they evaluating all of
my, you know, personality traits or what are they doing? Am I not a real
company member.' And I started really doubting that they were gonna let me
back in. And, in reality, they were talking about a number of things, I heard
later. Gary can tell talk to that.

But the next thing I heard was a loud scream. Now I mentioned a while ago
that the police had come to a company meeting. This was the one. I heard
someone screaming, and I didn't know what it was. I ran down the stairs, and
the door to the theater was open and no one was in there. So I ran outside,
and they were all holding down--it was Moira. It was Gary's wife. She was
upset about some other things as well, but she couldn't believe that they were
talking about this. She really--on by behalf, she was very upset. I've
always been grateful for that. And she was screaming bloody murder. And the
police kind of showed up, and we got rid of them. And then somebody turned to
me in the middle of the fray and said, `Oh, you're in. You're back.'

Mr. SINISE: That kind of settled that.

Mr. KINNEY: Yeah.

GROSS: Gary, why did it take so long to decide whether Terry Kinney should
be allowed back in the theater that he co-founded?

Mr. SINISE: You know, I mean, it's a long time ago and I can't remember all
the details of the meeting.

Mr. KINNEY: Senator.

Mr. SINISE: But, you know, we had never faced this kind of thing before. So
I assume we were yelling at each other about the principle of, you know, going
off.

Mr. KINNEY: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SINISE: And, you know, we--you know, leaving and how that
should--affected the group. And I remember shortly after that, you know,
Malkovich went off and did a play with some other company. And that was the
first time that had happened. And we had to have a big meeting about that.
You know, we had meetings all the time because, you know, we had to discuss,
you know, what it was we were doing. And, you know, if we're going to be a
theater, than we're gonna all work together, and this is what we're gonna do.
And we're not gonna do anything else--and, you know, yelling at each other
about that kind of stuff. And that was the first time Terry quit.

Mr. KINNEY: Yeah, there'd been another--I quit another time, as well.

Mr. SINISE: I can't remember what that one was about, but it might have been
about a girl. I don't know.

Mr. KINNEY: It could have been. It could--yeah, I mean, there was always
that, you know?

GROSS: Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney are two of the three founding members of
the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. This is Steppenwolf's 25th
anniversary season. Sinise and Kinney will be back in the second half of the
show. This is FRESH AIR.

(Credits)

GROSS: This is NPR, National Public Radio.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Coming up, we continue our look at Steppenwolf. The theater company
celebrates its 25th anniversary this season. We'll conclude our conversation
with co-founders Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney. Then we'll talk to actresses
Joan Allen and Laurie Metcalf about the sometimes dysfunctional theater family
that produced a number of stars.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Today, we're talking with some of the celebrated alumni of Chicago's
Steppenwolf Theatre Company. This season, Steppenwolf is celebrating its 25th
anniversary. Let's get back to our conversation with Gary Sinise and Terry
Kinney, two of the three co-founders of the company.

Did either of you ever feel any guilt when you started off doing movies and
TV, that you were, you know, abandoning your principles or selling out or
leaving the company behind? Terry, any thoughts?

Mr. KINNEY: Well, there was such a long period of time where we weren't
doing much of anything except the theater, that there wasn't a great deal of
guilt. Again, there were pioneers to go out and forge in the entertainment
world before most of us. John, being one; Gar, taking "True West" to New
York. So there were those birth pains, you know, of departure there, but not
so much with most of us. We were there for so long before we got cast in a TV
show or a movie or somebody else's play that, no, there wasn't much guilt.

There was a lot of fear, though, because we didn't have our peers around us to
hold us up, help us. I think one of the reasons we stayed together for so
long--and I'm not being facetious at all--is fear. Fear was a big factor of
keeping us together. We were a bunch of, really, corn head kids from the
Midwest, and we were scared. We were scared of New York. We were scared of
Hollywood and what it had to offer and all of the rejection and all of the
judgment, you know. We didn't want any of that. So when we finally got
involved with it, maybe we were a little more prepared, had a little more
confidence.

Mr. SINISE: Yeah. I think some of the members, you know, may not have even
become actors. I mean, you can ask Laurie and Joan this. They've said it
before. But they don't know if, you know, they would have even gone into
theater because of this. They were both very shy and...

Mr. KINNEY: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SINISE: ...you know. I think the support of the group really gave us
all a confidence and helped us with the fear that we all had of going off on
our own and trying it.

Mr. KINNEY: Mm-hmm. Yeah, Laurie used to say, `I'm a legal secretary.
Acting is my hobby.' And it was true. She could type 120 words a minute, and
she was a damn, good legal secretary.

GROSS: Did you ever ask yourselves was it just coincidence that all these
people who developed into great actors happen to be friends and happened to
coalesce around Steppenwolf? Or do you think it's something about the
experience of Steppenwolf itself that helped transform these people into great
actors?

Mr. SINISE: I'd say that, you know, every one of them had talent, you know.
We all had a certain talent and a certain love for what we were doing. But
the difference between, you know, just going off and going to Hollywood or New
York and having an acting career, you know, what that may have brought you was
Steppenwolf. And the kind of work that we did together and the kind of
support that the group of us together gave each other allowed us to discover
things and--in a very uninhibited way. And we were able to--you know, to let
ourselves show and just--and play all kinds of different roles to stretch our
talents and challenges ourselves which turned us into character actors. You
know, there's not one of us that is, you know, just a straight-up leading
lady, leading man kind of romantic hero type. Every one of us are character
actors, and that comes--really, the strength of that comes from the confidence
and support that we gave each other in the early days, I would say.

GROSS: Well, congratulations to both of you on the 25th anniversary of
Steppenwolf, and on your own careers, as well. It's really been fun to talk
with you both. Thank you.

Mr. KINNEY: Thank you.

Mr. SINISE: Thank you, Terry.

GROSS: Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney are two of the three founding members of
the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, which is celebrating its 25th
anniversary this season. The three founding members now make up Steppenwolf's
executive artistic board.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Actresses Joan Allen and Laurie Metcalf discuss their
years with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company
TERRY GROSS, host:

Joan Allen and Laurie Metcalf are two of the Steppenwolf alumni who have
become stars. They both joined in the early days of the company. Joan Allen
as since co-starred in such films as "Pleasantville," "The Ice Storm" and
Nixon," and she stars in the upcoming film "The Contender." Laurie Metcalf
co-stars on "The Norm Show," and played Roseanne's sister on "Roseanne."

Laurie Metcalf, Gary Sinise said that you were a legal secretary during the
early period of Steppenwolf. Did you think that that's what your profession
was going to be, a secretary, and that theater would remain something of a
hobby?

Ms. LAURIE METCALF (Actress): Yeah. I always--I actually enjoyed very much
being a secretary. And I had the weird--What would you call it?--a skill of
being able to type really fast.

Ms. JOAN ALLEN (Actress): Yeah, super fast. Oh my God, like, 120 words a
minute, or something.

Ms. METCALF: Yeah. We sort of go on, you know, automatic pilot and, like,
whiz through all these typing chores, which I loved. And there's something
really rewarding to me about, you know, having a job like that where you have,
you know, so many papers on the left side of your desk at the beginning of the
day and you've transferred them over to the right side of your desk at the end
of the day. And you don't take your work home, necessarily. I liked that job
very much and, yeah, I would have been pretty content to stay there.

GROSS: Joan, were you going to say something?

Ms. ALLEN: No. It's just funny. I was also a secretary for several years.
I couldn't type nearly as fast as Laurie, but it really kept me afloat. I
mean, you know, we weren't making any money or hardly any money. And
financially, we just couldn't swing it. And so I--for years before until I
came to New York and when I was, like, 28, the whole time I was in Chicago, I,
you know, had a full-time job and would do the theater at night. And, you
know, I was just on this treadmill of literally--you know, sometimes I lived
like a block away from the theater and sometimes I'd literally be in bed 15
minutes after the curtain came down. I would just come home, brush my teeth,
go to bed and then I'd be up at 6 to go to work the next day. And I did that
for, you know, several years as did, you know, like Laurie and a lot of other
members of the company.

GROSS: Now my understanding is that, you know, at Steppenwolf, there were a
lot of different configurations of romantic relationships. And that, I think,
would be so complicated in a small group that's working closely together. You
know, when relationships shift and all the kind of emotions and jealousies and
so on that can surround that. Were you ever in the position of--and tell me
if this is too personal--of being part of a couple within the company? And
I'm wondering if so, how that affected the acting dynamics when you got on
stage?

Ms. ALLEN: I was in a relationship. One of the--when I first joined the
company and visited John, I became involved with Terry Kinney for a couple of
years. And I can say this because he's an excellent friend of mine and I
really like--we've maintained a really wonderful friendship over the years.
But after a couple of years, we did split up, and it was very hard for me
especially because I think I was a very late bloomer and I hadn't really had
that experience in my teens like a lot of people have. It happened to me
really late, so I was really--I was honestly very devastated for quite a
while.

And Laurie actually gave me some really good advice. She, at one
point--because I think I was moping around a long time, but still doing the
shows and showing up. Laurie, I think, just sort of took me to a side and
reminded me that the company was bigger than the relationship at that point.
And that I really should try my best to get over it, and that the company was
a greater, larger thing, and the company needed to go on. And that, actually,
sort of helped me and--but it was difficult for a while. I mean, I had to
really try to make a separation between my personal feelings, which I felt
quite hurt at the time, and the work. But I managed to be able to do that to
the point where I can say, you know, Terry is a very good friend of mine, and
we stay in touch. It's been, you know, like, 20, 22 years ago now. It's been
a long time. So...

GROSS: Right. Laurie, did you have to ever take that advice yourself?

Ms. METCALF: Yeah. I was having a relationship with John. And when we
broke up...

GROSS: Malkovich?

Ms. METCALF: Yeah--hmm. And when we broke up, the--this happens all the time
in really tightly knit groups, I'm sure, you know. There is a bit of the
"Peyton Place" going on, and there are many breakups and reconfigurations.
But what happens when you're forced, in a way, to keep working together, you
tend to get over it a little bit quicker probably than you would if you vowed
never to see that person again. And it's true that we have stayed friendly
with, you know, all the different couplings, you know. And that comes with
maturity and age, also. But we--when you're in the midst of a relationship
breaking up and yet you're still forced to work together, I think it's sort of
a mixed blessing.

GROSS: My guests are Joan Allen and Laurie Metcalf, two alumni of the
Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. More after a break. This is FRESH
AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company is celebrating its 25th
anniversary. My guests are two alumni who have become stars, Joan Allen and
Laurie Metcalf.

Terry Kinney and Gary Sinise were talking about how, particularly in the early
years, there was a lot of, like, physical violence in the shows. And they
would actually beat each other up onstage and sometimes get hurt a little bit
in the process. Did you get any blows yourself during that more physical
period of Steppenwolf?

Ms. METCALF: Well, it's funny you should ask that because the hardest blow I
ever got was from Joan.

Ms. ALLEN: Oh, no.

Ms. METCALF: Do you know what it was?

Ms. ALLEN: Tell me, Laurie.

Ms. METCALF: I don't even know if you knew that you did it.

Ms. ALLEN: Oh, no.

Ms. METCALF: But we were doing a play called--what was the five women thing?

Ms. ALLEN: Was it "Waiting for the Parade?"

Ms. METCALF: "Waiting for the Parade."

Ms. ALLEN: Yes.

Ms. METCALF: And I played this little, you know, bitchy woman who was in
charge of everybody. And Joan's character was supposed to slap me. And she
slapped me every night. And one night she got me across the ear, somehow.

Ms. ALLEN: Oh!

Ms. METCALF: And I was stunned for a second. And I had a ringing in my ear.
And I don't--I think I saw stars.

Ms. ALLEN: Oh, lord.

Ms. METCALF: And that was a good one.

Ms. ALLEN: Yeah, I had to--I--when we did "Balm in Gilead" I played a very
tough lesbian. And I get into a fight with another woman over my girlfriend,
you know. It's--the--"Balm in Gilead" takes place in an all-night diner in
New York City, where a lot of, you know, transvestites and junkies and, you
know, street people and stuff come in as this, you know--a wonderful,
wonderful show--one of the most fun I've ever had acting in my life when it
really worked. It was really thrilling to be part of. But I had to get into
a fight. And John Mahoney--I--had to break up the fight and get in between me
and this other woman. John had to get in between, and I had to reach over
him. And I jammed my finger right--my baby finger on my--pinky on my right
hand right into his shoulder blade because he moved just as I was going over.
I fractured my knuckle that attaches to my hand. I fractured it onstage. It
was so painful, but I had, like, another 15 minutes onstage before the--at
least--before the act was over. And I had to, like, pretend that there was
nothing going on. And I ran offstage as soon as it was intermission to the
bathroom because I thought I was going to vomit. I was in so much pain. And
I was hugging the toilet, screaming about how much my finger hurt. And
they--I had to--in the second act I didn't have much to do, but I had to be
onstage asleep laying on a table in the second act.

GROSS: Oh, geez.

Ms. ALLEN: And they got me an ice pack and they draped it over my hand and
they put this sweatshirt over it so you really couldn't see what was
happening. And I had the ice pack and I was in excruciating pain the whole
time. And then they took me to the emergency room after that and I ended up
having a cast all the way up to my elbow, which--I continued to do the role
because it still sort of worked for the part.

GROSS: Right.

Ms. ALLEN: But we didn't--we didn't choreograph our violence very much, did
we, Laura? We kind of...

Ms. METCALF: No, we didn't have the patience for that, so we just let it go.
We--and we had a lot of energy, and so we--we would sort of wale on each
other.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guests are Joan Allen and Laurie
Metcalf. They're two of the early members of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company,
which is based in Chicago and is now celebrating its 25th anniversary.

When you started performing, either, you know, in New York or on--in movies,
on TV, was it--was it a difficult transition to be working with people who
weren't your close friends, who weren't like family to you and--and to be
working in a--what I imagine was a--a more of kind of high-pressure situation?

Ms. METCALF: Yes, I was immediately struck by the high stakes of things
outside of the company when I auditioned while I was doing a play in New York
and got my first small movie role. I was very scared. And since then it--it
kind of tainted me in a way. Since then, every time I go into an audition now
I--I choke a little bit. I'm not as, like, free as I usually am onstage. And
that's in all my work, I've found. The place that I am--feel the freest is
onstage. I don't like a camera anywhere near me, so it's a little ironic that
every Friday that's what happens, you know, for the last 12 years...

GROSS: To--for...

Ms. METCALF: ...of what I've been doing.

GROSS: ..the TV shows you've been on? Uh-huh.

Ms. METCALF: Yeah.

GROSS: For "The Norm Show" and "Roseanne."

Ms. METCALF: But I--yeah, I don't--I don't like it. I've never been
comfortable with it, and that's the only time I do loosen up is onstage. And
I do have a theory that the people who start out onstage as--you know, in
their acting work, they can do all three media. They can do, you know, movies
and television and stage. And the people that start out with the camera work,
I think they--they have a harder time transferring over to theater if they
ever even would want to do that.

GROSS: Joan Allen, what was that transition like for you?

Ms. ALLEN: I ultimately don't feel, I think, quite the same as Laura,
because I think when I did break out and start doing other things, I think it
was the right time for my own personal development, that I really needed
to--you know, because it was like going from your own family into another
family at Steppenwolf and--which was a wonderful family and, as I said,
wouldn't be an actor without it. But it was time almost to get kicked out of
the nest of that family and be in the--in the larger world. And I think
that's sort of what Gary was trying to do when he said it was so important for
"True West" to come to New York. Gary could see that it really--we needed to
not just be localized in Chicago, but that the company had potential to be
nationally known, if not, at this point even, internationally known. And it
was--he had--I think he had sort of a vision--if anybody had a vision. He had
sort of--he could see a long-term thing, because I think we didn't really
think in the long term.

But what ultimately happened to me--I think because of having that ensemble
experience and seeing everybody as an equal and there wasn't really a star
sort of situation--I mean, there were people who were, you know, recognized
more than other ensemble members in certain plays, but it--the baton sort of
just kept getting passed around because everybody got recognized, you know,
and--for their work at different times, as much as they do in Chicago, which
isn't really flowery, you know. It's kind of--they don't really go over the
top with that. But I felt like I'd worked with the best actors in the world
at Steppenwolf, and so when I branched out and started working with also
amazing actors, I felt very well equipped to play off of them, because I
thought we're all just actors pulling, trying--pulling together, trying to
tell a story to the best of our ability and I think that's what Steppenwolf
sort of made me view the whole process in that way.

GROSS: Did any of the techniques that you used at Steppenwolf in your
rehearsal or in your stage performances seem out of place when you moved to
movies or to television?

Ms. METCALF: Yeah. It's a little out of place--you find yourself when
you've--when you've worked for, you know, the first 10 years solid of your--of
your acting career saying, you know, `OK, now we're going to need a toaster
for this play. Who's got a toaster at home?' (Laughter) You know and
then--and so you say, `Oh, I can bring mine in.' And then you go to, like, a
movie and you volunteer your toaster and everyone stares at you. (Laughter)

Ms. ALLEN: The one comment that was made in one of the early reviews the
first or second year was the set ran into the 10s of dollars.

Ms. METCALF: Yeah.

Ms. ALLEN: That's what one of the critics said about the set.

Ms. METCALF: Yeah. Yeah. It still flabbergasts me some of the money that's
thrown around in these other--you know, in movies and TV and stage, too,
sometimes, you know, when I think it could be simplified a little bit and
still be fine. But that was the was the thing that first struck me right away
is that we had--it--ours was more of a--it was more of a group effort.

GROSS: Do you have any regrets about things that happened at the company?

Ms. ALLEN: Hm. "Savages"?

Ms. METCALF: No.

Ms. ALLEN: Too many--one too many nude scenes?

Ms. METCALF: One too--(Laughter)

GROSS: Were there nude scenes?

Ms. ALLEN: We did...

Ms. METCALF: Oh, yeah.

Ms. ALLEN: We did this play. I wasn't involved in it. We did this play
called "Savages," which was about the Yanamami tribe in South America. And it
was like all these, you know, naked painted bodies, like 30 of them on stage.
And...

Ms. METCALF: Yeah, a little misguided.

Ms. ALLEN: It was a little--but I--I'm so glad we did it because we had such
entertainment value talking about it amongst ourselves.

Ms. METCALF: Yes, many stories connected to that.

Ms. ALLEN: Exactly.

GROSS: Were you uncomfortable being naked onstage?

Ms. METCALF: No, not at all, unfortunately. I--you know, after you do it
that one--during that one preview, there's no problem at all. I think we did
one too many. (Laughter) But, no, it's--I would never, never in a million
years--even when I was--you know, even 25 years ago--much younger--would have
ever done it for a movie.

GROSS: Uh-huh.

Ms. ALLEN: Uh-huh.

Ms. METCALF: But onstage--I don't know--I just feel a looseness that I could
do about anything.

GROSS: Maybe it's because people are further away also. You don't have a
close-up.

Ms. METCALF: Yeah, and it's not being recorded for all time.

GROSS: Right.

Ms. ALLEN: I actually--I actually, wasn't in "Savages." I was doing another
play outside of the company, but I was around a lot. I observed.

Ms. METCALF: Well, Joan, I'm thinking of that 20-minute nude scene at the top
of "Loose Ends."

Ms. ALLEN: Yes, Laurie, I know, yeah.

Ms. METCALF: Oh, that was way too much, you know.

Ms. ALLEN: And in a small theater.

Ms. METCALF: The lights came up and we'd hear--it was me and Gary
Sinise--and we'd hear, `Oh, God.' (Laughter) Two of us rolling around naked.

GROSS: My guests are Laurie Metcalf and Joan Allen, two alumni of the
Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. More after a break. This is FRESH
AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company is celebrating its 25th
anniversary. My guests are two alumni who have become stars, Joan Allen and
Laurie Metcalf.

Steppenwolf has such an amazing track record for having alumni who have just
become such important actors. There's--there's you both and, you know, Gary
Sinise and Terry Kinney, John Malkovich, John Mahoney. I'm wondering if you
think like--what you think that's about. Were--was it all that you were that
special and that talented when you got together or do you think it was
something about the experience that was transforming?

Ms. ALLEN: Well, what ultimately I--happened, I think that it was an
excellent training ground, because in Chicago, there was no film and
television industry--it--to pull you away from the theater, so I think one of
the things that really allowed the company to flourish and all the actors to
work on their craft and improve was because we had the time to do it. We
would just do our plays. There was nobody saying, `Come and do our soap
opera, come and be in our movie,' so we got to practice a lot. And I think
that's--for me and for many people, I think that's the best way to learn.

So, you know, once the company broke out, though, and came to New York, which
I think was the right thing to do, it became--people outside of Chicago got to
see the talents and abilities of these actors who had worked really hard and
trained for a really long time.

And it--it sort of makes sense to me that--that people have gotten recognized.
And there are even more--Gary Cole and Jeff Perry and--you know, have been on
television and movies and Glen Hedley(ph). And, you know, that it was just
they were very well-trained actors that--just once the company broke out more
nationally and internationally, that deserved the recognition.

GROSS: Laurie, any thoughts?

Ms. METCALF: We were also very lucky that we had some hidden directing
talents in the group that we didn't know of until we found out, oh, we--not
only do we want to just do all these meaty roles back to back to back, oh,
yeah, we have to have somebody to direct them. And we didn't know anybody
else, so we had to look inside the company at first, way back, to direct each
other. And it turns out that we had some great directors in the company. I
think they would always prefer to ultimately act, but some of the people who
stepped up to the plate to direct, early on, also contributed to making us all
better actors.

GROSS: When was the last time you each performed in a Steppenwolf production?

Ms. ALLEN: It's been 10 years for me. It's been a decade.

GROSS: And, Laurie?

Ms. METCALF: I was there two summers ago to do "Beauty Queen of Leenane"
directed by Randy Arney and...

GROSS: So...

Ms. METCALF: ...Rick Sneider was also in the play

GROSS: Do you think of yourselves as still connected to the company in some
way or is that just something from the past?

Ms. METCALF: Oh, I think of myself as very connected. I think we're chained
to each other in a way. You know, we have a history that we can always
reflect back on and look forward to working with each other in the future and
it will always be there. It's a very comforting thing. But I do feel still
very connected to the theater.

Ms. ALLEN: Yeah, I feel very connected, too, even though I haven't done a
play for a long time. That's been a personal choice of mine. It's nothing to
do with Steppenwolf, but I still feel very, very connected.

Annie Liebowitz came and took a photograph commemorating the 25th anniversary
last--I think it was last spring. And she commented after she took the
photograph--we were all gathered--she never really had seen a group of people
who so loved being together and were so excited and happy to be seeing each
other and talking to each other that she'd ever photographed in her...

Ms. METCALF: Right.

Ms. ALLEN: ...career. And she was really very impressed by that and was
really--it really meant a lot to, I think, all of us that she made a comment
on it. But I think it's a very genuine response, you know, that we all have
to each other.

Ms. METCALF: I remember when she came into photograph it, it was our first
really group thing that we had done for that weekend of celebrating the 25th
anniversary. And those comments that she made really sunk in, really clicked
with people of the achievement that we had made, you know. We--it just hadn't
sunk in yet, you know, of why she was there and what she was recording...

Ms. ALLEN: Right.

GROSS: Yeah.

Ms. METCALF: ...was the fact that we had done this, you know. And what she
said that day really made it sink in.

GROSS: Laurie Metcalf and Joan Allen are alumni of the Steppenwolf Theatre
Company in Chicago. Allen stars in the forthcoming film "The Contender."
Laurie Metcalf co-stars on "The Norm Show." We wish Steppenwolf a happy 25th
anniversary.

(Soundbite of music and credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.