Since its founding in 2001, Steep Theatre has spent most of its institutional life in the shadow of the Red Line—from its first long-term venue by the Sheridan stop (where the honky-tonk music from the bar next door would bleed through the theater’s walls on the weekends) to its current home nestled next to the Berwyn station.
For Steep’s artistic director Peter Moore and executive director Kate Piatt-Eckert, the announcement was not completely unexpected. “We’ve known for a little while that it could be sold at some point, but didn’t find out until it had,” Piatt-Eckert says. For now, both she and Moore are choosing to view the search for a new home in the midst of a citywide performing arts shutdown as a way to reimagine what their theater can be in a post-COVID world, while taking with them the best of what they’ve learned over the past two decades.
Creating more open space for patrons is also part of Moore’s dream list, spurred by Steep’s experiences with the Boxcar, which not only gave audiences a place to gather before and after plays, but also presented its own programming, curated by Thomas Dixon, which encompassed music, spoken word, comedy, and community discussions. Moore says he would love to find a way “to incorporate those performances in the front lobby. And have a big open lobby with big windows and have the art right out there in front. Maybe have windows open to invite people into the space and welcome them immediately into the Steep world. I kind of feel like that vision for a lobby—open and inviting, arts incorporated into the function—is again a kind of metaphor for how I’d like the organization to come back.”
Piatt-Eckert notes that Steep and many of their theatrical peers aren’t necessarily eager to open until the COVID curve flattens out quite a bit more.
