Get the latest gossip
People Don’t Always Get Tina Landau’s Vision. She’s Made Her Peace With That.
With Redwood and Floyd Collins, Tina Landau remains uncompromising in her vision.
Unassuming in a flannel shirt and beanie, the director’s watching her ensemble work through a scene change of Floyd Collins, the musical she wrote three decades ago with composer Adam Guettel about the Kentucky explorer who became trapped in a cave and inspired a 1920s media circus. On this March afternoon, it’s still becoming what it will be on Broadway: Crew members come up to Landau to discuss the process of making the floor resemble real dirt and mud, whether a test-your-strength carnival machine can be struck in time with the music, as well as drafts of a digital rendering of the sky that will grace the LED screen at the back of the stage. An ensemble-based Chicago theater company founded in the 1970s, Steppenwolf built its name on its talent — early members include Gary Sinise, John Malkovich, and Laurie Metcalf — and its productions of brash dramas about overlooked Americans by Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard, and Frank Galati.
Or read this on VULTURE