A PIVOTAL FORCE IN CHICAGO THEATER
Martha Lavey, the tireless and innovative artistic director of Steppenwolf Theatre from 1995 to 2014, died Tuesday afternoon while in hospice care at Illinois Masonic hospital after suffering her second major stroke in two years. She was 60.
The first time I saw Martha Lavey on stage was in 1987 when she starred in the Steppenwolf Theatre production of Wallace Shawn’s incendiary play, “Aunt Dan and Lemon.” She played the sickly, reclusive young woman nicknamed Lemon whose childhood memories involved a particularly charismatic, right- wing professor, Aunt Dan, whose chilling ideas about Nazism and other things took root in her with startling force. About her performance, I wrote: “The exquisitely beautiful Lavey, with her flawless, hypnotic diction and dreamy grace, captures the girl’s ghostly quality— turning her into a kind of cracked porcelain doll.”
The last time I saw Ms. Lavey on stage was at The Poetry Center, in the summer of 2014, when she read a piece written specifically for her by artist- actor- writer Tony Fitzpatrick. It was drawn from his poetic meditations on birds, and he had long envisioned Ms. Lavey as “the last existing carrier pigeon.” She gave a remarkable performance.
“In addition to her remarkable physical beauty — to the pure, luminous symmetry of her form and face, and her wonderfully lively eyes — there was her strong, distinctive wide- ranging voice,” said Frank Galati, another pioneering force on the Chicago theater scene and a member of the Steppenwolf ensemble since 1985. “. . . And then there was the knockout punch — her intellect, and her stunning capacity for analysis, and her drive to understand things on the deepest level.”
In a statement, Steppenwolf cofounder Jeff Perry said of Ms. Lavey: “Martha always possessed a calm, indefatigable ferocity the like of which remains singularly majestic in my experience. In Martha, an alchemy of fierce intelligence, fearlessness, humor, objectivity, stubbornness and curiosity, beautifully coexisted. This alchemy fed a passionate point of view formed through decades of exploration via acting, voluminous reading and a deliciously wide range of theatergoing.”
Born into a large Catholic family in Lawrence, Kansas ( she would later become a devout Buddhist), Ms. Lavey earned her doctoral degree in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. She became a Steppenwolf ensemble member in 1993 and performed in more than 30 of its productions including “The March,” “Middletown,” “Endgame,” “Up,” “I Never Sang for My Father,” “Time of My Life,” “Clockwork Orange,” “Talking Heads,” “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” and “Love Letters.” Elsewhere in Chicago, Ms. Lavey performed at the Goodman, Victory Gardens, Northlight and Remains theaters.
Under her leadership of Steppenwolf ( Ms. Lavey was the first woman to lead that notoriously maledominated theatrical troupe), the company became a national leader in producing new plays and commissioning playwrights. Ms. Lavey oversaw the production of hundreds of plays and transferred dozens of Steppenwolf productions to Broadway and abroad, gaining national and international recognition for the company and Chicago as a vital theater destination. During her tenure, Steppenwolf was awarded the National Medal of the Arts as well as the Illinois Arts Legend Award, Equity Special Award and nine of the company’s 12 Tony Awards.
Pulitzer Prize- winning playwright, actor and Steppenwolf ensemble member Tracy Letts observed: “I think the changes and improvements Martha made to our theater — well, they’re monumental. In fact, what she’s done for Chicago theater is monumental. . . . I went to her with ‘ August: Osage County’ before I had written it— and told her I have a three- act, 3 ½ - hour play, with 13 characters in it, and there’s a three- story set — and she said, ‘ Great! Go write it. We’ll do it.’ Her influence on my life, both personally and professionally, has been enormous. There’s no way to encapsulate it in just a sentence or two.”
In a statement released Tuesday, Steppenwolf artistic director Anna Shapiro and executive director David Schmitz noted: “As faithful friends, audience members, donors, staff, artists, mentees and members of the Steppenwolf community, we were all indelibly impacted by Martha’s passion, commitment, vision and unmatched intellect. Martha cared deeply for each and every one of us — no matter our relationship to her or the theatre. She will be dearly missed.”
Ms. Lavey made it her mission to see productions at scores of the city’s smaller storefront theaters and, in what was in many ways one of her most important innovations, she oversaw the conception and programming for Steppenwolf’s Garage Theater, providing a platform for these companies to be seen under the Steppenwolf umbrella.
Ms. Lavey also fostered the development of the Steppenwolf for Young Adults program, an innovative and influential series for teens and their families. She helped establish both The School at Steppenwolf, which has become an acclaimed training residency based in ensemble traditions, and the Professional Leadership Program for emerging arts managers and designers.
Ms. Lavey is survived by her parents, Robert and Patricia Lavey, as well as by her sister Michele Dragisity, and five brothers: Kevin Lavey, Matt Lavey, John Lavey, Patrick Lavey and Jim Lavey.
Services will be held near Ms. Lavey’s parents’ home in Vienna, Virginia, at St. Mark Catholic Church. A memorial to celebrate her life and legacy will be held at the theater at a future date.