Before Joan Allen started filming ABC’s upcoming series “The Family,” she contacted an old friend to see what she’d be getting into by doing her first weekly series.
That old friend was “Scandal” star Jeff Perry, who plays Cyrus on the ABC Thursday-night drama.
“He was the only person I called,” says Allen.
There’s an excellent reason why Perry was Allen’s go-to person. Both actors are alumni of the renowned Steppenwolf Theatre Company, which gave us such prestige productions as “True West” and Pulitzer prize winners “August: Osage County” and “Clybourne Park.”
Formed 40 years ago and named after the Herman Hesse novel of the same name, Steppenwolf has given rise to some of America’s best actors — and many of them are starring in series this winter. Besides Allen, there are Perry’s fellow co-founding members Terry Kinney — playing a corporate fixer on Showtime’s “Billions” — and Gary Sinise on the spinoff “Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders.”
“Roseanne” veteran Laurie Metcalf is now on Louie CK’s new web series “Horace and Pete” and, on ABC, Steppenwolfer Martha Plimpton debuts in “The Real O’Neals” next month.
Steppenwolf artistic director Anna D. Shapiro, who directed the Broadway production of “August: Osage County,” could not be happier. “It’s the legacy of the company,” she says. “It’s a real point of pride for a lot of us that [the actors] are able to be everywhere. You want everyone to see how awesome your company is.”
Though Shapiro, who has twin six-year-olds, doesn’t have a lot of time to keep up with the avalanche of programming now available on TV, she admits that she was a “CSI” addict when Steppenwolfer William Petersen starred on the high-rated CBS series.
She says she plans to play catch-up with current fare.
“I have not seen ‘Scandal,’ but I hear Jeff [Perry] is off the chain,” she says “We did watch [‘August: Osage County’ playwright] Tracy Letts on ‘Homeland’ [as Andrew Lockhart]. He was great. I’m about to watch Laurie [Metcalf] on Louie CK’s show [‘Horace and Pete’]. She’s like a ninja. She has an acting chip at the base of her skull.”
Once Steppenwolf alumni make it big on TV, Shapiro says she has tp work around their “success” to get them to come to back to the troupe’s headquarters in Chicago to do a play. “Steppenwolf is their artistic home,” she says. “They do whatever they can to come back.”
Other Steppenwolf performers include Tom Irwin on Lifetime’s “Devious Maids” and Jon Michael Hill on CBS’ “Elementary,” while Rondi Reed is finishing up her run as Billy Gardell’s mother on “Mike & Molly.”
Shapiro thinks the company’s reputation does much to erase the stigma against television as an artistic backwater.
“Whenever somebody is cynical about TV, when push comes to shove, these network people want the best people and they know where to go,” she says.
“You want the people with mad skills. Our guys bring that.”