TOUR DE FARCE

Milton Berle once said, “Laughter is an instant vacation.”

If that’s the case, Anna D. Shapiro’s extended break from work began in early August when the Evanstonian and Tony Award-winning director helmed the first rehearsal for the revival of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, a hilarious farce set for a September 12 to October 27 run at Steppenwolf ’s Downstairs Theater in Chicago.

“My face hurts every morning from laughing so much the previous day,” chortles the 58-year-old Shapiro, who won a 2008 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for August: Osage County (Steppenwolf, Broadway, London) and served as Steppenwolf ’s artistic director from 2015 to 2021.

“I’ve never laughed so hard.”

Noises Off, which kicks off the 49th season of the nation’s premier ensemble theater, features Steppenwolf ensemble members Audrey Francis, Francis Guinan, Ora Jones, and James Vincent Meredith. The co-production with Geffen Playhouse is a play-within-a-play, with the cast portraying the scrambling cast and crew of Nothing On as it prepares for opening night. Lines are flubbed, props go missing, and chaos reigns.

“Absolutely nothing serious is happening on stage, except for the actual role each actor has to play,” says Shapiro, an Evanston Township High School graduate who moved from Woodstock back to Evanston this summer with her husband, stage and television actor Ian Barford, and their twins. “These actors never stop moving. It’s fast-paced and physical and fun to watch.

“If theater were an Olympic sport, our cast would easily win the gold medal.”

Shapiro hopes attendees of Noises Off will suffer as she has as they exit the Downstairs Theater after each performance.

“I want their sides to ache from laughing, along with feeling joy and having an appreciation for the actors’ talents and what goes into presenting this form of entertainment,” she says.

But one of the most impactful plays Shapiro ever attended didn’t make her chuckle a lick. Anna was 11 when she and her mother, Joann, started going to seminal plays together at Steppenwolf. Years later they attended Balm in Gilead, directed by John Malkovich.

“The play is set in a diner (in New York City’s Upper Broadway), with many of the original cast members on stage at the show we took in,” Shapiro recalls. “As soon as it ended, I looked at my mother and asked, ‘Did that really happen?’ That play, probably more than any I had seen at the time, showed me the real transporting quality of excellent theatre work.”

Shapiro attended Columbia College Chicago, where she took classes taught by Sheldon Patinkin, who died at the age of 79 in 2014 after heading Columbia’s Theatre Department from 1980 to 2009.

“My mother and Sheldon had the most influence on me in theater,” Shapiro says. “My mother got me interested in the arts and in museums. She was an avid theater goer when I was young and jokes that she probably took me to plays at Steppenwolf earlier than she should have.

“Sheldon,” she continues, “was a great teacher and a great man. He had so much knowledge and passion. I still find it hard to believe that he’s gone. I feel his presence constantly.”

Shapiro is also a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and a professor in Northwestern University’s Department of Theatre. She joined the Steppenwolf ensemble in 2005. Her other Steppenwolf directing credits include the world premiere production of The Minutes (also on Broadway), Mary Page Marlowe, Visiting Edna, Three Sisters, A Parallelogram, Up, The Crucible, The Unmentionables, The Pain and the Itch, I Never Sang for My Father, Man from Nebraska, Purple Heart, The Drawer Boy, Side Man, Three Days of Rain, The Infidel, and This Is Our Youth.

Additional Broadway credits include Of Mice and Men (with James Franco) and Fish in the Dark (with Larry David).

“At any play’s rehearsal, which is an edifying experience for me as a director, it’s rewarding to be part of a group of people trying to create a shared vocabulary,” Shapiro says. “We’re seeking agreements and connections. I don’t know if I have a style as a director, but I do know that I want people to see me at my best when I’m working in that room. That’s also how I want to be seen by my husband and our twins when I’m around them.”

Shapiro had known Ian Barford, an Indiana native and Steppenwolf veteran, for more than 10 years when they went on their first date at a restaurant in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood.

“We sat there and talked and before long, we both knew—knew this would turn into something wonderful, something long-term,” Shapiro says. “I remember thinking, ‘Uh-oh.’ One of my favorite things to do today is talk with my husband at the kitchen table. We talk about anything and everything.

“I could sit and converse with him for hours and never get tired.”

Between spending time with her family and having blasts at rehearsals, Shapiro contacted all of her Evanston girlfriends last month, promising each that Noises Off will tickle their funny bone off.

“I also told them, ‘Bring your husband, because he’ll love it, too.’ Playwright Michael Frayn is a legend, a master.”

Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s Downstairs Theater is located at 1650 North Halsted Street in Chicago. For ticket information to Noises Off shows, visit steppenwolf.org or call the box office at 312-335-1650.