Overworked, Underpaid, Unheard: Chicago Theatre Freelancers Speak Out

AMERICAN THEATRE: In the span of two weeks in late May and April, Chicago theatre’s mythologized Steppenwolf Theatre Company seemed to be a site of contestation in the battle against inequity and for change in the American theatre. In late April, video content producer and busy Chicago freelancer Lowell Thomas II, resigned from Steppenwolf with an Instagram essay, citing personal experiences and calling for divestment due to the company’s burying of “claims of harassment, racism, and sexism to avoid accountability and real change.” A week later, artistic director Anna D. Shapiro, whom Thomas had called out by name in his resignation, announced her plans to step down from the company at the end of her contract in August 2021.