John Steppling

John Steppling became a prominent figure of the Los Angeles theater scene in the 1980s. He has influenced a generation of playwrights, including Jon Robin Baitz, Marlene Mayer, Kelly Stuart, and Michael Sargent. "Los Angeles Times" writer Richard Stayton noted that, “His oft-copied cinematic style-spare, elliptical, obscenity-spiced dialogue spoken by society's outcasts, framed in brief scenes between blackouts, archly paced - even spawned a critic's term: 'Stepplingesque.' His play DREAM COAST debuted at the Taper in 1986, followed closely by 52 PICKUP and THE THRILL. Other titles include NECK, EDDIE COTTREL AT THE PIANO, CLOSE, and THE SHAPER. Steppling became a founding member of the Padua Hills Playwrights Workshop and Festival. In the late 1980s, Steppling formed Heliogabalus with Robert Glaudini. In the early 1990s Steppling founded Circus Minimus with Mick Collins and Cinda Jackson. Steppling wrote and directed THE THRILL, STANDARD OF THE BREED, THEORY OF MIRACLES, and THE SEA OF CORTEZ. At the beginning of the millennium, Steppling moved to Europe. After brief stays in Paris and London, he relocated to Poland, securing a teaching position at The National Film School in Lodz. During his time at Lodz, Steppling did an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s KING LEAR featuring Marian Opania and co-starring Mick Collins. The production was done in three languages: Polish, English, and Norwegian. Steppling returned to Los Angeles, briefly, to oversee the 2002 production of DOG MOUTH, a play that was developed from a Taper workshop and was co-directed by the Taper’s Robert Egan. Towards the end of the decade, Steppling moved to Norway where, in 2009, he wrote and directed a twenty-minute film, “Then They Recognized Me,” with support of the Mid Nordic Film Commission. The film was shot in Rissa, Norway, and starred longtime collaborator Lee Kissman. In 2010, Steppling moved back to Southern California and organized a new theatrical concern, Gunfighter Nation. The inaugural production, THE ALAMO PROJECT, ran at The Odyssey Theater in West Los Angeles. The group’s second production, THE LA HISTORY PROJECT, marked Steppling’s return to The Lost Studio. Late in 2010, Steppling premiered PHANTOM LUCK.