Chicago’s famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company is the latest major performing arts institution to report plummeting ticket sales and layoffs, with more than ten percent of employees set to lose their jobs. Leaders are blaming soaring operating costs due to inflation and a slower-than-expected “post-pandemic” economy.
Like numerous other theater companies in recent years, Steppenwolf embraced diversity, equity, and inclusion as a core company value, even going as far as to create policy pushing the use of transgender and gender “non-binary” pronouns, in an effort to “undo our internalized transphobia.”
In a statement released Thursday, Steppenwolf said it is laying off 12 percent of its staff, or 13 current employees. The theatre is also eliminating seven open positions. The company cited a “protracted post-pandemic economic recovery” and “the rising cost of…
