{"id":253613,"date":"2025-09-25T12:45:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T12:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/253613\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T12:45:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T12:45:16","slug":"how-maggie-andersen-found-her-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/253613\/","title":{"rendered":"How Maggie Andersen found her voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago theater lore sometimes still seems stuck in Steppenwolf in the 70s, despite the emergence of so many notable ensembles since the days when Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney, and Jeff Perry began putting on shows in the basement of a Highland Park church. In some ways, it\u2019s understandable\u2014Steppenwolf provided an enduring blueprint for ensemble-based companies that emphasized grit and guts over glitz, even as their first members departed for careers in Hollywood and big Broadway productions. (Steppenwolf\u2019s production of Samuel D. Hunter\u2019s Little Bear Ridge Road<\/a>, starring Laurie Metcalf, opens on Broadway next month.)<\/p>\n

No Stars in Jefferson Park<\/strong> by Maggie Andersen
Northwestern University Press, paperback, 268 pp., $24, nupress.northwestern.edu\/9780810149519\/no-stars-in-jefferson-park\/<\/a><\/p>\n

No Stars in Jefferson Park: An Evening of Storytelling and Celebration
<\/strong>Tue 10\/28 8 PM, Steppenwolf 1700 Theater, 1700 N. Halsted, steppenwolf.org\/lookout<\/a>, $23<\/p>\n

So for that reason alone, Maggie Andersen\u2019s memoir, No Stars in Jefferson Park, is a valuable document of the time after Steppenwolf, particularly in the period from the early 90s to the early aughts, when a new wave of ensemble-based companies stepped into the spotlight, including Lookingglass, A Red Orchid Theatre, and the now defunct companies House Theatre of Chicago and Defiant Theatre.<\/p>\n

A founding ensemble member of the Gift Theatre<\/a>, Andersen was essentially present at the company\u2019s birth. The Gift was conceived by Michael Patrick Thornton and William Nedved in 1997 while they were students at the University of Iowa, and the name comes from a line in Jerzy Grotowski\u2019s Towards a Poor Theatre: \u201cThe actor makes a total gift of himself.\u201d But their first production (Howard Korder\u2019s Boys\u2019 Life, directed by the legendary Sheldon Patinkin) wasn\u2019t until December 2001. Andersen was in that show and other early Gift productions. She was also Thornton\u2019s girlfriend\u2014they met first as theater kids in high school and became romantically involved after graduation.<\/p>\n

Thornton and Andersen had more than a love of theater in common. Andersen grew up in Ravenswood with two sisters, in a family flat with a grandmother and mother who always budgeted for theater outings, eventually taking Andersen with them. Thornton, an only child, grew up in Jefferson Park, which never had a resident theater company until the Gift put down roots there. \u201cHe and I shared a dual citizenship to the world belonging to Chicago artists and the world belonging to its working classes,\u201d Andersen writes. \u201cSome choose one identity over the other, but we were proud to claim both, and I couldn\u2019t really connect with someone who didn\u2019t understand that. But I had mistakes to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company (and Thornton in particular) was soon on an upward trajectory, winning rave reviews. Thornton was also appearing onstage with larger theaters around town. And then in March 2003, just after turning 24 and while celebrating Saint Patrick\u2019s Day with Andersen and other friends, Thornton had a series of spinal strokes that put him in the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (now the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab). Andersen went from artistic muse\/collaborator to caregiver as Thornton spent months trying to regain some mobility and figure out how to still be an artist without the full use of his physical instrument.<\/p>\n

Andersen was there for part of Thornton\u2019s journey. But her memoir is really about trying to find her own voice and identity apart from the supportive-partner role for which she never auditioned, and which she eventually abandoned, along with acting (she remains a member of the Gift ensemble, however). She left Thornton and Chicago twice after his health crisis: once to attend a writing workshop in Prague in 2004, where she had an affair with a fellow student, and then for an MFA program at Western Michigan University, where she studied with fellow working-class Chicagoan Stuart Dybek. She now teaches English at River Forest\u2019s Dominican University.<\/p>\n

The story in No Stars moves back and forth in time, starting with Andersen, Thornton, and a couple of friends going to a bar, where Thornton (who uses a wheelchair) is mistaken for a wounded vet and thanked for his service. The actor and director\u2019s dark Irish humor comes through clearly in Andersen\u2019s telling throughout the book, as does their mutual growing anguish as they realize that they\u2019re not going to make it as a couple.<\/p>\n

Andersen\u2019s memoir is also valuable as a chronicle of caregiver guilt and exhaustion. The bulk of the story takes place in 2003 and 2004 and deals with the days immediately after Thornton\u2019s stroke when his survival wasn\u2019t assured (in one searing moment, Andersen recounts a phone call with Patinkin, telling him that Thornton has received last rites), and the year or so following. After his release from rehab, Thornton and Andersen moved from their apartment into his parents\u2019 house. Andersen uses the format of dramatic dialogue to recount the night of their final breakup in his parents\u2019 backyard, including the offstage voices of Thornton\u2019s mom, Rita, and a neighbor loudly worrying about what they\u2019d do if one of their kids got sick. \u201cI pray, I go to church, I\u2019m a good person, but so is Rita.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catholic guilt is a component of the story that Andersen is telling, along with the \u201cstand by your man\u201d assumptions that others made about what her role in Thornton\u2019s life would be going forward. \u201cWe broke up, in part, because I needed to tell the truth now to survive, and Mike still needed imagination,\u201d Andersen writes. She tells that truth with gimlet-eyed clarity, compassion, and love for her family, Thornton and his family, and their creative families of affinity.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been following Chicago theater for a while, there\u2019s plenty of inside-baseball stories here about Gift artists and others. (Poignantly, three of the people who played major roles in the Gift and who appear in these pages\u2014Patinkin, Mary Ann Thebus, and John Kelly Connolly, who drove Andersen and Thornton to the hospital on the night of Thornton\u2019s stroke\u2014are now dead.) But Andersen hasn\u2019t written a salacious tell-all, and she\u2019s certainly not asking for anyone\u2019s sympathy. The last chapter, set in 2022 at a 20th-anniversary celebration for the Gift, ends with Andersen remembering Thornton reading James Joyce\u2019s Ulysses to her, and thinking of Molly Bloom, \u201cwho had gotten the final word in the book.\u201d Joyce, observes Andersen, once said that \u201c\u2018yes\u2019 was a feminine word, the acquiescing word, the end of resistance, and maybe that\u2019s why I had stopped saying it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

By saying \u201cno\u201d to one narrow path that was thrust upon her and Thornton, Andersen\u2019s memoir shows that there are other roads waiting and other ways ahead. She and Thornton have both found new partners; they are still friends, and the actor has found even more success after his stroke than he had before (he currently stars on Broadway as Lucky in Samuel Beckett\u2019s Waiting for Godot alongside Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter). No Stars in Jefferson Park is an important snapshot of a particular era in Chicago theater. It\u2019s more important as a warm and unwavering portrait of overcoming the guilt of claiming your life as your gift.<\/p>\n

Reader Recommends: ARTS & CULTURE<\/p>\n

What’s now and what’s next in visual arts, architecture, literature, and more.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Where\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tAndrea Carlson: A Constant Sky compiles 20 years of the artist\u2019s paintings.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tSeptember 24, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tIn \u201cFlaming Memory,\u201d the artist embraces paint as a volatile, volcanic material.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tSeptember 22, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tBethany Collins\u2019s \u201cDusk\u201d is a provocative exhibition rendered in graphite gray.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tSeptember 18, 2025September 18, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"To\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\u201cSacred Containers\u201d at Chicago Artists Coalition showcases vessels of culture, history, and identity.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tSeptember 15, 2025September 15, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"At\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThere\u2019s no unifying mood to be found in \u201cPure Moods,\u201d but maybe that\u2019s the point.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tSeptember 15, 2025September 15, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tVictoria Martinez matches the passion and complexity of Magda Portal at the Poetry Foundation.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tSeptember 12, 2025September 12, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago theater lore sometimes still seems stuck in Steppenwolf in the 70s, despite the emergence of so many…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":253614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[132995,960,133896,5386,1818,133897,77591,133898,132996],"class_list":{"0":"post-253613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-books-2025","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-gift-theatre","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois","13":"tag-michael-patrick-thornton","14":"tag-reader-recommended","15":"tag-steppenwolf","16":"tag-vol-54-no-51"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115265006802173206","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}