Christina Anderson, Zayd Dohrn and Carly Mensch get First Look at Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf Theatre Company has announced the lineup for this fall's First Look Repertory of New Work. The seventh annual repertory slate of "full developmental productions" will feature three playwrights new to the program. Kansas City native Christina Anderson just completed her M.F.A. at Yale School of Drama; in her Man in Love, set against urban turmoil both economic and ethnic in 1936, a killer is targeting black women. Robert O'Hara directs. Zayd Dohrn, the playwright son of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, contributes Want, about a group of ex-junkies and sex addicts taking a new age approach to recovery in a California beach house; Kimberly Senior will direct.

Suburban New York native Carly Mensch, currently a story editor for Showtime's Weeds, offers Oblivion, in which a more-progressive-than-thou Brooklyn couple loses their cool when their teenage daughter lies about where she's spending weekends; Matt Miller directs. The design team for the repertory, which runs October 26–November 20 in the Steppenwolf Garage, includes Chelsea Warren (sets), Myron Elliott (costumes, Oblivion), David Hyman (costumes, Man in Love), Crystal Jovae Mazur (costumes, Want), J.R. Lederle (lights) and Miles Polaski (sound).

Also on offer are free staged readings of works by Chicago-based playwrights, November 3–5 in Steppenwolf's Upstairs Theatre: fml; or How Carson McCullers Saved My Life by Sarah Gubbins (which will make its full debut in a spring 2012 Steppenwolf for Young Adults production); Miss Marx; Or the Involuntary Side Effect of Living by Philip Dawkins (whose The Homosexuals is currently playing at About Face); and Mud Blue Sky by Marisa Wegrzyn (whose previous First Look entry, The Butcher of Baraboo, will get its first standalone Chicago production next spring at A Red Orchid). The readings will be directed by Joanie Schultz, Jimmy McDermott and Edward Sobel, respectively.

First Look 101, a program that lets enrolled participants in to view the development process at multiple points over a two-month span, will also return. Tickets for the repertory and reservations for the free readings will be available starting August 19. First Look 101 tickets go on sale July 15.