Steppenwolf's Garage band: Dog & Pony, Pavement Group, XIII Pocket

Steppenwolf has announced the next three benificiaries of its Visiting Company Initiative; in a new twist, these three young companies will produce in repertory in the Steppenwolf Garage, in a ten-week run starting in February 2010. All three, I'm happy to say, are past TOC faves. Dog & Pony Theatre Company steps up with The Twins Would Like to Say, an ensemble-created show conceived and directed by Seth Bockley and Devon De Mayo about the strange real lives of the Gibbons Twins, who as children in 1970s Wales made a pact of silence. The promenade-style work sounds similar in spirit to the company's 2008 hit As Told By the Vivian Girls.

Pavement Group tackles punkplay by Gregory Moss, whose Count Orlock's Castle was seen in the Garage as part of Sketchbook 2008. Punkplay, which debuted just last month in the New York company Clubbed Thumb's Summerworks festival, follows two suburban ’80s kids discovering punk rock—a topic director David Perez proved he knows his way around in last year's terrific Lipstick Traces. The youngest company on the list, Thirteen Pocket, offers Adore, a drama about two men finding each other through fetish chatrooms. It's written and directed by artistic director Stephen Louis Grush, who's appeared on Steppenwolf's stage as an actor (The Tempest, Good Boys and True); TOC's Zac Thompson praised his work as a playwright in last year's Thirteen Pocket production Get Right. Next up for Thirteen Pocket, Grush directs Megan McGlone's Why We Come Here, opening August 6 at Mary's Attic.