Steep Theatre finds new home in Edgewater
Supporters and company members gathered Thursday in Edgewater for the groundbreaking ceremony of Steep Theatre’s new home.
Founded in 2000, Steep occupied a storefront, steps away from the Berwyn Red Line L station for 12 years until the building was sold for commercial development in 2020.
In 2022, the company bought a low-slung brick building at Berwyn and Kenmore avenues that housed the Christian Science Reading Room, just down the street from its old location at 1044 W. Berwyn Ave.
Peter Moore, Steep’s founding artistic director, said staying in Edgewater was top of mind while searching for a new space.
“It was in our intent and our hope from the beginning to stay in Edgewater,” Moore said. “Being here feels like part of our identity….we’ve built a tremendous community and following and a group of supporters around that.”
The timing of the process is noteworthy on both ends. Steep lost its old home in 2020 just before the COVID-19 shuttered performance arts venues across the country. Now, the company is breaking ground on its new home which arrives five years post-pandemic in a time where theaters are still struggling to gain footing in a tough economy.
In a 2025 survey of 292 Illinois arts and culture organizations, the majority located in the Chicago area, more than half of respondents said they are “actively scaling back operations,” including laying off staff, freezing pay and canceling offerings, according to the nonprofit arts advocacy group Arts Alliance Illinois.
Moore said the purchase and renovations are possible through the support of the Paul M. Angell Foundation and a major grant from the City of Chicago, which awarded $3.8 million for the project.
Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth (48th) said boosting arts institutions and opportunities in communities is a key part of building safer streets. She also sees the neighborhood as a cultural hub and home base for storefront theater in Chicago.
About 10% of the city’s theaters have buildings in Edgewater and nearby Uptown, according to the League of Chicago Theatres, even more when you factor in itinerant companies.
“Storefront theaters in Chicago are a representation of what makes our city great,” said Manaa-Hoppenworth. “And, in Edgewater particularly, that we can walk to so many theaters is part of the fabric of the community.”
She said Steep will join Rivendell (5779 N. Ridge Ave.), TimeLine (currently under construction at 5033-5035 N. Broadway), The Edge Theater (5451 N. Broadway), Redtwist (1044 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.), Bramble (5545 N. Clark St.) and Raven (6157 N. Clark St.) as the latest company taking up permanent residence in the neighborhood.
“It's really a beautiful collection of companies who just want to make theater more accessible, especially for younger and older adults, and to make Chicago a destination for the Midwest to go see theater,” she said.
Manaa-Hoppenworth also points out the company’s new location is adjacent to a newly renovated Chicago Transit Authority stop that opened in the neighborhood this summer. “Steep Theatre is along one of our newest Red Line stations, Berwyn, which is so beautiful, accessible, very well lit and it's just a short walk away from here,” she said.
Moore said the capital campaign is fully funded, but the theater must raise more money to outfit the space and get ready for the next season. His current plan is to open by fall 2026.
And while Moore appreciates the memories from the old building, he is looking forward to getting into the new space.
“Our old space was a smaller black box theater,” he said. “This is just going to be a better, bigger version of that. It'll keep the intimacy and the immediacy of our work, and it’ll be a fantastically functioning performance space.”
Steep’s new space will feature a flexible 70-seat black box theater and a lobby lounge. In the company’s 25 years in Chicago, Steep has produced more than 80 plays, earned 63 Jeff Award nominations and won 12 Jeff Awards.
Mike Davis is a theater reporter who covers stages across Chicago.