Biography

Associate Artist Jessica Thebus

Jessica Thebus is an Associate Artist with Steppenwolf Theatre Company. At Steppenwolf, she has directed Intimate Apparel, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, No Place Like Home, When the Messenger is Hot (also at 59 E. 59th in NYC) and Sonia Flew. Other credits include Our Town with Anna D. Shapiro and They All Fall Down (Lookingglass); The Clean House (Goodman Theatre); Jekyll and Hyde, Inherit the Wind and Red Herring (Northlight Theatre); Eurydice (Victory Gardens) and The Turn of the Screw (Writers’ Theater). Last season, Jessica directed the world premiere of Welcome Home Jenny Sutter (The Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Kennedy Center). Favorite projects include Pulp at About Face Theatre (Jeff nomination- Best Director, After Dark Award—Best Production); Winesburg, Ohio also at About Face (Jeff nomination—Best Director, After Dark Award—Best Director); Chicago, an outdoor spectacle at the Field Museum; Seven Moves (About Face); Salao: The Worst Kind of Unlucky (Redmoon Theater, where she is a long time collaborator); Melancholy Play and Abingdon Square (Piven Theater, where she is a long time member of the teaching staff). For Steppenwolf For Young Adults, she wrote Haymarket Eight (with Derek Goldman) and directed Whispering City and David Mamet's The Water Engine (which moved to Theater on The Lake) and, most recently, A Tale of Two Cities. Jessica has also directed at Remy Bumppo, Center Theater, Lifeline Theater, Collaboraction Theater and Caravan Productions, as well as touring internationally with the Bread and Puppet Theater. She holds a doctorate in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and has designed courses and taught at The University of Chicago, DePaul University, Columbia College and Roosevelt University. She is currently a faculty member in the Directing Program at Northwestern and an artistic associate at The Corn Exchange in Dublin, Ireland.