Stairs to the Roof
By Tennessee Williams
Co-directed by Lane Savadove and Dane Eissler
A young Williams' wrote this "prayer for the wild of heart who are kept in cages" while working in his father's shoe factory in St. Louis. The story examines the inner-life of a young office clerk who dreams of freedom and a higher purpose in life. He secretly wages war against workers' slavery to the clock and the de-humanization of industrial America. He finds a magical escape, a secret stairs to the roof of his office, which begins his journey from the ordinary to seek an extraordinary life.
Artistic Director, Lane Savadove, directed this ode to the youth of the Great Depression told through the vision of today's millennials, graduating into debt and no job prospects, caught in a clash of promise and innovation in a struggling economy, aching with disappointment.
REVIEWS
"Behind the excellence of the cast lies the excellence of the director; Lane Savadove has brought his inventive, goofy imagination to a text that could easily bog down in socio-political speechifying and gloom, and whipped this forgotten script into terrific theater." - Philadelphia Inquirer
"Lane Savadove has it right. The proof is on stage, where EgoPo's Stairs to the Roof is a burst of comic elegance and eccentric staging – an ingenious way to handle the ham-handed, precious Stairs to the Roof." - WHYY Newsworks
"..Stairs to the Roof is refreshingly outrageous, smartly produced with youthful zeal and low-budget abandon, and deserves to be the season’s surprise hit." - Philadelphia City Paper
"It's often very funny. And director Lane Savadove piles absurdity upon absurdity to make it even funnier."
