For years, Steppenwolf Theatre Company was to actor Nick Gehlfuss what Wrigley Field is to a baseball hopeful, or the Art Institute of Chicago to a rising artist. “I’ve seen a bunch of plays at Steppenwolf, including Tracy Letts’ The Minutes,” says the Ohio native, who played Dr. Will Halstead for eight seasons (2015–2023) on Chicago Med and Robbie Pratt in the fourth season (2014) of Shameless. “Every time I saw a play there, I thought, ‘Man, I’d love to be on stage there one day.’”
One day is here. Gehlfuss landed the coveted role of rodeo performer Eddie in Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love, set to run at Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Theater January 30–March 16. Directed by Jeremy Herrin and also starring ensemble member Caroline Neff as Eddie’s former lover May, the torrid one-act play unfolds in a motel room in the Mojave Desert.
“I’m over the moon, on cloud nine and beyond, about playing Eddie at Steppenwolf, a rockin’ theatre known for its honest storytelling,” says Gehlfuss. “I studied Fool for Love in college. It’s a tour de force that demands an athlete’s mindset, because Shepard intended it to be performed relentlessly and without a break. Eddie’s carrying the sins of his father, living the life of tragedies he doesn’t fully understand. He’s a drunk and a womanizer, with complicated relationships with his family. The dude could use a good therapist.”
Gehlfuss enlisted the help of former rodeo performer and stuntman, Frank Calzavara of Jus-Ran Farm in Kansasville, an unincorporated community in southeastern Wisconsin, to become Eddie. “Steppenwolf, which is such a well-oiled machine with lovely people, hooked me up with sessions with Frank ahead of rehearsals. Not only did I learn roping up there, I also got to witness the lifestyle of a rodeo guy.”
Gehlfuss’s start in theatre occurred between pins in wrestling. Running the hallways as an eighth grader grappler in-training, he was approached by his school’s drama teacher, who pitched a role in the department’s upcoming play, Treasure Island. Gehlfuss listened and then pounced on the opportunity to perform off the mats.
“It certainly helped me as an actor, having played as many sports as I did as a kid,” says Gehlfuss, who also suited up for soccer and baseball games, but wore jeans and an untucked jersey for interminable backyard football games with neighborhood buddies. “The foundational skills I developed in athletics are similar to those in acting. Sports and the entertainment industry are highly competitive fields.”
In his senior year, his English teacher asked him what he planned to do after graduation. “I remember replying, ‘I don’t know.’ The teacher then suggested I pursue acting in college because I liked Shakespeare and performing in plays. I didn’t even know you could study acting in college.” Gehlfuss went on to earn a B.F.A. from Marietta College in Ohio, and an M.F.A. at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. And it didn’t take long for him to garner plaudits as a professional stage actor. He received the Rosemarie Tichler Award in 2012 after his Classic Stage Company debut in New York, as Lysander in A Midsummer’s Night Dream.
“Back then,” Gehlfuss recalls, “I was eating $1.75 spaghetti dinners three times a week. I felt incredibly fortunate after that run in New York, realizing the support and advice I’d received from my parents, high school teachers, and college professors, along with theatre folks. Mentors, all of them. If everyone had one mentor in life, think how better the world would be."
In the 2013 “No One Mourns the Wicked” episode of the television crime series, Rizzoli & Isles, Gehlfuss portrayed the purported assistant of an author who wrote a book about three serial killers. “The regulars on Rizzoli & Isles treated me so well,” Gehlfuss remembers. “They were so welcoming from the start and guided me. Once I started working as a series regular on Chicago Med, which changed my life for the better, there was no question I’d treat the guest actors like I was treated on Rizzoli & Isles.”
Steppenwolf last produced Fool for Love in 1984, with William Petersen playing Eddie and Rondi Reed as May, but the company’s production history is threaded with Shepard shows, including True West in 1982 and 2019. “Through the decades, Steppenwolf has returned again and again to Sam Shepard’s searing body of work,” say Steppenwolf Artistic Directors Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis.
“His plays, filled with tension, symbol and muscle, pose delights and demands for actors and audiences alike. Fool for Love is no exception, with Eddie and May’s iconic power struggle at the heart of this prize-winning masterpiece.”
Gehlfuss turned 40 on January 21, and the early present drew a smile that won’t go away. “I can’t think of a better birthday gift than a role like this at Steppenwolf,” he enthuses. “I’m at a transitional stage in my career, recalibrating and reevaluating and seeking to develop while giving it my all out of my comfort zone. Eddie is completely different than Dr. Will Halstead in Chicago Med, but it’s a wonderful, exciting opportunity to return to my theatre roots and grow as an actor. I’ve always wanted to play a cowboy, and here I am, getting to do just that at none other than Steppenwolf.”
