Audrey Francis on learning to fail in public

Audrey Francis is a Tony Award winning producer and the Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre, where she has been an ensemble member since 2017. As part of the executive leadership team, she has played an integral role in the company’s post pandemic turnaround, producing five of the top ten best selling shows in Steppenwolf’s fifty year history. Audrey is also the co creator of Steppenwolf IMPACT, which brings Steppenwolf’s ensemble ethos into the corporate world, and the co-founder of Black Box Acting, where she built a curriculum rooted in the study of human behavior. She has worked on nearly twenty productions at Steppenwolf as an actor and director, and coaches performers and executives alike at companies like Amazon, HBO, and NBC.In this conversation, Audrey traced her winding path from aspiring film editor to Artistic Director, and how a teacher’s offhand advice sent her from Colorado to Chicago and into an ensemble built around treating art as a team sport. She talked candidly about learning to fail in public, why she built an entire school around the practice of taking risks and celebrating each other for trying, and how she redefined failure for herself as walking away from a situation without being honest or brave rather than simply losing a role. We also got into what it took to lead Steppenwolf through the pandemic, why she coaches executives to stop performing command and start showing up as themselves, and what it felt like to stand on the Tony Awards stage watching Purpose, a play she and her co-artistic director greenlit with only forty pages written, win Best Play.Connect with Audrey: Steppenwolf Theatre | Black Box Acting | SubstackIf you’re looking to unleash your potential, find your personal, professional, or political fire, and to connect with a community who is doing the same, click here to learn more. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shannonwatts.substack.com/subscribe