Gary McGowan
By Naperville Magazine
April 2025 View more Spotlight
By Jeff Banowetz
This local playwright preps for another world premiere
Chicagoan Gary McGowan isn’t your typical playwright.
While he’s been a writer most of his adult life, he admits that he’d seen only one play until the age of 45, when he met his wife, an actress. “Meeting her and her friends and getting to know that community really changed my life,” he says.
This month the Steel Beam Theatre in St. Charles will host the world premiere of his latest work, 99th & Nowhere, the third of his creations to be performed at the space. “It’s a privilege to see where something starts and where it comes to,” says Annie Slivinski, who directs the play. “It’s exciting because the playwright is here. That is a pretty rare thing in theater where you actually get to communicate with the playwright and transform the words on the page to the stage for the first time.”
McGowan, 69, describes this work as a dark comedy among “four lost souls.” As his director puts it: “I’m attracted to plays with flawed characters, characters that are multilayered and with a script that gives them the opportunity to show lots of different layers of a character,” Slivinski says. “Because I think that’s the way we are in real life. This play does that.”
McGowan spoke to us about the process of creating his latest work.
Q: How did this play come about?
A: I have to think about that. Some of my other plays are much cleaner in that respect. This one was built around this one little nugget where I wondered about people who work mundane jobs, like a busboy or something like that. You see them every day. And I always wonder, what are their lives like outside of work? Do they have these secret talents? What are the interesting things about them that nobody knows? So I started with that idea, and eventually, characters started to develop.
Q: Is that typically how you write?
A: No, I would tell others that this is not the right way to write a play. I like to start with a story in mind. But in this case, I just had this initial character who hid himself away, and I built three other characters around him and just had them start talking to each other. And from there, the plot evolved. It was an unconventional way to start a play—and I don’t know if I’d ever do it again—but I think it turned out well. But it took me a lot longer to figure everything out.
Q: What’s the meaning of the title, 99th & Nowhere?
A: It’s a snide remark by one of the characters. She’s grousing about having to stay there in this gray and flat and quiet family neighborhood where nothing ever happens. But the thing is, a lot of stuff does happen. There are rich and vibrant and interesting things happening everywhere because of the people who live there. Just because it isn’t Miami Beach or somewhere [famous] doesn’t mean it isn’t a rich place to live.
Q: What drew you to playwriting?
A: I’ve written a lot of different things, but I think my strength is with dialogue, and I struggle more with regular prose. I feel that this type of writing plays to my strengths…It also adds a collaborative element to creating something new, which I enjoy.
Q: You don’t mind giving up control to the director and actors?
A: You just get these wonderful surprises. Somebody will give a version of something you wrote, and you’ll be like, “What an amazing way to play that.” Of course, there are also times when you wonder, where did they get that from? It’s interesting how your stuff is interpreted. But Annie [the director] is really strong, and she has great instincts. I can’t wait to see what she does with it.
Photo: Jeff Banowetz
