While most careers crescendo through time, Michele Steckler ’84’s ascent abandons the earthly language of music altogether. It instead calls upon the cosmic – both because it was meteoric, and because she did indeed land among the stars.

Though without music it was not.

In fact, Steckler's resume reads like an encyclopedia entry on the pantheon of 20th-century greats — to include Knee Plays, a collaboration between Robert Wilson and David Byrne, multiple tours across the world with the Philip Glass Ensemble — and she would ultimately land in the rehearsal halls of The Lion King, as Julie Taymor's production right-hand.

As things go, they had no idea the show would go gangbusters. Its success would lead Steckler to Disney Theatrical Group, out of the grind of stage management and into producing.

These days, Steckler runs her own creative consulting company, Fly Loft Group, and finds joy in supporting theatre and music in her southern New Hampshire community.

THE EARLY YEARS

Steckler describes her late-'60s New England childhood as idyllic.  “Outdoors was my playground — rock walls and tree climbing, and all that kind of stuff.” 

She discovered theatre early on when her sister enrolled in a summer theatre program. Steckler agonized because she wasn't yet six, the minimum age to enroll. She pleaded with her mom to let her visit one day, and managed to convince the teacher to let her join as a then five-year-old.  

She made her formal stage debut that summer in 1968. 

“Theatre was part of my life from the time I was really young,” she says, “going to a summer theatre program and then going to my first theater as an audience member at the University of Connecticut.” 

Steckler grew up in Windham, 20 minutes away from Storrs, Ct., home to the Nutmeg Summer Series, Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s summer lineup. Established in the 1950s, the Nutmeg had developed into a fully professional company by the time of Steckler’s childhood. 

She has an especially fond memory of sitting in the audience for Fiddler on the Roof during their 1971-72 season – of not just the production, but of the energy of the crowd, the frenzy of the ushers, the overture, and the curtain finally rising.  

“Whether I was onstage or in the audience, it all just felt like home.” 

THE UVM YEARS

Steckler’s family moved to Rhode Island; there, she spent her high school years.  

As a freshman she was cast as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker, followed by a range of roles. 

By the time she arrived at UVM, Steckler dreamed of a career as a professional actor. Midway through her sophomore year, she discovered – and fell in love with – stage management. This changed everything.

For the uninitiated, Steckler explains that the stage manager is the one “who holds everything together, all of the departments, all of the communicating." They create the master script for a production, as well as the calling script.  

During a live performance, they call all of the cues for the production – much "like an air traffic controller." 

She complemented her classes at the Theatre Department with work backstage at the Flynn Theatre on big touring shows. 

Nearing graduation, she recalls two key conversations with two different professors about her options after graduation. 

"One professor said, ‘You've got to get your MFA and preferably go to Yale. It's the best program for stage management. You'll make really important connections there, and it's the only path to getting your Equity [union] card.’ That was a very clear piece of advice.”

Then came a conversation with the late Professor Emeritus Edward J. Feidner (1931 – 2008), then head of the UVM theatre department and director of Champlain Shakespeare Festival (1959-1989), whom Steckler adored.

She recalls sitting in his office, cavernous and filled with books. 

"It was just such a warm and beautiful space. And he always offered coffee and -- I don't know why I remember this -- he'd say, 'Would you like some coffee?' And you'd say yes or no. And he'd say, ‘It's Ethiopian.’ He was really charming." 

Feidner advised Steckler to get an internship right out of school, and start working for free, if she could.

"He said, ‘It's the way you're going to get where you want to go and you're going to learn quickly. You'll prove yourself and you'll be getting a paycheck soon enough.'”  

This resonated with Steckler. “I knew that I was an experiential learner and I wasn't going to learn more in the classroom. I'd learned everything about stage managing by actually doing productions. There were no classes in stage management at the time, and I learned a lot about everything else behind the scenes. I worked on the crew, I directed, I touched all of the disciplines of theater, but it just made sense to me that getting an internship would be the way to go.” 

A LEAP OF FAITH

Steckler applied to several internships and found herself with offers from two plum institutions, the Folger Shakespeare Theatre in DC and the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.) at Cambridge. There were logistics to consider with the Folger, such as finding and affording housing in a new city (DC) where she had no connections or anticipated income for a full nine-month internship. And while the people were all nice, it just didn't feel like the right fit.

The A.R.T. was an easier yes -- just a six-week internship -- and her older sister was attending Harvard at the time and had an apartment with a spare bedroom.

The interview at the A.R.T. with then-Production Stage Manager (PSM) Jack Phillips "was really fun." The two "just clicked."

"When I made my decision to go to the A.R.T. I wasn't thinking about where I would make connections, or what would look on my resume at all.

I just thought 'Oh, it just feels right, and I'll have a place to stay.' I had no idea that I would be working with Robert Wilson, a director I would continue to work with over the years."

Another windfall? The A.R.T. had other shows running in repertory, which took the PSM out of the room on Wilson's production, the CIVIL warS, to call a different show with matinees."

And when that happened," Steckler says, "I was the only stage manager in the room."That means Steckler, but a few weeks into her professional career, was catapulted to senior-level duties – responsible for crucial production components to land Wilson’s visually-striking and highly-stylized vision, like tracking timing and making a detailed record of movement onstage (blocking). “

Jennifer Tipton was the lighting designer – one of the greats in the world,” Steckler reflects. “And she would come to me, asking about blocking notes and what was going on, because I was the throughline. I was in all the rehearsals.” 

THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS

Freshly graduated, Steckler found herself in rehearsals with Robert Wilson. She wasn't fazed -- mostly because she had no idea what a big deal he was. 

"It's not like someone pulled me aside and said, 'Do you know who this is? This is one of the great giants in the avant-garde theatre scene.'"

But that place of unknowing allowed Steckler to connect to Bob through the work itself.

"What was amazing is that Bob and I connected immediately, because he's so meticulous about his vision and gestures, and what not. And that's me. I'm meticulous in my nature. So, I appreciated what he was asking of actors and everybody else. I think he knew that I that I understood what he was going for."

From rehearsals, Steckler was hired onto the running crew and essentially became the Assistant Stage Manager (ASM) on deck. When the show closed, Steckler was contracted to work in the scene shop.  

“Ed Feidner was spot on,” she says. “I proved myself. I was learning and I was getting a paycheck. And not only that, they offered me an ASM contract the following season to come back and gave me my Equity card. So it happened very quickly.”

Then came an offer from Wilson to stage manage a European touring production of the Knee Plays, and not as an intern or assistant, but as the Production Stage Manager.

When they opened at the Frankfurt Theatre Festival, there was a kerfuffle at load in.

Steckler could sense something was wrong, as the crew shuffled began yelling at her ASM in German.

Eventually, someone was able to transcend the language barrier and bashfully informed Steckler that Steckler would need to leave the stage, because no women were allowed on the stage. This was the mid-1980s.

In Spain, they didn’t care that she was a woman. “But they were amused I was so young. I looked like I was sixteen.” Steckler was 23 at the time. 

And that is how, barely into her twenties, Michele Steckler found herself as one of the conduits for some of the most influential avant-garde theatre in the 20th century. 

“My learning curve was very steep, and I woke up most mornings with a big knot in my stomach. But eventually, I hit my stride.” 

THERE'S MORE TO DO

Steckler went on to stage manage several Philip Glass collaborations, touring with him and the Philip Glass Ensemble. “I loved working with Philip — he embodies the notion of ensemble,” she reflects. Through that, and sheer experience, her confidence grew.

Then more operas and plays and adaptations; there would be Japan and there would be Scotland, and South America, and so forth, across a bevy of collaborations with a textbook’s worth of theatre greats, like Anne Bogart of SITI Company at the Trinity Repertory Theatre, Oskar Eustis, Tina Landau and the Merchant of Venice at the Goodman (1994) directed by Peter Sellars. And it would all lead Steckler to Julie Taymor, first as stage manager on Juan Darien: A Carnival Mass at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival then Salome in Russia.

And, yes, eventually, to The Lion King on Broadway.

Taymor offered that Steckler come on as Assistant Director, different than stage managing, but a role she’d taken on for several operas.

So, Broadway or another Philip Glass tour? 

Steckler hesitated and didn't say yes right away. Broadway "felt foreign." But after consulting with a friend and mentor, she ultimately accepted the job that would change her life. 

"The minute we started," she says, "I was in my element."

Steckler hit the ground running. It was complex and massive — but altogether familiar.

"It didn't matter that it was Broadway, it was all the same stuff. Listening and sense making, connecting the dots of all these complex parts."

"There were people who'd never worked in the theatre before. And that was part of the magic of it, is that everybody was just bringing their authentic self and skills and gifts. Julie had such a clear vision, and we all were just on board with 'This is what we're going for.' And it was really hard, but we just were all in it together."

"Julie and I had no idea. None of us had any idea that it would become such a huge success.”

THE GREAT WHITE WAY

The Lion King opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre on November 13, 1997, following a pre-Broadway out-of-town run in Minneapolis.

“We were genuinely shocked by the response. And then, as we saw it, night after night, I remember getting a sense of, ‘Okay, this is amazing. This is really something.’ But it wasn’t until that first preview that we really got to see it. So, yeah, it completely changed my life.”

One of the show's producers, Tom Schumacher, said to Steckler, “You’re really a producer at heart."

After opening, she took on a new role as Associate Producer, helping maintain Taymor’s vision on Broadway and providing creative oversight on the production, while figuring out how to replicate the show in other parts of the world.

Twenty-eight years later, The Lion King remains one of the longest-running productions on Broadway, with over 110 million people having seen the show in 27 productions around the world.

CRAFTING A LIFE

After nearly 15 years with Disney Theatrical Group, Steckler yearned for change. "A voice in me felt like that cycle was completing."

After 25 years of working in the theatre, new paths came to mind and she knew that it was time to take a leap. 

Soon after leaving Disney, Steckler ran into theatre director Anne Bogart at a restaurant.

Bogart, who has taught at Columbia's MFA program for over 30 years, was one of Steckler's early collaborators.

"And I told Anne about leaving Disney and my emerging ideas about working with young adults just out of college, and she said, 'Come and talk to my class. Come be a guest speaker.'" 

This was a turning point, as the students were eager to learn more about the life transition workshops Steckler envisioned leading. One of the students hung around afterwards and offered to help. He sourced a rehearsal room and got the word out about the full-day, complimentary pilot workshop. 

It was nearly a decade later that the notion of 'producing your life' began to take shape for Steckler. She describes the essence of what a producer does, saying, “A producer, in essence, holds the long arch of a vision while staying present moment-to-moment.” 

“That’s what a producer has to do. There are all these logistics, but that ability to hold a long arc over years, have a plan, have a sense of the steps, and yet always be ready to change and adapt. If you don’t really stay present along the way, you can’t notice and see when something’s not quite working." 

Steckler is passionate about the idea that producing your life is not so different from producing a big Broadway musical. "Life is all about holding the long arc, while also staying present day-to-day. I think we are all producers. Life, just like theatre, is complicated and messy at times, but it's also rich and rewarding."

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In this story we used Rev AI to help us transcribe an in-person interview with the subject of the article. When using this transcription service, we fact-checked and manually edited inconsistencies, ensuring it met our ethical and accuracy standards. Using this tool allowed us to go more in-depth in the researching and writing of the piece. Generative AI was not used at any instance, including in the creation or editing of this article, its outline, images, captions, or summary.