Gary Sinise

And I auditioned for West Side Story, the musical.

And I got in it, I got a little tiny part in it.

And here I was, I was probably getting ready to get kicked out of school at the time.

And that whole theater community and the fun that I had doing that show and everything just changed everything for me.

It really was a turning point.

And the teacher that I had was unlike any teacher I'd ever had before.

She just was different.

And she saw something in me that was...

that she kind of encouraged.

And then after that play, I just wanted to be in all these shows and I ended up doing really well in theater.

Ended up starting a theater company when I got out of high school.

called Steppenwolf, and that theater company is now over 50 years old.

We were little kids.

We ended up building a building that takes an entire city block.

So it really is a great American dream story where you start with absolutely nothing, just kids wanting to do some plays, and it turns into something special.

caricatures up here on the wall.

are from different Steppenwolf plays that we moved to New York and did on Broadway or off Broadway.

And we started moving our shows to New York.

That gave us a lot of international recognition.

And because of the international recognition, we were able to raise the amount of money that we needed to raise to build a building.