The powerhouse Chicago company commissioned a stage adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath in 1985, but the show didn’t open until the fall of 1988 – and didn’t make it to Broadway (via La Jolla and London) until 1990. The man who wrote the script and ended up directing it, the woman who cast it, the man who designed the production, and the woman who played Ma Joad (Lois Smith) remember how it all came together.