10-26-07
Viaduct Unmoors The House
Following the close of The Magnificents on Nov. 3, The House Theatre of Chicago will join the list of companies looking for a plank to play upon. After four years in residence at The Viaduct, 3111 N. Western, The House has been informed that the venue no longer is available for theatrical rentals. Owners Rob Whittaker and Whitney Blakemore “have told us they want to take the building in a different direction,” said Dennis Watkins, spokesperson for The House. “Whatever that means.” Watkins added that no detailed explanation had been given, but with a liquor license in place the space offers numerous possibilities.
The House already had planned to stage its second show of the season, The Nutcracker, at Steppenwolf Upstairs (Nov. 17-Dec. 29) but expected to return to the Viaduct in late winter for The Attempters. Now they’ll need to find a space, and not just any old space. Watkins said the appeal of The Viaduct is its flexibility, and that The House will seek to duplicate that in a venue that can seat 125-150. The space itself will be more a determining factor than the location, he told PerformInk. Watkins added that The House would like to find something permanent. “A long-term situation probably would be ideal. I don’t think we’re in a position to buy yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible.” The House has a $500,000 budget for Fiscal 2008. By contrast, the American Theatre Company is budgeted at $650,000 this year and recently began a $4 million capital campaign to build its own facility.
Naturally, we wanted to know if The House will have a bar in its new wherever location. “Oh, man, I hope so!” Watkins declared. “One of the great things about The Viaduct has been the bar and that lobby. We love it and our audiences love it.”
Whittaker and Blakemore did not return phone calls. The Viaduct’s voice mail system continues to offer the mainstage and the studio theatre for rent for various dates into next June.
Griffin Theatre Company continues to make slow progress towards its purchase from the City of Chicago of an empty police station at 1940 W. Foster Ave. Co-artistic director William Massolia says Griffin still is negotiating an agreement with the city, explaining that the contract has been delayed due to an outstanding environmental issue at the site, which the city now has agreed to remedy. That should clear the way for Griffin to purchase the site for $1—yes, a buck—and then raise an estimated $2 million to retool the 3-floor, limestone-and-brick building. Veteran theatre architect John Morris already is on the case, and has drawn up preliminary plans to create at 110-seat mainstage and a 45-seat studio. Massolia says Griffin hopes to take possession by the end of the year and open sometime in 2009.
Griffin will produce its 2008 shows at Theatre Building Chicago, Journey’s End in January and Be More Chill in May. The company also continues to focus on its touring programs, especially Letters Home, based on correspondence from Iraq War troops. The success of the show has fueled a Griffin budget for FY2008 that’s a whopping 40 percent higher than last year: $210,000-$220,000 up from $150,000. Letters Home will make several stops in Florida in the next two weeks, and will return to Florida in January. Griffin also has begun to organize a nine-state Texas-to-New Jersey tour for autumn 2008.
Director Ann Filmer is set to become artistic director of a new Equity company in Berwyn, of all places. In case no one has noticed, the once solidly blue collar suburb on Chicago’s western edge has gentrified considerably over the last several years and is actively seeking Yuppies, Guppies, Gen X’ers and other upwardly mobile types. Hey, Berwyn even is advertising houses for under $300,000 in Chicago’s LGBT papers. Filmer’s groove, the 16th Street Theatre at 6420 W. 16th Street, will open in March with Will Dunne’s The Ascension of Carlotta and continue next fall with Tanya Saracho’s Kita y Fernanda. The 16th Street Theatre will be a program of the Berwyn Cultural Center.
The 15-year-old Bog Theatre also is part of the action in the Western ‘burbs, as it moved into new digs for the 2007-08 season, the mainstage of the Pickwick Theatre in Northwest Suburban Park Ridge. Readers with acute long-term memory will recall PerformInk reporting on the Pickwick several years ago when it launched a live performance policy. Bog opened its season with a remount of its successful production of To Kill A Mockingbird, adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee (Oct. 5-21). The Bog formerly was housed in the landmark Masonic Temple in downtown Des Plaines.
Writers Theatre has commissioned new works by four local and national authors, to be workshopped this season and next and produced in seasons down the road. First up is a musical adaptation of Shaw’s Candida with music by Josh Schmidt (composer of last year’s The Adding Machine at Next Theatre) and lyrics by Jan Tranen to a book adapted by Writers’ artistic director Michael Halberstam. It will be workshopped this season and produced in 2008-2009. Chicago author Brett Neveu also has been commissioned to develop a new play, which will be workshopped at Writers over the next two seasons. Finally, Chay Yew, the nationally-known author and director, has been commissioned to write a new piece, to be developed over the next two years.
Sometimes in Behind the Curtain, a sweet, soft human interest story gets cut in favor of what we in the media call “hard news.” Such was the case this summer when our friend Belinda Bremner authored a new play, Envoy, produced at Theatre Building Chicago. The human interest part is that the production marked the professional debuts of a third generation of theatrical Bremners, as Belinda’s now-adult children Ben and Lucy appeared in the show. As Belinda wrote us, “Seems like yesterday you and I were their age and taking Chicago by storm at Old Town Players and Hull House and St. Nick.” Ben and Lucy not only follow Belinda into theatre, but also their grandmother who founded the Shaw Society with Lois Weisberg (now Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs). Belinda says Grannie Bremner was a mainstay of Chicago radio in its heyday in the ’30s and ’40s, along with the likes of Studs Terkel, and that Studs always called her “the Duchess.”