BY JONATHAN ABARBANEL
The handwriting appears to be on the wall for the Hattie Callner Theatre, one of Chicago’s seminal off-Loop performance spaces. You don’t recognize the name? Well, it’s the cramped, artistically potent 150-seat thrust stage within the Jane Addams Center, 3212 North Broadway. Officials at the Hull House Association, which owns and operates the property, have confirmed exclusively to PI that the Center is to be sold in the near-term future. The deal has not yet been struck, but a potential buyer–who is expected to raze the building–has been identified by the association.
In the nearly 40 years since the little house opened its doors, it’s been home to some of the most important productions and troupes in off-Loop Theatre history, beginning with the era of Robert Sickenger, director of the Hull House theatre in the 1960s. The Callner stage served as the launching pad for Mike Nussbaum, Maureen Steindler, Jim Jacobs, Steve Pickering, Kyle Donnelly, Eric Simonson and David Zak, among many others. As a leased space, the Callner was home to a long list of influential troupes including Steppenwolf, Bailiwick, Lookingglass, Famous Door (tenant for a decade) and the current occupant, About Face Theatre Company. About Face spokesperson Shelly Echerd says the company has been notified of the intended sale, "but we don’t know whether that means next year, the year after or when." The company already has an eye out for a new performance space, since moving its office out of the Jane Addams Center just weeks ago.
A few of the many acclaimed productions in the Hattie Callner Theatre have been Steppenwolf’s Balm in Gilead and True West, Bailiwick’s Animal Farm and Ourselves Alone, Lookingglass’s The Idiot, Prop Thtr Group’s Mann ist Mann and Famous Door’s The Conquest of the South Pole and The Living.
New Digs for Artistic Home
After three years in digs on Cornelia at Ravenswood, the Artistic Home has moved to a new space at Irving Park at Southport. More room for classes (which began in the new space September 4 without a hitch), says Artistic Home leaders John Mossman and Kathy Scambiaterra, and more room to produce plays. The Artistic Home will launch its season with Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending, to be directed by popular former Chicagoan director and teacher (now a New Yorker) Dan LaMorte.
Additional Apples
Apple Tree Theatre has announced the addition of Cecilie Keenan and Mary Ellen Mason to its staff. Noted both as an administrator and a director, Keenan joins Apple Tree as producing director, working with artistic director Ross Lehman and executive/artistic director Eileen Boevers. Keenan previously held artistic posts at Northlight and Bailiwick theatres. Mary Ellen Moore has joined as director of development, after recent gigs with the Chicago Botanic Gardens and Lake County Forest Preserves Museum. She has 20 years’ experience as a funding professional. Keenan and Mason took up their new posts in July.
Side Man Outback
As reported here previously, the Steppenwolf production of Side Man is headed to Australia for a three-week run in Melbourne. The cast is considerably different from the mainstage production, with ensemble members Austin Pendleton, Tim Hopper and Rondi Reed, plus John Judd, James Saltouros, Jason Wells and Carmen Roman (who intends to stay an extra week or so to visit New Zealand).
Ex-Chitowners Hit Broadway
Chicagoans are popping up all over the New York theatre map. Well, ex-Chicagoans. Karen Mason has been cast as one of the three female "trio" leads in the Broadway version of Mamma Mia, in which she will have the career-making opportunity to exactly and precisely mimic the recorded hits of Abba. Dennis O’Hare, who never was out of work in Chicago, almost never has been out of work since moving to New York a few years back. Just now, he’s been cast as Charles Guitreau in a revival of Assassins, the offbeat Sondheim/LaPine musical about those who have shot American presidents. Guitreau killed President James A. Garfield in 1881. O’Hare is not known for his work in musicals.
Another Chicagoan, of sorts, film actor Chris O’Donnell will star in Arthur Miller’s The Man Who Had All the Luck, opening in March at the Roundabout Theatre. This is a restaging of O’Donnell’s well-received live theatre debut in the role this summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. The Man Who Had All the Luck was Miller’s first full-length play, and was a failure when originally produced in 1944. The hero, by the way, is a charming, young Midwesterner. Type casting for O’Donnell, eh?
Cash Cows
Corpus Christi has been extended again at Bailiwick, through October 14. The troupe also reports that Naked Boys Singing is sold-out for September, and already has been extended into November, well beyond the original 30 September closing date. On opening night, a senior Bailiwick staffer observed to PI, "We’d have to be idiots not to be able to run this at least through the end of the year."
'Suite’ Home Chicago
Artists Bill Ryan and Michelle MacCabee remind PI that their entry in Suite Home Chicago, now on display on downtown streets, is "The History of Chicago Theatre." The two teamed up with Lauren Nimi, Danice Ivancevic and Encarnacion Teruel to turn a sofa into an 8’ long by 7’6" high double-sided chronicle of theatre in Chicago, featuring a collage of head shots, photos, posters and play programs from the last 40 years. One side of the sofa has been turned into a replica of a 1920s box office complete with working lights, while the other side has become a miniature dressing room. "The History of Chicago Theatre" is on display in front of the Ford Center/Oriental Theatre on Randolph just west of State Street. It’s sponsored by the Acme Theater, Holy Name Cathedral and Harvest on Huron. "Chicago Theater Rocks," the sofa declares.