12-24-04
BY JENN Q. GODDU
Nearly every day for the past two years someone has come to the Apollo Theatre box office trying to find out what happened to Act One. The bookstore moved out ages ago (its business is now being handled by Soliloquy at 1724 W. Belmont) but it wasn’t until last month that someone else moved into the lower level space at 2540 N. Lincoln Ave.
The new tenant is the Apollo Theatre itself. Apollo general manager Dan Schlaack spent a year convincing the property landlord he could do something viable with the space. Eventually he was persuasive enough and now the former bookstore, which has been empty since 2002, has been transformed into a small studio theatre. There’s room for 50 freestanding seats or the space can be set up to accommodate tables and chairs for a 30-35 person cabaret.
The landlord had been hoping to get a restaurant or retail tenant, but Schlaack had his eye on the space as a rehearsal, special events and meeting area. He hadn’t initially considered the extra space for use as a performance venue, but more than one person came in, saw what was there, and said they could stage something there. So the studio opened Nov. 19 with Losers Bracket in open run.
The electrical was updated, a lighting grid was added and Rob Kolson Creative Productions (the management entity for the Apollo) painted and put in new carpeting. There are curtains and platform risers to delineate the stage space. “The footprint of the space is difficult but we have no ability to change that as it’s part of the building,” Schlaack said. “We really managed to turn it into something that’s very intimate but still able to fit 40 to 50 people in there comfortably… It’s a real nice asset.”
The hope is to renovate the space further in the spring, adding a wheelchair lift and making it so that the lobby for the mainstage space will have a direct entryway to the downstairs studio.
Hubbard Street Dance Company has made some changes too. New dancers in the main company are Meredith Dincolo, Martin Lindinger, Hope Muir, Yarden Ronen and Penny Saunders. Isaac Spencer has been promoted to the main company also and Sarah Cullen Fuller is moving up from HS2 to be an apprentice to the main company. New HS2 dancers are Jessica Tong, Kellie Epperheimer, Meghan French and Jesse Marks. HSDC’s new director of development is Martin Grochala. HS2 has a new administrative/artistic associate in Whitney Moncrief.
Second City is looking to expand its presence in the schools. The company has established a non-profit foundation to support merit- and need-based scholarships, expand community outreach programs and bolster its involvement with school teachers and students. The company has put $500,000 of its own money into education and outreach initiatives since 1992, but forming this foundation expands what Second City can do, said Rob Chambers, executive director of The Second City Training Centers. “In the past Second City has funded these [types of programs] all themselves and it really would depend on how much discretionary funds we had available in any given year,” he said. In being able to write grants and develop partnerships Second City should be better able to fund education, outreach and scholarship initiatives on a regular basis.
One Chicago duo doing comic outreach is The Defiant Thomas Brothers. Seth Thomas and Paul Thomas incorporate music and comedy into the act they’ll perform during the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, from Feb. 9 to 13, 2005.
Closer to home next month, audiences can get involved in the new play development process at The Metropolis Performing Arts Centre. The four one-acts selected for inclusion in the staged reading are Blisters on My Fingers, by Jeremy Schaefer; The Answering Machine, by Anthony Ruth; The Hand Held Saint, by Emily Schwartz; and Superheroes Float, by Gwendolyn Quirk. These scripts were selected from nearly 100 entries. The readings are held the first four Sundays in January at 1 p.m. in Arlington Heights.
And, just to keep you up-to-date on Victory Gardens’ purchase and renovation of The Biograph Theater at 2433 N. Lincoln Ave.: A groundbreaking ceremony was held mid-December. It was just a week after Victory Gardens announced that its capital campaign to fund the movie house renovations had received a $300,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation. The revamped $9-million facility is slated to open fall 2005.
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