9-29-06
No Monkeying Around with Gorilla Tango
A new commercial theatre venue, Gorilla Tango Theatre, will open between Oct. 14 and Nov. 1 (depending on construction schedule) at 1919 N. Milwaukee Ave. It will be home for a number of local scripted, improvisational, and sketch groups. Classes also will be offered and the venue will be available for events. The venue will have an 85-seat house set up cabaret-style (BYO initially, liquor license to come) plus three rehearsal rooms. Gorilla Tango Theatre (GTT) will produce under its own name and also present other companies. The GTT opener will be the world premiere of Confessions by Chicago author Shane Abbott. A kids’ show also will be offered.
GTT is the brainchild of Evanston native Dan Abbate, 26, who opened a GTT two years ago in Albuquerque, New Mexico to test his ideas about running an arts organization on a corporate business model, including building ownership. GTT owns both its locations.
“It is possible to be successful in theatre if you tightly control your expenses and meticulously maintain your organization and structure,” Abbate says. “Diversify, diversify, diversify. Theatre is heavily dependent on word-of-mouth. The majority of the people that come out to see live theatre have a direct connection to the show – knowing a member of the cast, director, or crew – or recognizing the name of the piece. So the key is to offer as many different genres of theatre with as many different people involved as possible. This helps reach the greatest number of audience at any given time.”
Potential GTT tenants will find that the deal includes performance space, rehearsal hall, insurance, box office services and basic marketing services. The cost is $200 per performance hour – figured from curtain up to final curtain – plus a 50/50 split of the box office. Better not do Shakespeare or O’Neill. Eventually GTT expects to operate seven days a week, with up to three shows in any given evening.
I suspect that most of you are not regular readers of Vanity Fair magazine. Me neither. However, better late than never. Last April’s Vanity Fair offered a photo spread of the world’s finest Shakespearian actors, as featured in the 2006-2007 Complete Works Festival at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Among the familiar and distinguished thespians in the group portrait were Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart and F. Murray Abraham. There, also, was Greg Vinkler, who is far too modest to have said a word in the course of several conversations over the spring and summer.
ComedySportz of Chicago just doesn’t seem able to keep a roof over its head. The troupe that was gentrified out of 2851 N. Halsted last spring, has announced new permanent quarters on the second floor of Ann Sather’s on Belmont sometime in 2007 (PerformInk, Aug. 18). In the meantime, the comedy jocks are producing their mainstage show in the studio theatre at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts. ComedySportz units also are performing one night a week at the IO and at The Spot on Broadway.
The Bohemian Theatre Ensemble has patched up its differences with the management of the Heartland Studio and will remain there to produce Yerma (Oct. 14-Nov. 19). However, it’s a short-term solution. Boho will produce its big spring musical at Theatre Building Chicago, and hopes to be in new Rogers Park quarters (shared with at least one other theatre company) for its next season of three or four shows.
Boho successfully staged Electra at the Heartland Studio last season, but had to put in a great deal of sweat equity (and some money) to fix the place up, plus bring in its own lights and seats. Heartland Studio management then booked the house out to others despite what Boho believed was an understanding for longer-term occupancy.
Says Boho managing director Tom Samorian, “We were in a position where we couldn’t find a space for Yerma at such a late date, as we had planned to be at Heartland before the whole mess happened, so we sat down with them and were very specific about our needs in the space. They’re very nice, but their needs are different than our needs. We are not making any improvements to the space this time around. We will, of course, bring in our own seating, set, lights, etc., but everything we bring in will then leave with us.”
Author/performer Maripat Donovan will make her Broadway debut over the holiday season, bringing Sister’s Christmas Catechism, the Mystery of the Magi’s Gold to New York for a limited run. The show will be directed by her longtime collaborator, Marc Silvia. The former Chicago actor and director lives in Los Angeles now and mostly is directing. Sister Donovan will perform 12 shows a week at a theatre to be named (the Helen Hayes Theatre has been mentioned but not confirmed), with audience participation built into the show and – unlike most Broadway shows – picture taking encouraged. Sister’s Christmas Catechism is the second sequel that Donovan alone has penned to Late Nite Catechism, which she co-wrote with Vicki Quade.
Actor Joe Wycoff will run in the Chicago Marathon, Oct. 22, to raise money for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. A pledge to the Foundation in support of his run is tax deductible. For more info, go to www.aidsmarathon.com/participant.asp?runner.
This we love: Gillian Kelly, opera singer, voice teacher and associate at The Artistic Home, has become a calendar girl. Chicago’s young OperaModa troupe asked her to pose for their all-diva fundraising OperaModa Uncovered Calendar, and Ms. Kelly agreed. Posing as Aida, she will appear as Miss March in the 2007 calendar, available at www.lulu.com/content/419656.
Several readers have used the PerformInk message board to post comments about my Sept. 1 column, specifically the story about negative blog remarks by a member of the GreyZelda Theatre Company. The messages have questioned my motives in repeating the material, which quickly was removed from the Internet. One comment suggested that I intended to discredit GreyZelda and defend my fellow theatre critics. That particular message poster doesn’t know me very well.
First, readers should know that when I submitted the Sept. 1 column, the blog material in question still was online. Next, readers should know by now that Behind the Curtain is a mix of short news items, announcements, reports on people and places, gossip, commentary and humor. I often use the column to point out apparent stupidities within our industry, such as five shows opening on the same night (which occurred again on Sept. 15). The blog dish by Lady Crow was just such an apparent stupidity. Besides, it was too juicy to ignore. It touched that not-so-secret place inside us all that loves to hate the critics and the Jeff Committee. Hooray! You go girl! But: not one word I wrote disparaged GreyZelda or its production, or suggested that Lady Crow’s opinions were shared by the company. If ever I cross that line and dis a theatre company without cause, you can demand my hide.