8-3-07
The New Artistic Home
The Artistic Home is giving up its cozy Irving Park Road digs after five years, a move that’s been at least a year in the offing due to lease issues and the need for more space. But the decision of founders John Mossman and Kathy Scambiatterra to abandon the North Side theatre district in favor of Pilsen probably will be a surprise to many. The former gallery space at 2003 S. Halsted is in one of the Chicago Arts Center buildings owned by John Podmajersky, very close to the University of Illinois at Chicago. Podmajersky’s offered the Artistic Home a 5-year lease on 3,200 square feet. Since the Irving Park space had only 1,000 square feet, the Artistic Home will have the room it needs.
“We’re pretty happy about that,” Scambiatterra told PerformInk, saying the new location will provide them with a 50-seat theatre (about double the current seating) plus room for a separate studio/classroom for the Artistic Home’s professional courses. She said the facility has been well rehabbed with bathrooms, HVAC and a kitchen already in place. The Artistic Home needs only to build out the theatre space. Upon completion of due diligence and licensing, the company hopes to move by the end of September and have the new space open by the end of November. Staff and board have launched a modest capital campaign to raise $75,000 by next spring to cover the cost of the build-out and provide a several-month cushion for rent and marketing.
Scambiatterra confessed to being a bit unsure about whether or not the Artistic Home’s audiences will follow them south. “I’m not so nervous about patrons because of the accessibility of the location and University Village nearby, but I’m worried about students coming down to us. But I have faith in the neighborhood.”
The Artistic Home, an Equity troupe, was founded in 1998 by husband-and-wife team Mossman and Scambiatterra, veterans of the old Center Theatre ensemble and school. The new location is a lot closer to their home in the near southwest ‘burbs, which certainly influenced their decision.
Disney’s High School Musical seems a little like the class slut: everyone seems to have done it. The official touring version produced by the Disney Company currently is at the LaSalle Bank Theatre (through Sept. 2) but not before Emerald City Theatre’s July 15-Aug. 9 version at the Victory Gardens Greenhouse, billed as a Chicago premiere. Perhaps it is on a technicality, although Emerald City was preceded by productions of High School Musical at the Metropolis Centre in Arlington Heights and at the Noble Fool in St. Charles. Bailiwick Repertory also has staged it this summer. One wonders if the downtown version will draw in spite of all the other productions or because of them, or whether Disney expects to lure a crowd of non-theatre goers familiar with the original Disney Channel TV movie. High School Musical certainly is sui generis, the only example we know of a major producer releasing rights to the vast general public, and then deciding to produce a Broadway-class national tour.
Theatre critic Beverly Friend has scored a coup in the Aug. 14-Sept. 20 program she’s put together at Oakton Community College, The Many Faces of King Lear. She’s lassoed Michael Halberstam to open the series and Robert Falls to close it, and also has arranged for screenings of the most brilliant film adaptations of Lear, including the Orson Welles (Aug. 23) James Earl Jones (Aug. 27), and Peter Brook/Paul Scofield (Aug. 29) versions. She’s also screening 1,000 Acres, based on the Jane Smiley book (Sept. 7), Akira Kurasawa’s Ran (Sept.17) and Korol Lir, the towering Russian film version (Sept. 19). Days of the week and times of the series events vary. Call 847/635-1414 for details. Single-event tickets are $10.
Circle Theatre (Forest Park) has launched a “Be Good to Your Bum” campaign to raise funds to purchase new seats for its mainstage theatre, asking the modest sum of only $150 per seat. The effort has been coordinated with Circle’s acclaimed production of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband (June 27-Aug. 5), set in Britain where “bum” is slang for derri?re which is polite French for “ass.” That production also unveiled Circle’s new central heating and air conditioning system, part of a continuing effort to upgrade the venue’s amenities.
City Lit Theater Company continues to demonstrate that it’s turned the fiscal corner by reporting its third consecutive year-end surplus. The modest surplus of exactly $4,699 is 4.8 percent of the troupe’s Fiscal 2007 budget, which means the nearly 30-year-old company still operates on under $100,000 a year. Artistic director Terry McCabe and managing director Brian Pastor point out that for 2007-2008 City Lit will produce for 34 weeks, up from less than 26 weeks three years ago. The troupe also will stage a five-show season for the first time, built on four subscription shows and a non-subscription repeat of last year’s holiday show, A City Lit Christmas. Among the subscription shows will be the third Chicago-area production in two years of the wonderfully curious and rich one-man show, Underneath the Lintel by Greg Berger. City Lit is bringing Kristine Thatcher back from her artistic directorship at BoarsHead Playhouse to Chicago to direct.
The Acorn Theatre in Three Oaks, Mich. continues to be a good gig for Chicago and erstwhile Chicago talent. Prestidigitator Sean Masterson was around the lake last weekend, and Donna Blue Lachman doing her repertory piece After Mountains…More Mountains: The Haiti Stories, July 27-Aug. 11.
Porchlight Music Theatre has launched a search for the troupe’s first-ever executive director, which coincides with the transfer to the Apollo Theater Center of Porchlight’s most successful production, Ragtime (through Aug. 26). Porchlight seeks the usual entrepreneurial self-starter with a theatre background to oversee general operations and lead planning and implementation of enhanced development/fundraising efforts. The company board hopes to fill the post by September. If you think you’ve got the goods, send resume including salary requirements to marykay.conley@ihbrr.com.
Following its Steppenwolf world premiere and a successful Off-Broadway production, Bruce Norris’ The Pain and the Itch has been included in the 88th annual edition of the Burns Mantle best plays theatre yearbook, “Best Plays of 2006-2007.” Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones is on the Burns Mantle editorial board. Information: www.bestplaysonline.com. The Norris play currently is in a well-received production at London’s Royal Court Theatre.
To close, a reminder about the Aug. 26 “A Day at the Races” benefit at Arlington Park Race Track for the Illinois Chapter-HDSA, the group that fights Huntington’s Disease, a severe and progressive neurological disorder. Registration deadline for the event is Aug. 9, and your $40 bucks includes reserved grandstand seating, a racing guide and 10 Arlington Dollars to wager at the window or use for food and beverage. This benefit is spearheaded by former Lifeline marketing director Sherman Shoemaker, who lives with Huntington’s Disease himself. For benefit info, you can reach Sherman or Ray Hughes at 773/334-7974.