ComedySportz and Circle Theatre Win Space Race

BY Jonathan Abarbanel

The space race is on for several theatre companies looking for new permanent venues—Apple Tree, Artistic Home, The House—but for two venerable troupes, the space race has been won. ComedySportz Theatre and Circle Theatre have announced plans for new playhouses.

ComedySportz is first across the finish line, with a Feb. 15 grand opening of their new theatre at 929 W. Belmont, the former Ann Sather’s building near the Belmont El stop. It’s a return to Lakeview for ComedySportz, which occupied the old St. Nicholas/Steppenwolf/Touchstone/Organic space at 2851 N. Halsted for nearly seven years before renting space the last two years at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts.

Ann Sathers has moved to new quarters a half-block east on Belmont, leaving the first floor for a restaurant TBA and the second floor to ComedySportz, which has transformed the restaurant’s function rooms into a 149 seat cabaret theatre with new sound and lighting systems, LCD screens and a full service lobby bar. The new complex will house ComedySportz staff and management, the ComedySportz Training Center and a full-service Ticketmaster outlet. The space also will be available for rent for meetings and workshops.

The new house is the first purpose-built venue in ComedySportz’s 20 year history. “This is where we will be making people laugh for the next 15 plus years,” says managing director Greg Werstler, quantifying the company’s long-term lease. Later this month the troupe will debut The ComedySportz Late Night Series featuring three different one-hour shows with adult-centered humor.

Meanwhile, 23-year old Circle Theatre has completed advanced planning in light of the sale last June of its current home building at 7300 W. Madison in Forest Park. The 100-year-old building long has been fraught with problems and the new owners have notified Circle that the rent will double when the current lease expires in 2010, if they choose to renew the lease at all.

Working with the Village of Oak Park, Circle has drawn up plans to build out and occupy a one-story double storefront building at 219 W. Harrison Street as part of Oak Park’s Harrison Street Arts District Development Project. The architectural plans call for a better-designed and more expansive version of Circle’s present two-theatre complex, with a mainstage of 147 seats back-to-back with a smaller second stage.

The Village of Oak Park would put up $135,000 as a 2-for-1 matching grant for the build-out, requiring Circle Theatre to raise $270,000 as its share of the projected cost. It’s the largest fundraising effort in Circle’s history, but Oak Park will sweeten the deal with a $77,000 operational grant and a $10,000 facade grant.

“Circle will continue the planning in the public eye as we negotiate with our current Forest Park landlord and potential new landlord in Oak Park,” the theatre said in a press statement, not quite prepared to announce a done deal or to launch a capital campaign. But sketches and plans for the new venue are on the Circle Theatre lobby wall.