12-7-07
No Extension for The Sparrow
The House Theatre of Chicago’s production of The Sparrow is advertising its final weeks and will close as scheduled Dec. 31, barring a box office surge. The commercially produced remount of last season’s hit opened Oct. 3 at the 450-seat Apollo Theater, a triple capacity leap vs. The Viaduct, the 150-seat space where The Sparrow first played last winter. Veteran producers Libby Adler Mages and Tony D’Angelo put together the remount, which has been marketed by Broadway In Chicago in a first-ever collaboration between the downtown powerhouse and an off-Loop show.
While there had been hopes for a longer run, the planned three months appear to have been successful even if the show only rarely has played near capacity, typically averaging about 50 percent for six shows a week. Nonetheless, with an expected boost during holiday weeks, The Sparrow may recoup its roughly $300,000 by Dec. 31. That, along with rave and near-rave reviews, may be enough for the producers to market the show in New York and/or elsewhere. Mages, D’Angelo and Broadway in Chicago had intended to expose the show to virtually all the major New York commercial theatre producers at the meeting of the League of American Theatres and Producers which was to have taken place in Chicago last month. Regrettably, that meeting was postponed at the 11th hour due to the stagehands strike.
“From The House’s standpoint, everything is awesome,” said Nate Allen, artistic director of the House Theatre of Chicago. “By the time we close, 20,000 folks will have seen the show, and I doubt that many of them have been in The House before.”
Based on his anecdotal observations, Allen said the audience demographics remain younger than average, but that the production also has drawn more older viewers than most of the troupe’s shows. He commented that audiences have been “tipping towards elderly suburbanites.” When challenged to define elderly (I believe this mature, veteran writer’s judicious words were, “Hey, punk, what the hell do you mean by elderly?”), Allen explained, “We don’t have a lot of folks over 60 making it to The Viaduct.”
With the success of The House’s regular season of The Magnificents and the current show, The Nutcracker, Allen believes that some 30,000 “total new faces” will have been exposed to The House Theatre of Chicago in the last four months, compared to the company’s typical annual audience of 12,000 maximum.
Perhaps the most intriguing new development with regard to The Sparrow has been growing interest among film producers. Allen explained that through various connections, the show has drawn inquiries from New Line Cinema, producer Scott Rudin and Disney’s Miramax division.
“I’ve had conversations with people about a film version, which is severely exciting,” Allen said.
Meantime, The Viaduct no longer is the house for The House, as reported in PerformInk Oct. 26. Allen said the company is completing arrangements to stage its spring show, The Attempters, at the Building Stage, the River West industrial space on North Carpenter Street developed by Blake Montgomery.