Adventure Stage Chicago

BY Becky Brett

Chicago’s Vittum Theater has a new name: Adventure Stage Chicago. Located at 1012 N. Noble, near the Chopin Theatre and the Polish Roman Catholic Union, ASC produces theatre for young audiences as a program of the Northwestern University Settlement House. (The building itself has retained the name “Vittum Theater.”)

The company refers to itself as “family theatre” or “theatre for young audiences” rather than “children’s theatre.” Producing artistic director Tom Arvetis explained that the general public seems to have trouble getting past the “children’s theatre” label.

“For some people it’s kids performing on stage and for others it’s bright furry costumes.”

Managing director Scott Letscher explained, “There are times I don’t even think of us as being a genre theatre. It’s the simplicity of storytelling—not simplistic—that carries through the generations. That’s where I think the phrase ‘family theatre’ finds that commonality in that shared experience in watching a live production together.”

Arvetis added, “We are really confident that a family choosing to come here for the first time is going to come back once they’ve had that experience with us, because we do place so much value on the storytelling. Our space is comfortable; they’re treated well by a professional group of people. That’s the big hurdle, not being relegated to a bad experience they had in a gymnasium somewhere.”

He drove the point home by reinforcing that ASC’s goal is to present young people with a hopeful idea of what a community can be. “By respecting their intellect and showing them how an individual can have a positive impact on society, we hope to get them to re-imagine community.”

The work done at ASC is born from a rich history of community involvement. Arvetis noted, “Many people think Vittum must be Latin for something, but it’s actually someone’s name.” Harriett Vittum was the head resident at the Settlement House from 1907-1947. The Settlement House is the oldest continually operating settlement house in Chicago. It was modeled after the settlement houses in Britain, which were social service organizations with roots in a university setting. The idea was that leaders of the university would reside in a house in an urban center and serve as a resource to that community.

Harriett Vittum was the head resident form 1907-47, and much like her Hull House counterpart, Viola Spolin, she believed in the transformative power of the arts in the lives of individuals. A playhouse was originally part of the building, but it burned down in the 1940s. Vittum encouraged them to re-build it, and although it took almost 50 years, they converted a third-floor dancehall into what is now the Vittum Theater space.

While the company holds the utmost respect for Vittum, they felt that the name didn’t adequately describe the work they were producing, which led to the recent name change.

ASC extends this mission by presenting Chicago’s young audiences, educators and families with an affordable artistic experience rooted in performance. Last season, ASC served nearly 13,000 students from 112 schools throughout the Chicagoland area.

When the space opened in 1998, it was used by various other settlement programs and a local elementary school. In the 1999-2000 season a program began to serve as a presenting organization, bringing performances to the neighborhood from companies such as Emerald City, Barrel of Monkeys, Chocolate Chips and About Face Theatre. The next five years would see their audience grow to 10,000 kids from the Chicago Public Schools system.

Arvetis inherited the program in 2003 and continued the presentation series, but wanted to improve on it. He approached the board with the idea that producing their own season could be just as successful, if not more so, and they believed him.

In the 2004-05 season, the Vittum Theater Season for Young Audiences was born, operating like a theatre company in residence and reaching 14,000 CPS students annually and maintaining as many as 10 classroom residencies with teaching artists in the schools. When a show is up, performances are held during the week for school groups Tuesdays through Fridays at 10:30 a.m., and on Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. for the general public.

Arvetis pointed out, though, that even though it’s the same show, “They’re different animals.” For school audiences during the week they have a question and answer session (what ASC calls a “curtain conversation”) with the cast after the show. The performances on the weekends are prefaced by a workshop that starts an hour before the show. Up to 25 kids can participate in this highly interactive experience. Arvetis said that last season for Odysseus they created five stations, mirroring the five islands that Odysseus visited. At each station participants could engage in a theatre-related activity such as designing a costume or playing theatre games.

“There are lots of degrees of the children’s theatre experience,” said Arvetis. “We fit a niche by focusing on the age range of 8-14 and respecting that age as one that is beginning to ask questions of the world around it.” These are the kids who are starting to engage the world with a little more autonomy. It is only fitting that the activities around their theatrical experience be as self-directed as possible.

In filling this particular niche, ASC was recognized for their artistic production, management practices and community involvement with the 2007 Zeta Phi Eta-Winifred Ward for Outstanding New Children’s Theatre Company Award. This award honors a theatre company that has been in operation between two and five years that serves young audiences.

The award is given only in those years that a viable candidate presents itself, and there have in fact been some years in which no company received the honor.

“It didn’t hit me until I was in Vancouver at the actual awards luncheon,” said Arvetis. “I kept waiting for them to announce us in the parade of recipients, and we ended up being called last. Several playwrights and teachers were honored. Folks were honored for their research in the field and one woman was honored for her life’s work for compiling a library dedicated to theatre for young audiences. Outside the Library of Congress it is the largest compilation of work of one type in the country. The gravity overwhelmed me that it was something very unique and special to be associated with. I’m not sure how we can very easily convey that specialness.”

Other companies have noticed ASC’s work as well. The Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis chose ASC as one of 12 partners in their Neighborhood Bridges program. Arvetis explained that CTC received a grant from the Department of Education to disseminate their Neighborhood Bridges curriculum nationally. It is a program of arts education with a focus on critical literacy, intended to inspire a love of reading and writing.

“Our residency program was an arts integration program that was doing a lot of things that Neighborhood Bridges was doing, but also trying to connect to social sciences and support teachers in whatever area they needed support,” said Arvetis.

Neighborhood Bridges helps the company focus their efforts on the discipline of theatre and the curriculum of language arts, so that they are not spreading themselves too thin. The format is based on story telling—making young people narrators of their own experience.

Over the course of 10 weeks teaching artists from ASC will be in several classrooms for a total of 20 hours each. During that time students will become familiar with various stories, from folk tales to myths, and through creative drama and theatre exercises they will write their own stories, culminating in a performance at the Vittum space.

These students will be paired up with pen pals from other classes throughout the city, and on performance day, all these classes will come together in a community sharing event.

But this is just a small part of an exciting theatre season for ASC. They open with The Tempest, adapted by Charles Way, the same author who adapted Odysseus last season. “He has a knack for adapting from the perspective of a young person,” said Arvetis, “and he does so in a way that feels very relevant to a child of today.

“I want all our shows to be entertaining and thought provoking not only for the children but for the adults accompanying them,” he added, explaining that this Tempest will focus on the relationship between Prospero and Miranda, how a parent deals with a child coming of age, and asking the question, “What is the right time to let go and let that child come to terms with the world on their own?”

The next show in their lineup is The Cay, adapted by Gayle Cornelison from Theodore Taylor’s novel of the same name. ASC wraps up their season with a world premiere commissioned by the Chicago Humanities Festival/Children’s Humanities Festival.

The Blue House is being written by Jos? Cruz Gonz?lez and is something of a ghost story about Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood and the many different kinds of people who lived there.

Letscher said that they strive to maintain a balance between the most known plays for young audiences and the lesser-known. “We’ll probably always have something you’re familiar with, but we’ll hopefully always explore new works and especially the Chicago stories.”

For more information check out their Web site www.adventurestage.org.