A Changing of the Guard in Chicago Theatre

BY Jonathan Abarbanel

The biggest and most important story of the 2007 theatre year is one that rarely made news beyond mentions in the columns of PerformInk, rarely made a headline and inspired few feature stories. It was, and is, an ongoing story that will have tremendous long-term impact on stage and off stage in Chicago’s theatre industry. The story is this: in 2007, two dozen theatre troupes, dance companies and affiliated arts organizations replaced their artistic director, their managing/executive director or both. Two dozen.

They are: American Theater Company, Chicago Humanities Festival, Congo Square, Eclipse, Greasy Joan, The Hypocrites, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Illinois Theatre Association, Joffrey Ballet, Lifeline, Metropolis Centre, The Neo-Futurists, Next, Northlight, Old Town School of Folk Music, Peninsula Players, Poetry Center of Chicago, River North Dance Company, Stockyards Theatre Project, Strawdog, TimeLine and Writers’ Theatre. And we’ll include About Face Theatre, too, even though Eric Rosen will remain through season’s end; but the company already has begun the search for the new AD with Rosen’s announced departure.

That’s a long list, folks, and among it are some of our largest performing arts entities. Several of them— such as Eclipse, The Neo-Futurists, Stockyards—have rotated new management from within existing ensemble ranks. Others—such as American Theater Company, Hubbard Street, the Joffrey, Old Town School, Writers’ Theatre—have brought in out-of-towners; truly fresh blood from Alaska, San Francisco, New York, Washington and elsewhere. The remaining companies—that’s most on the list—have found suitable candidates from within Chicago’s cultural community. The Chicago Humanities Festival even found a heralded Chicago playwright, Stuart Flack, to hire as its executive director. Whatever their points-of-origin, the roster of new faces at the top is the equivalent of a new generation of leadership, not a generation in age but in opportunity.

The next biggest story is the sale and reformulation of The Reader, completing the melt-down of its once-mighty theatre coverage, as reported in several stories in PerformInk which elicited yelps of protest from The Reader management. Yes, The Reader still reviews eight shows most weeks (although not every week), but six of them are 125-word blurbs found in the alphabetical listings; difficult to distinguish from all the other shows listed and hardly long enough or prominent enough to have much impact. Indeed, even the lead review doesn’t have the prominence it once had.

The changes in The Reader are important because for years it was the paper of record for theatre in Chicago, especially Off-Loop theatre. For many smaller and niche troupes, a review in The Reader was more influential than one in the Trib or Sun-Times. The slack is partially taken up by Time Out Chicago and the Windy City Times, the only other weeklies that run six or more longer reviews (250 and 450 words respectively) each week, but it’s not the same. The WCT mostly serves a particular readership while Time Out is a for-purchase magazine (although many comp copies are distributed) not regarded (at least not yet) as the Bible of performing arts opinion, as The Reader once was. Indeed, theatre in Chicago grew in part because of The Reader, which for years made theatre important and talked-about. Theatre isn’t as important for The Reader anymore, and it’s everyone’s loss.

Other 2007 big things, in no particular order of importance:

356 Days/365 Plays demonstrated that Chicago Theatre remains a community as well as an industry, as theatres large and small shared equally the organizing and producing chores for this unique artistic endeavor. Hopefully, there will be positive future ramifications from the effort, as larger troupes in a position to mentor have made the acquaintance of mentor-worthy artists and managers from smaller troupes.

Silk Road Theatre Project moved firmly onto the national map by organizing and hosting Desi Drama: the First National South Asian American Theatre Conference. Silk Road also spurred the development of Looks Like Chicago, the cross-marketing and artistic affiliation between Congo Square, Remy Bumppo, Silk Road and Teatro Vista.

The issue of New York-based play agents carelessly licensing overlapping Off-Loop productions of the same show came to a head this season with productions of Otherwise Engaged and Mr. Marmalade competing for the same audience. Overlapping productions of Grease were less egregious because of the geographical distance between the producing houses (Marriott Theatre and Theatre at the Center). There is little that small companies can do individually about New York’s heedless and patronizing attitude towards Off-Loop producers, especially with regard to non-Equity troupes; but something might be accomplished through collective action. Minimally, the League of Chicago Theatres might engage New York licensers in a consciousness-raising dialogue, if not exert pressure on them in other ways.

We lost several companies in 2007, the most notable being the collapse of the New American Theatre in Rockford after 35 years, saddled with $635,000 in debt. Locally, well-regarded Uma Productions and Reverie Theatre Company officially folded their tents, largely because the members of the small ensemble-run groups had moved away or were pursuing other priorities.

As always, death took its toll in 2007, a year that was framed at either end and divided in the middle by the passings of larger-than-life, nearly-fabled figures. Framing the year were the deaths in February of astonishing dance historian, archivist and critic Ann Barzel at 101, and the death Dec. 1 of legendary subscription guru Danny Newman, who was 88. At mid-year in June, gruff-talking impresario Tony De Santis, master of the Drury Lanes, passed away at 93, regrettably followed in August by his daughter and producing heir, Diane Van Lente, only 57. Also in August, we lost the remarkable singer and actor Joe Van Slyke, who brought his own dark shadings even to comedic roles. In between and among those well-known names, the following also made their exits: Joffrey Ballet School director Edith D’Addario, two-time president of The Saints Penny Schaefer, notable veteran of The Saints Ellie Punkay, publisher and producer Jeff McCourt, Wagon Wheel artistic director Roy Hine and designer/musical director Dirk Alan Van Brussel.

And so the Passing Show of 2007 becomes history and memory.

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