BY JENN GODDU
In
the early 1990s, Michael Halberstam spent two seasons in the acting company
at the Stratford Festival of Canada. By the time he returned to Chicago,
he had developed his own vision of the theatre and had decided to start
a company'one that would be both an homage and a reaction to his experiences
studying with some of North America's finest classical minds.
He
co-founded The Writers' Theatre with artistic associate Marilyn Campbell
in 1992. Its mandate was rooted in the practice of 'mining the text' that
had been endorsed at Stratford, yet at the same time Halberstam didn't
want to mimic all he had seen in southwestern Ontario. He was struck with
how the concept of the productions would already be intellectually decided
from a design point of view well before the actors even showed up for
first rehearsal. 'My theory is'you cannot truly understand a play until
all the players have gathered together to discover it,' Halberstam says.
'Any ideas that I have about a script usually vanish at the first read-through.'
Writers'
Theatre's mission is to focus on the written word and to nurture the artist,
Halberstam says. The idea is always to be true to the text. 'Playwrights
frequently suffer at the hands of directors that try to tell a story that
is not contained within the specifics of the text,' he says. 'Everything
starts with the word. Everything that we do is defined by what the writer
says on the page.'
In
a happy confluence of circumstances'Halberstam says he doesn't believe
in luck but rather in being open to opportunities'Writers' was getting
underway just as a mutual friend introduced him to the owner of a newly
opened bookstore that wanted some sort of staged reading or theatre program
to be organized in their anteroom.
'I
saw the possibilities inherent in the room,' Halberstam says. 'We realized
that we had an opportunity to create a unique, intimate space. I don't
think any of us had any idea that it would become what it did.'
Over
the following 12 years, Books on Vernon was home to nearly 50 Writers'
productions 'by or about literature's greatest creators or creations.'
These have included Private Lives, Candida, Look Back in Anger, Love and
Lunacy (an adaptation of short stories by Chekhov), an adaptation of Gogol's
Diary of a Madman and the Jeff award-winning Misalliance, The Price, The
Glass Menagerie and Nixon's Nixon.
All
this despite the theatre having only one entrance, no off-stage area,
really limited technical machinery, a power grid always pushed to its
very limits of capacity, and the 'noise landscape' of being wedged in
between a jewelry shop and photo processing store.
'All
of those things could be looked at, of course, as positives,' Halberstam
says. It definitely added to the intimacy of the productions. Halberstam
recalls seeing audience members look away during Amanda's 'deception,
deception' speech in The Glass Menagerie because they were disturbed by
being so close to such a devastating family quarrel. Or he points to the
audience being drawn right into a Nazi interrogation room when the bookstore
space hosted Incident at Vichy.
But
Writers' was 'in imminent danger of stagnation,' Halberstam said. 'We
were getting to point that finding a season was becoming increasingly
difficult because we were constantly having to ask ourselves 'Will it
fit?''
This,
and a regular run of sold-out houses, led Writers' to expand. It opened
its 2003-04 season with Our Town, staged in a new 108-seat performance
space in the Glencoe Women's Club at 325 Tudor Court. There is a state-of-the-art
sound system and lighting system, and the seating capacity has doubled.
'There's
probably no play that we can't do in there,' Halberstam says. 'I think
it's even more inviting and charming than the bookstore in some ways.'
Also
in the season are My Own Stranger, an adaptation of Anne Sexton's poetry
directed by Kate Buckley opening in January, and, directed by Halberstam,
Shaw's The Doctor's Dilemma in May. The company will also continue
to present works in the bookstore. Gary Griffin will direct Michael Frayn's
Benefactors there in March 2004.
When
selecting a season, Halberstam says he considers the literary nature of
the text. 'I don't mean lots of thees and thous and 18th century stuffed
shirts; I mean the language has been carefully crafted to lift the experience
of the character into a universal palate'I like extraordinary people,
in extraordinary circumstances, expressing themselves in extraordinary
ways.'
Writers'
has no official ensemble, but they do often go to the same stock of 10
to 15 actors, designers and directors'which includes actors Scott Parkinson
and Guy Adkins, director David Cromer and director/actor William Brown,
designers Rita Pietraszek and Rick Paul. 'We have, in a sense, an undeclared
ensemble of artists who have committed themselves to our mission and embraced
our ideology but who do not feel tied to us and who we do not obligated
to,' Halberstam says.
Jennifer
Bielstein joined the staff in September as Writers' new managing director,
leaving a job as Steppenwolf's marketing director 'to lead Writers' Theatre
into its next phase of existence.' The company has doubled its operating
budget from $1.3 million to $2.4 million for the 2003-04 season. It's
Bielstein's job to meet that budget with fundraising and ticket sales.
There
are currently 5,300 subscribers but, Bielstein says, there is room for
more. 'Writers' has had this reputation that it is always sold-out and
you can't get a ticket, so people don't even try,' she said. The goal
is to raise awareness and double audience attendance by expanding the
15 percent of our audience base that is from Chicago and building a greater
reputation in the theatre's own neck of the woods. 'We're a jewel of a
theatre in the backyards of these North Shore neighborhoods.
'We really nurture all of the artists with whom we work,' Bielstein says. The productions are professional, but the design is not overwhelming. 'When the audience is [at Writers'], what they will notice is the actors and the beautiful and strong text that we are presenting.'