Pictured What's Wrong with Angry? ( Tim Rock and Jurgen Hooper ) .
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
There are two Broadway musical flops scheduled in Circle Theatre's 2005-'06 season, just as in the company's previous season. Oddly enough, Circle Theatre's artistic staff doesn't mind the risk or stigma.
'We're very diligent about seeking out shows not done by other companies,' said Circle Theatre artistic director Kevin Bellie. 'That's what Circle Theatre thrives on.'
Circle Theatre has raised eyebrows over its plans to revive the notorious Broadway musical flops of Dear World ( a 1969 Tony Award-winning show for Angela Lansbury by out composer Jerry Herman ) and Sweet Smell of Success ( the 2002 Marvin Hamlisch musical that played a troubled tryout in Chicago ) . Yet it's no different from last season when Circle exhumed the 2000 musical Jane Eyre and Harry Connick, Jr.'s, 2001 effort Thou Shalt Not for their Midwest premieres.
'A lot of shows have flopped on Broadway because they have pretty intense stories that get lost on a gigantic stage,' said Circle managing director Peter Storms. 'It has helped to have them redone in a small space like ours because you can really focus the audience more on the essence of what the story is about.'
Indeed, the Forest Park two-theater storefront spaces of Circle respectively seat just 85 and 65. Despite its small size, the 26-year-old company has distinguished itself in Chicago's theater scene by producing world premieres like Rebecca Gilman's Pulitzer Prize finalist The Glory of Living in 1996 to Midwest premieres of numerous plays, most recently scoring a critical and audience hit with the British gay coming-of-age drama What's Wrong with Angry?
Classics aren't stinted on at the non-Equity theater either. Noel Coward's very gay ménage a trois comedy Design for Living is currently enjoying a lush Circle production, while Federico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba ( a 1930s indictment of abstinence-only fundamentalism ) opens this March. The Midwest premiere of Neil LaBute's The Distance from Here and the quirky alien comedy Tales of the Lost Formicans are also on Circle's bill.
But it is Circle's willingness to tackle big Broadway musical flops that has given the theater a certain cachet, not to mention the gratitude of many great musical theater artists.
Composer/lyricist Michael John LaChuisa worked directly with Circle on the first regional production of The Wild Party, while Rupert Holmes gave permission for songs cut from previews of The Mystery of Edwin Drood to be reinserted specially at Circle.
According to Bellie, playwright John Guare ( Six Degrees of Separation ) is making revisions to his book for Sweet Smell of Success.
'We'll get the changes for the first time,' Bellie beamed. 'How do you say 'no' to that?'
The company also produces four Emerging Young Artist musical productions like Anything Goes and Into the Woods, all on a budget of just $120,000.
'We're very lucky to have a strong and eclectic subscriber base,' Bellie said, adding that Circle's strategic border location near Chicago and Oak Park has helped with attracting adventurous and open-minded audiences.
Now all they have to do is update their facilities. According to Circle producing director Jeff Cass, the theater is two-thirds of the way of raising money for a $500,000 capital campaign to update the facility's heating and cooling system. There are also plans to expand the theater's restroom facilities, which are currently not wheelchair accessible and built in a socially awkward two-stall unisex configuration.
Running a year-round theater company is a lot of work, but Bellie sees the rewards in often surprising ways.
During the summer run of What's Wrong With Angry?, Bellie received numerous compliments and letters from supportive audience members, including one from a closeted gay teenager.
'He said the show changed his life and that he felt he wasn't by himself anymore,' Bellie said. 'The next time I sat through it, I cried throughout the entire show because I saw it from a completely different standpoint.'