If you think you see Tony Award-winners Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick and/or Roger Bart strolling through the Loop, you do. Just about every theater-goer knows the three stars begin previews Feb. 1 for The Producers, a musical based on the Mel Brooks film. But many folks don't know that the entire company already is here, rehearsing for the show at the Cadillac Palace Theatre. It plays just four weeks here on its way to Broadway, and tickets are going fast.
Chicago loses one of its most historic Off-Loop playhouses Jan. 27, when the Ivanhoe Theatre closes to make way for expansion of the neighboring Binny's liquor store. Created in the mid-1960s as part of the legendary Ivanhoe restaurant complex ( which started life as a speakeasy in the Roaring Twenties ) , the theater has played host to performers including Sandy Dennis, Christopher Walken, Katherine Turner, James Broderick ( Matthew's dad ) , Sylvia Sidney, Werner Klemperer, Eileen Herlie, Donald Moffat, Ellen Burstyn and Bruce Boxleitner ( who got his start there ) among many others.
The Ivanhoe was a haven for playwrights as well, producing the world premieres of Tennessee Williams' Outcry and Donald Driver's Status Quo Vadis, as well as then-new plays by younger authors such as Lanford Wilson, who's Lemon Sky and The Hot L Baltimore were produced there to great acclaim. Local troupes such as the Organic, Next, Steppenwolf, Victory Gardens and Wisdom Bridge theaters also staged shows at the Ivanhoe; among them such hits as The Normal Heart, Prelude to a Kiss, In the Belly of the Beast, A Walk in the Woods and The God of Isaac.
In recent years, the Ivanhoe's three performance spaces have hosted a series of long-run attractions including Late Nite Catechism, the Free Associates and Hell Cab. The first two shows already have moved to the Royal George Theatre complex on Halsted Street at North Avenue, while Hell Cab will move to the Theatre Building when the Ivanhoe curtain falls for the last time. Binny's should throw a last-night bash, and let the theater community soak the place in champagne!
Actors Equity Association ( AEA ) has released figures for the 1999-2000 season ( the AEA year runs July 1-June 30 ) which show that Chicago still is a booming theater town. The AEA, which is the union for actors and stage managers, utilizes about a dozen contracts in the Central Region ( headquartered here ) which covers 13 states. The surest measure of local theater health is the Chicago Area Theatre ( CAT ) contract, utilized by About Face, Bailiwick, Lookingglass, the Mercury, Organic, Royal George, Steppenwolf and Victory Gardens theaters among many other CAT houses in the area.
According to the AEA, the CAT contract produced 6,458 weeks of work last year, a new record high. The LORT contract ( Court, Goodman, and Northlight theaters ) also was up across the Central Region. Dominated by Chicago, The Central Region produced 42,705 work weeks for actors and stage managers, and was the only one of AEA's three regions to be up for the year.
When I began writing about theater in Chicago, back during the Crimean War, African-American theater troupes were few and far-between. There was eta/Creative Arts Foundation, although not housed as impressively as it is today, there was the Kuumba Workshop, and there was XBAG ( experimental black actors' guild ) , where top director Chuck Smith ( now a Goodman Theatre associate artist ) worked as a postman by day and cut his theater teeth at night. Even Jackie Taylor's Black Ensemble, now 25 years old, wasn't on the map in those early years.
One of the joys of the development of local theater in the last 20 years has been the blossoming of a host of new, Afro-centric theater companies including Chicago Theatre Company, Duncan YMCA, Fleetwood-Jourdain ( in Evanston ) , MPAACT, Onyx and A Real Read ( a black GLBT troupe ) . The newest addition is Congo Square, taking its name from the old New Orleans site where slave auctions were held. The company debuted in October, and will open its second show, Before It Hits Home, Jan. 21 at Chicago Dramatists ( 1105 West Chicago Avenue ) . Congo Square brings the number of Afro-centric troupes currently up and running to nine, not including presenting organizations such as the New Regal Theatre, or dance companies such as Muntu Dance Theatre.
While serving their immediate communities, all African-American troupes over the last 30 years also have pushed the envelope of establishment theaters to include far more diverse artists, and reach a far broader audience. In the process, they have proved that there IS a viable African-American theater audience in the city ( in fact, the African-American community attends cultural events in percentages higher than European-Americans ) , and that Black-themed plays and Black artists can appeal to mixed-race audiences. Virtually all so-called mainstream companies now employ ethnically diverse theater artists ( not just African-Americans ) , and a few companies in particular—Goodman, Victory Gardens, Pegasus Players, Organic leap quickly to mind—really have embraced the multi-cultural agenda.
One of the great shames of Chicago theater, however, is the lack of diversity within most of our highly vaunted ensemble troupes. The Black, Latino, Asian, Native American, physically challenged or openly GLBT representation among the Steppenwolf, Lookingglass, Shattered Globe, Famous Door, American Theatre, Roadworks, Rivendell and Stage Left ensembles—and that list is not comprehensive—is zero to token. That's gotta' change, people. We're in a new millennium now, and the ideals of the Age of Aquarius should be old, long-absorbed news. Theater in Chicago should, and can, do better.
