When the long-awaited Center on Halsted opens June 8, it will have two resident theater companies. One will be the familiar sketch comedy/improv troupe GayCo, and the other will be the newer and less familiar Hubris Productions, under the leadership of artistic directors Jacob Christopher Green and Anthony Guerrero. The Center prefers to call the two troupes community partners, but Jonny says that if they look like resident companies, quack like resident companies and walk like resident companies, then they're resident companies. 'We are a tenant company,' Guerrero explains, 'meaning we have an office there.' Jonny sees it as a distinction without a difference, but certainly is delighted that the Center is including live performing arts in its mission from the get-go.
GayCo and Hubris will share use of the 154-seat Hoover-Leppen Theater, a flexible space that can be configured in several different ways suitable for theater, dance and live music performances. In addition to the two theater companies, the Hoover-Leppen Theater already has been booked by Windy City Performing Arts for a couple of events.
Hubris Productions will be first out of the gate, however, following the initial four weeks of special opening events that coincide with Pride Month. The company will stage Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion! at the Center July 5-Aug. 12. In fact, Hubris has planned a season of three shows at the Center, continuing in November with Alan Ball's Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, and late next winter with the world premiere of Girls Will Be Girls, adapted from the cult movie of the same name. Hubris will offer a sneak peak at all three shows on June 16, as part of the Center's opening special events.
Hubris Productions was created only in 2005, and has grown rapidly since then from three co-founders to a core company of 13. The troupe has a commitment to making charitable contributions from the proceeds of every production, although Hubris itself is a not-for-profit entity. Still rather short on history, Hubris has produced only three shows to date and nothing since last summer, so its plans for a three plays in nine months at the Center represent a quantum leap.
Several years ago, as plans for the Center on Halsted were finalized, there was speculation that About Face Theatre would become the resident company and, indeed, there were discussions between About Face and Center executives. However, About Face was concerned about the modest seating capacity ( although it's much larger than most storefront theaters in town ) and the need to share the space with multiple other presenters at a time when About Face was preparing to produce five shows a year. That left the door open for someone else, and Guerrero—who only arrived in Chicago five years ago, and who is a Boystown resident—approached Center Deputy Executive Director Modesto 'Tico' Valle about becoming a community partner. ( Valle will become executive director as of July 1. )
A rare behind-the-scenes film documentary about Broadway opens at the Music Box Theatre June 8 for a too-short run of just one week. ShowBusiness: the Road to Broadway, produced by Dori Bernstein, goes backstage during the 2003-2004 season to follow four musicals from casting through rehearsals through opening night through the Tony Awards. The four shows are Wicked; Avenue Q; Taboo; and Caroline, or Change. The first two became Tony Award-winning hits while the second two disappeared without a trace, despite the involvement of such glitterati as Boy George, Rosie O'Donnell and Tony Kushner, all of whom appear in the film along with Sarah Jessica Parker, John Lithgow, Kristen Chenoweth, Tonya Pinkins, Cyndi Lauper and others. Queer fave Alan Cumming is also in the movie, and is the film's co-producer as well.
'The Master' is back and, quite possibly, is larger than life. In theatrical circles, that particular nickname is mentioned in connection with only two people: Stage Door Jonny ( of course ) and the great Sir Noel Coward. You will find Noel Coward at Ten Chimneys, the lovingly-restored country estate of legendary acting couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. The Lunts and Coward met in the mid-1920s and remained close friends for nearly 50 years until Coward's death in 1973. He was a frequent guest at Ten Chimneys, which offers a special exhibit, Noel Coward in Ten, all through the summer and most of the fall, featuring Coward photo panels, video clips, musical recordings and personal memorabilia.
The Lunts' estate is in Genesee Depot, Wis., a bucolic kettle moraine landscape a bit southwest of Milwaukee. It's proximity to Chicago, through which Coward had to pass on his way to Ten Chimneys, may help explain why Coward used a Chicago doctor as his personal physician through the 1950's and 1960's. Noel Coward in Ten is on display at the Ten Chimneys Visitor's Center through November 10. Admission to the Center and exhibit are free, although tours of the estate proper—which is eccentric and dazzling—are not; call 262-968-4110. Rumor persists that a Ten Chimneys maid quit because 'The Master' insisted on parading about in the nude. When you take your tour, be sure to ask your docent about that.