In the course of 2003, the 200 theater companies in the Chicago metropolitan area produced well over 800 shows and sold more than 3 million tickets. By many statistical measures, it’s been a very successful year filled with the usual bubbling stew of artistic triumphs and disappointments.
Just barely below the surface, however, things were not so good in 2003, as the economic downturn of the last two years finally caught up with the theater industry. It’s true that ticket sales were up; however, contributed income was down as foundations, corporations and individuals cut their gift-giving in the wake of reduced investment income in 2002.
The reaction of most theaters has been to mount conservative and/or small-cast shows. When the Goodman Theatre programs a recent commercial hit such as Proof, when Steppenwolf not-so-boldly mounts I Never Sang for My Father, a Broadway hit of 20 years ago, you can be sure theater troupes are playing it safe.
Nonetheless, there were numerous artistic pleasures in 2003, for even mainstream and conservative theater can be well-done and satisfying. The show of the year was Famous Door Theatre Company’s two-part staging of The Cider House Rules, the John Irving novel adapted for theater by Peter Parnell. The lead players, the excellent ensemble, the barn wood design, the astute direction, the profound human story being told all added up to theater as close to perfection as it gets.
The biggest disappointment of the year was Bounce, the highly anticipated new musical by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, directed by the legendary Harold Prince. Despite the brilliant, classic clowning of Richard Kind in a lead role, Bounce seemed to showcase a tired and uninvolved composer (Sondheim), a book (by Weidman) that took far too long to get off the ground, and a singular absence of joy all-around. It was the last—the absence of joy in a show vociferously touted as a comedy—that did Bounce in. After fine-tuning but no major overhaul, Bounce played the Kennedy Center, closing there just weeks ago with no plans for New York.
Fortunately the sun of the Goodman Theatre season did not rise and set on Bounce. The world premiere of August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean—the ninth play in his projected cycle of 10 plays on the African-American experience—was moving and powerful. Goodman also drew unexpected sellout crowds with its first Latino Theatre Festival in July; a month-long series of productions in English and Spanish.
Several smaller venues had substantial hits that enchanted critics and audiences alike. It was a vintage year for Sharon Evans and Live Bait Theatre, where her world premiere romantic comedy, Blind Tasting, was extended three times, the charm of the play being exceeded only by its intelligence. Bailwick Repertory showed what a true musical comedy looks and sounds like with the unexpected and totally insouciant Dr. Sex, an off-beat ode to the life and career of Dr. Alfred Kinsey, the pioneering sex researcher of the 1940s and 1950s.
Working in storefront spaces, Seanachai and Remy Bumppo theater companies had resounding successes with revivals of two rarely seen and vastly different British plays. Seanachai mounted Journey’s End, a 1928 London hit about life in the trenches during World War I. Remy Bumppo honored the 200th birthday of Edward Bulwer-Lytton (‘It was a dark and stormy night’) by producing his 1840 comic melodrama, Money. Both shows boasted imaginative design work, outstanding ensemble casts and knowledgeable direction.
As always, bricks-and-mortar were in the news as venues opened or closed. Lookingglass Theatre Company opened its prestigiously located new 250-seat theater in the Water Tower Pumping Station at Michigan and Chicago avenues in the spring, and the 1500-seat Harris Music and Dance Theatre opened last month in the new Millennium Park. Lookingglass spent $5 million for its theater, while the long-awaited (like, 15 years) Harris cost $52.7 million. Do the math: a Lookingglass seat cost roughly $20,000, while a Harris seat cost roughly $35,000, which is one reason the Harris begins life as a dubious economic proposition.
Up North in Glencoe, the feisty and fabulous Writer’s Theatre moved into a modest, club-like new venue that more than doubles its seating capacity, up from 44 to a whopping 108. Down South in Evergreen Park, the Drury Lane Theatre dimmed its signature crystal chandeliers for good after 45 years, as the venue was sold for redevelopment. Between them in The Loop, the 3,400-seat Chicago Theatre was sold by the City of Chicago for the bargain-basement price of $3,000,000 to TheatreDreams, an out-of-town concern that has promised to move its HQ here and program the landmark theater more intensively than previous managers and owners.
The theater year has ended with a bang, as cops closed six Off-Loop theaters Thanksgiving Week in an enforcement sweep of Public Place of Amusement (PPA) licensing laws. There will be fallout from this action for the Dept. of Revenue, issuer of PPA licenses, for its strong-arm tactics, confusing bureaucracy and inconsistent enforcement.
The year 2003 also saw some theater industry people stories. We lost the great Irv Kupcinet who, with his late wife Essee, was an enthusiastic promoter of Chicago theaters large and small, and who relished the flourishing of our Off-Loop. We lost Brad Nelson Winters, 38, the artistic director of Terrapin Theatre; a gay artist who was the victim of an opportunistic violent crime, quite possibly sexually related.
The year also saw the careers of two local theater artists take off and soar. Chester Gregory II, the charismatic singer/dancer who electrified audiences in the Black Ensemble show, The Jackie Wilson Story, took New York by storm first at Harlem’s legendary Apollo Theatre as Jackie Wilson, and then as a co-star of Hairspray, in which he plays Seaweed. Gregory currently is appearing in the Chicago company of Hairspray, but will return to the Broadway company when the Chicago run ends.
Also on the move nationally—indeed, internationally—has been director Gary Griffin. His Chicago Shakespeare Theatre production of Pacific Overtures moved intact to London’s Donmar Warehouse, helping to establish Griffin’s name there. Meanwhile, Griffin was signed to guide the development of a Broadway musical, slated for production in 2005. The show is nothing less than a musical adaptation of the thrilling epistolary novel, The Color Purple. When the show finally is performed for critics and audiences, one wonders if there will be any backlash because the director attached to the project is neither Black nor female; but that remains to be seen.