My theory is that there is a seven-year itch in Chicago theatre and improv: after about seven years, you make the decision to stay here, or go. I came up with this theory a few years ago when I was really beginning to dig into Chicago’s theatrical past, present and future, and to put that information together into things like the Chicago Theater Database. And now that I am in the midst of that seventh year myself, I have my opinions as to why people move here, why they stay, and why they leave.

But the scientist in me doesn’t like anecdotal evidence, no matter how compelling. So I’m going after the data. I put together a short survey for anyone who is now – or has ever – worked in Chicago theatre or improvisation.

Here is a link to the survey. Please spread the word to anyone and everyone to who has participated in any part of the Great Migration.

Let’s get some numbers behind this bee-atch, y’all?

You’ve never heard of Sharon Phillips, but you should have. She’s got more street cred in this city than you and me combined: she started off as “apprentice/box office manager” to the first Dream Theater in the 60s, before becoming Managing Director for the Body Politic (which was essentially the launching pad for the entire storefront movement) – then became Outreach Director for Wisdom Bridge (Bob Falls’ storefront before he got the big job) and Victory Gardens. Oh, and she also helped found the League of Chicago Theatres (serving as one of the first presidents) and helped negotiate with AEA to make it possible for Equity actors to actually work in town. She is also the nicest woman in the world. (I reprinted an essay Sharon wrote about 20 years ago on the early days of the storefront movement a while back.)

If you haven’t heard of Steve Scott, you are probably living under a rock. Goodman Associate Producer (making him Falls’ Will Riker) and member of their artistic collective, Steve is notable in my mind for being one of the few folks who have ascended to the rarified heights of the city’s major regional theatres, yet he spends at least as much of more of his time with the city’s storefronts. What’s more, he is a teacher at both Roosevelt and Act One, giving him a unique perspective on the constant flux of talent in our fair city.

Quick: name the four biggest non-profit theatres in Chicago by revenue. Now name the fifth. Give up? It’s Black Ensemble Theater, founded in 1976 by actor Jackie Taylor, who still runs the shop today. Well-known for her commitment to theatre education and theatre in education, she’s taught in the Chicago Public Schools for more than 30 years, and has churned out a string of successful productions that would make any producer green with envy.

What’s more: there’s a 60% chance of Sheldon Patinkin. One of the most storied names in Chicago improv and theatre, Sheldon was an inaugural member of the Second City in 1959, then later part of Second City Toronto and SCTV. He has gone on to direct some of the most notable productions in the city’s history, and until recently chaired the Theater Department at Columbia College Chicago. (Sheldon is recovering from recent surgery, so while he tells me he truly wants to come, we won’t know until Monday whether he’s able.)

Monday, May 17, 2010
7pm
Storefront Theater at Gallery 37
66 East Randolph Street

TTW evolved back in January and February, when I was looking at an uncertain future post-day job, with large swathes of free time, and I felt there was a growing need in the Chicago theatre community for a different kind of conversation about our history, how we work and create today, and where we want to go. I wanted to create a resource analogous to the Chicago Theater Database project – where I could help connect us to our storied past, call attention to those in town who are working for a different (and utterly Chicago) kind of success, and share context and strategies for the myriad practical problems we face as artists and arts administrators.

And I still want to do those things. The good news is, now I’m getting paid to do them. I’ve recently been hired as curator of the Theater section of the Chicago Artists Resource, which means that the city (via the Department of Cultural Affairs) is employing me to develop and consolidate resources for working theatre artists – and giving me resources and a platform to get results I probably wouldn’t be able to on my own. And the side project’s new mission (what’s that, you ask? Stay tuned.) and nascent new website means I’ll get a chance to churn out a lot of profiles and process stories as the Managing and Marketing Director.

What’s more, TTW fulfilled its purpose, in a way – I had hoped it would contribute to a rising tide of community awareness and a desire to collaborate and cooperate in new and interesting ways. Over the last few months, we’ve seen the first World Theatre Day celebration in Chicago, a reenergized and engaged League of Chicago Theatres, an impending Storefront Theater Summit, and a Theatre Communications Group conference on the table for 2010 (for which yours truly is on board to assist in the planning and execution).

But even with all that, there are still areas I want to keep exploring that don’t seem to have a natural home in these other projects – particularly in Chicago theatre history – and I still think there’s a place for a certain type of Q&A with working Chicago artists. I also quite liked the “week in pictures” feature, which I hope to continue here – so if you’re sitting on some cool visual documentation of what you’re working on right now, send it my way!

So look for all that time to time right here on the blog – and look, too, for the orphaned articles from TTW and some as-yet-unpublished content we had in the hopper – like the interviews with Keith Parham, Marisa Wegrzyn, and Kimberly Senior. First up: the articles from Resetting the Stage!

The first is Envy. Non-theatre folk – a category which covers most of the people I worked with at the Kellogg School of Management over the past 5 years – get that wistful look people get at the end of Rudy: a preposterously melodramatic indulgence in sentiment as they watch the someone “do what they LOVE” and “follow their DREAMS.”

Among theatre people, this first stage is marked by the surfacing of a frustration and a desire for release so palpable and overwhelming it borders on the sexual. “JE-sus, I wish I could get out of here. If I have to continue the movie metaphor – and clearly I must – I feel a little like I’m starring in high-quality porn: right now, I am walking wish fulfillment.

And that’s all well and good, but that’s only the first stage. And sometimes the Envy Stage only lasts a fraction of a second before the next stage comes along, the one that take into account I have quit a well-paying, secure job in what is universally acknowledged as The Worst Economic Crisis Since the Great Depression (or, among my cohort, “this shitty situation”). Yes, the second stage is Fear and Pity, and it manifests pretty much the same way for theatre and non-theatre folk alike: a brief pause out of respect for my feelings and possibly my intelligence – perhaps they are going back over what I have said to see if I have already given them some hint of the answer to the obvious question. Then, cautiously, “So … what are you going to do?”

Well, now it can be told, at least in part: It was made official via press release yesterday that I am the new Managing Director at the side project theatre company. This has been in the works for a while – Nick Keenan brought me into discussions with Adam Webster and the rest a few months back where we talked about where the company was headed and what I might be able to do to help. My job in the near term is going to be putting a lot of structure into place where no structure (or unsustainable structure) existed before. A big chunk will also be (unsurprisingly) catching the side project up to what the rest of us have been doing out here on the internets for a few years – really developing an online presence for the company. And there will be many, many other things that come up along the way – I’m excited to be able to tell you all about some changes to the company’s mission that I think will mean some exciting new things happening up in Rogers Park.

Additionally, I’ve been officially brought on to the team at Marshall Creative – a marketing agency helmed by Schadenfreuder Sandy Marshall and powered fairly exclusively by people from Chicago’s theatre and comedy scenes – with the impressive-sounding title of Social Networking Director. This is a pretty big bucket, but Sandy and I have been talking a lot over the past few months about some projects showcasing effective, integrated marketing on Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress and the like. As that develops, I’ll certainly be talking about it here.

Neither of these things will, at least in the short term, really pay the bills. I have a small amount of money saved up, which will be a nice cushion for me to focus on really getting off on the right foot on these two huge, cool projects. And, of course, my hunt for agency representation continues – new headshots will be ordered soon and I’ll be laying down a voice over demo this weekend. As always – anyone who wants to lend a hand on that front will be received immediately!

Here it comes, folks – Theatre That Works. Read on for the skinny on my new web venture, and how you can contribute right this instant!

TTW grew out of my experience of 3 years writing this blog. In that time, I’ve increasingly found myself wanting to write about a wider range of personal projects both in theatre and out, as well as longer pieces on the theatre more akin to traditional journalism. In the past few months the number of projects I’ve gotten into – in social media, arts marketing and management, the world of commercial acting, and more – has multiplied, and my list of Chicago-theatre-specific stories I want to investigate has gotten ever longer. So it seemed like a good opportunity to split the Gordian knot once and for all.

The aim of TTW is a lot like that of the Chicago Theatre Database – to share information about the community with the community. Where the CTDB compiles the dates and names, TTW compiles the stories. The slate – and the site – will be developing for a while, but here are the bullets:

• Interviews We’ll be sitting down with the hardest working people in town to find out where they got started, how they make it happen and what keeps them going.
• Features There are a million stories in the Windy City, and not all of them have to do with financial problems or capital campaigns.
• History Chicago’s theatre community is a nation of immigrants. It’s time we all got schooled about when Shakes was above a bar and John Malkovich had hair and pissed onstage.
• Other fun stuff - I have some ideas about fun features for the site, some of which will be rolling out in the near future – like a Twitter round-up from behind the scenes of the weekend’s rehearsals, auditions and performances and a Battle of the Show Blurbs. Stay tuned!

One thing you won’t be seeing is reviews. Frankly, I think there are more than enough people willing to tell you whether a show is worth seeing. (And we’ve all been in bad shows – who needs their nose rubbed in it by their friends?) What interests me is the conversation – what does a show make you think about when you walk away, how does it affect your day, or your work? The intersections of artist as audience is something I want to explore – not thumbs angled in judgement.

As you can tell, I’m very excited. Hopefully, we’ll start publishing this week (technical issues permitting) – and I’ve already talked to a few folks who are known for their pen as well as practicing the performing arts, who I think will lend a great perspective (as well as sustainability).

So please check out the site-in-progress, and follow us on twitter. There’s going to be plenty of stuff to do!

Photo Call

Theatre That Works wants to tell the story of Chicago theatre is words and pictures! We’re looking for production photos, rehearsal photos, set or prop construction photos – we want them all, provided they’re dynamic* and high-quality. To find out more, drop me a line!

*When I say dynamic, I am particularly ruling out everyone’s standard “2-5 people staring meaningfully” production shot. There better be something going on in the photo, either compositionally or physically.

What follows is a recap of what’s happened so far, and a preview of what’s coming soon.

Touch closed February 14th, to full houses. On top of all the things I’ve said here and elsewhere about the fantastic process and product produced by the New Leaf crew and the just stellar group that I got to work with, I’m reasonably sure that the show was a watershed for me. I am, of course, grateful for the loads of support and the nice things said about my performance, as any young actor looking to advance his career would be. But more importantly, I got the opportunity to take on a central, dramatic role and did not fall on my face. For now, at least, it’s taken some of the edge off the unrelenting desire to prove myself – if to no one except myself. I’ve found that in the midst of a rather chaotic period, it’s surprisingly comforting.

A day after Touch closed I came down with the bubonic flu that seems to be going around, and was laid out in a way that I don’t really have any comparison for: it left me unable to do any work at all for a week, and even several weeks later, I’m still feeling the lingering effects.

Thanks to Nick “The All-Giver” Keenan, I’ve been working with Sandy Marshall on some freelance projects – most notably, crafting seminars to teach the less tech-savvy the benefits and the basics of social networking, along with some strategies for how to augment offline work with online tools. It’s a new world for me, but one I’m finding I’m fairly well-suited to. And, as any teacher will tell you, figuring out how to explain things to others clarifies them for you, so I’m discovering tips and tricks for myself, as well.

The long New Headshot Saga has finally wrapped up: I finally bit the bullet and shelled out the big bucks for a session with Janna Giacoppo. You’ve probably heard this name before – many, many actors in town have used her – and with good reason. Janna and her team were incredibly helpful and the whole shoot was incredibly laid back – which got me some great results. These will probably show up somewhere on this site at some point, but check out her site, and seriously consider her if you need new shots and have the money to spend. It’s well worth it.

The New Headshot Saga was sped to its conclusion as a necessary plot development for the longer, sisyphian Agent Saga. I’ve been fairly criminally negligent in pursuing commercial work or representation in the past – the all-consuming nature of my day-job has been a limiting factor – so I know that these things take time, are often a case of luck or happenstance, and that impatience or a sense of entitlement lead to nothing but ulcers. I’ve gotten a lot of great advice from folks further down the road than I, and I have a good plan for “getting myself out there” as they say, and I’m content that all avenues that can be explored are being explored. That being said, if you know of any opportunities, I’m interested in hearing more – drop me a line at dan [at] chicagotheaterdb [dot] com.

Speaking of the Chicago Theater Database, as Nick has noted, we recently added a slew of new beta-testers to the site, which has revealed a number of much-needed user-interface improvements. Unfortunately, Nick’s consumed with the Goodman’s O’Neill Festival, and my programming skills still aren’t quite up to the task. The hope is that in the next few months we’ll be able to make some big improvements, leading up to the grand door-opening in the spring or summer. Stay tuned.

The whetting stone upon which I’m sharpening my site development and design skills is a ground-up rebuilding of the online home of my boys behind the cameras, Very Clever Productions. There’s no official timeline for that project, but sooner is better for all concerned, so I’ll point you to anything interesting that might come up along the way.

Lastly, the biggest development of the last several months will have some big impacts on this space. I’m knee-deep in the development of a new site dedicated to writing about the people and the art of Chicago theatre. The biggest difficulty I’ve had in writing I, Homunculus has been trying to serve two masters: writing about my personal experience as my career develops, and the yen to do something bigger, to rectify the fact that – in my opinion – you can’t get more than a partial view of Chicago’s theatre scene from the writing generally-available. A big part of the problem is, of course, the fact that theatre coverage is lately the ne’er-do-well nephew of commercial media outlets: a nice-to-have-but-certainly-not-crucial luxury to be indulged sparingly, and only when it can be afforded. My thought is to create a place for writing about Chicago theatre that’s produced in the same way most Chicago theatre gets produced – as a labor of passionate artists that asks no more than what it takes to sustain the mission. My plan is to launch on March 27th as part of the World Theatre Day celebrations. I’ll post a larger and more detailed announcement soon, but there’s good stuff in the works. Watch this space.

This means the ol’ Homunculus will probably undergo some changes as well – but just what that looks like, I’m not sure.

That’s all for now – it’s good to be back!

She sees a relationship between the tough-it-out mentality that gets Chicagoans through the winters in the Windy City and the make-it-work, never-say-die mentality of our theatre-makers- and suggests the effects on the artist are lasting ones:

“Once you’ve dug out a friend’s borrowed car with a cut-open milk jug, in order to drive an hour to audition for a part that – if you get it – will pay you maybe $100 – that leaves a mark. It’s why you don’t see theatre companies out here made up of life-long West-Coast actors staying up to 4am painting sets and making press packets.”

photo by Emily Barney – used under Creative Commons license

Nick and I will be spending the weekend cleaning and loading data into the CTDB, and I’ll spend my Labor Day laboring over the data, working on my article for PerformInk. I’ve only got 750 words, so if last year is any measure, there will be a lot more where that came from. So watch this space for numbers, notions and more as we look forward to the 2008-9 Season.

We’re closing in on the close of the PerformInk Season Preview Survey, and I have spent the last few weeks trying to reach out to as many companies as possible to try and make this the most comprehensive survey of our theater scene yet conducted.

My concern as we head into the homestretch is that the word hasn’t gotten to everyone – some of the direct invites and reminders I’ve sent seem to have been languishing in unread mailboxes or filtered out for one reason or another – possibly due to the necessarily link-laden format of the email.

Carrie Kaufman from PerformInk and Ben Theim from the League are helping by reaching out to the bigger companies that haven’t yet responded. I’m trying to get the word to the dozens of smaller companies – just to make sure they have the opportunity to participate. I started with a list of nearly 100, but was able to knock off a dozen or so from thinking of friends I knew who were company members or associates. I took the list backstage to Trust and the cast and crew told me who they could send a message to. We’re getting down to the last few dozen from the original invite list, and I’m sure that you all can help get word to rest.

Here’s all you have to do: just send an email or make a phonecall to whoever you know from this list, letting them know that PerformInk and the CTDB want them to be included in the survey! Just tell them to email me (at dan [at] chicagotheaterdb.com) and I can get a survey invite to them post-haste.

If the company is defunct or on hiatus, we want to know that too – it’s actually really important information in the grand scheme of things. But we’ll still want to get in touch with someone associated with the group, because we still want the company’s information for the Database – we’re going to record what the company did during its lifetime.

So please, take a look at the list below and help get the word out. I’ll start marking names off as they respond to the survey. Let’s make this happen, people!

And thanks.

500 Clown
A Reasonable Facsimile Theatre Company
Actor’s Revolution Theatre
Albany Park Theatre Project
Albright Theatre Company
Alphabet Soup Productions
Apex Theatre Company
A-Squared Theater Workshop
Azusa Productions
Black Forest Theater
Blackbird Theatre Company
Blindfaith Theatre
bluemoonstudiotheater
Bruised Orange Theatre Company
Chicago Fusion Theatre
Chicago Opera Theater
Collision Theatre Company
Covered Bridge Children’s Theatres
Democracy Burlesque
Dream Engine
Echo Theater Co.
Emerald City Theatre Company
EP Theatre
Fehinty African Theatre Ensemble
First Street Playhouse
Full Voice
Galileo Players
Garrick Players
GayCo Productions
GroundUp Theatre
Hidden Talent Theatre
Hypatia Theatre
Illinois Theatre Center
Imagination Theater
Janus Theatre
Keyhole Theatre Company
Kidworks Touring Theatre
Kirk Players
La Costa Theatre
Links Hall
Marriott Theatre, The
Mary-Arrchie Theatre
MOB Productions
Mom and Dad Productions
MPAACT (Ma’at Production Assoc of Afrikan Centered Theatre)
National Pastime
New Branch Theatre Company
NightBlue Performing Arts Theater
Nightingale Group
Noble Fool Theatricals
Not Waiting Productions
Ouroboros Theatre Company
Pegasus Players
Peninsula Players Theatre
People’s Theatre of Chicago
Pine Box Theatre
pretty blue sky
Remarcable Productions
Riddlemark Theatre Company
Sandbox Theatre Project
Serendipity Theatre Collective
Silent Theatre
Soapbox Theatre Company
Stage Wright
Steel Beam Theater
Striding Lion InterArts Workshop
The Box Theatre Group
The Journeymen
The Route 66 Theatre Company
Two Lights Theatre Company
Up & Coming Theatre
Virtuoso Performing Arts
Zombie Fortress Arts Collective