How did it happen?
The question popped up again last weekend when I took part in a discussion on new plays and new audiences in Miami Beach; and it came from Stephanie Norman, the bright, dynamic co-producing artistic director of the host theater. Norman is an actress who spent some time in Chicago early in her career but who came home to her native south Florida to start City Theatre in 1994 with her fellow Floridian, playwright Susan Westphall. Between them, they have raised two families, four children and a theater.
Because she had some experience in Chicago, working at The Second City, and because she has ambitions for her own theater, Norman wanted to know how and why theater in Chicago had grown so strong, and if the patterns established here might be successfully repeated on her own turf.
The greater Miami area has sociological, political and artistic issues that are unique; and in many areas it’s impossible to duplicate what happened in Chicago to what might happen in south Florida. But we talked at length about the recent history of Chicago theater; I gave her a few names to call for further information, and she vowed to come to Chicago to see for herself. And at the end of it, I was impressed once more by the fascination that my hometown has for theater people all across the country.
As luck would have it, I came back home to a new high pitch of activity, a sign that the Chicago theater boom continues to grow and astonish.
The last few weeks have been highly productive periods, on every level. The pace is so fast, and the product is so interesting that, if you miss one opening, as I had to do with last Sunday’s premiere of “R. Buckminster Fuller” at the Mercury Theatre, you’re liable to miss a terrific show.
The plays out there, whatever their nature, are sustaining proof of the depth of the talent field that has grown here. In the contemporary English comedies “House” and “Garden” at Goodman Theatre, and in the adaptation of “David Copperfield” at Steppenwolf Theatre, large casts of all-Chicago actors have been assembled to create works that are far from the rough-edged realism often associated with theater in Chicago. This weekend, we have a production of “King Lear” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater with Chicago actor Greg Vinkler in the title role leading a Chicago cast in the great tragedy.
The immense success of the musical of “The Producers” in its short pre-Broadway engagement at the Cadillac Palace has put more crowds into the North Loop theater district, with the arrival this spring of “Saturday Night Fever,” “Mamma Mia” and “Dame Edna” promising more such box-office activity. Even the giant restaurant operation of Lettuce Entertain You, previously wary of entering the Loop, has dipped a toe into the downtown area, adding its Petterino’s, adjoining the Goodman, to the existing mix of pre- and post-theater restaurants in the Loop.
Meanwhile, the smaller commercial theaters — Royal George, Mercury, Apollo — have or are about to have product, and the Black Orchid nightclub will soon be the home of the off-Broadway hit “Pageant.”
In resident theaters, the backbone of Chicago’s strength, the level of performance, in theaters of every size and in every direction, continues to rise. Whether you see the off-Broadway comedy “Fuddy Meers” at Apple Tree Theatre in Highland Park or the new “Birdsend” by Chicago playwright Keith Huff at the tiny Mary-Arrchie Theatre in Chicago, acting of a special, invigorating nature is on view.
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The city continues to import its work to New York too. Two works that originated last season at the Goodman, Rebecca Gilman’s “Boy Gets Girl” and Regina Taylor’s “Urban Zulu Mambo,” open Tuesday at the Manhattan Theatre Club and next Sunday at the Signature Theatre, respectively.
How did it happen?
I’m not sure, but, for sure, it is happening.