Find an event
Staging a coup
If we ran the city, we'd make these five big changes to Chicago theater.
Create more room to grow. This year has seen more shows making big moves from their storefront homes to extended runs in for-profit theaters—Collaboraction’s The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, Porchlight’s Ragtime and the House’s The Sparrow all made successful leaps. But what about medium-size shows? Economic incentives for commercial spaces of 50 to 100 seats, where smaller companies could continue their (relatively) giant hits, could change a lot of these theaters’ fortunes.
Establish more city-run spaces. We love the two Department of Cultural Affairs theaters in the Loop (Storefront Theatre and the Studio Theatre), and we think it’d be great to see more city-subsidized theater spaces; there are always itinerant companies in search of a venue. What if the city operated a multitheater facility like the Theatre Building on Belmont Avenue? Better yet, what if the city put it on the South or West Sides, where theater is sorely underrepresented?
Increase funding for the League of Chicago Theatres. The League has some good programs going and more in store—the centralized online ticketing service that managing director Lyle Allen tells us is in the works could be awesome for theaters of all sizes. But the League’s yearly operating budget is less than what Wicked makes in a month, so it’s limited in what it can do. City funding for the League is more democratic than picking and choosing projects; services like Hot Tix benefit all local theaters not just those in the mayor’s favorite ’hood, the Loop.
Pep up the advertising. Stodgy ads beget stodgy audiences. When we look at the way Chicago theater presents itself, we understand why our friends never want to come with us to a show. The right ad campaign can make even car insurance seem hip and edgy, so why do most theater ads have all the passion of an NPR pledge drive? Perhaps the League could use the new funding we just gave it in point No. 3 to overhaul its members’ images.
Declare a Neil Simon moratorium. It’s dismaying how many new theater companies are reviving safe material—crowd-pleasing chestnuts we’ve already seen five times this decade. Did you really get theater degrees, move to Chicago and form your own company so you could do Barefoot in the Park? Ditch the safe stuff and challenge us, already, or the rest of these wishes won’t do any good.
