Wit's End

New Year’s Resolution

2012-02-02T13:02:00.002-06:00

Every January we emerge, blinking like naked mole rats in the harsh light of day from the holiday season. Every Christmas, the building is packed and this year was particularly dramatic, as not only did 3,500 of you come to see Santaland Diaries (a new record), but Spring Awakening, Silent Night of the Living Dead and The Reindeer Monologues were at near capacity for the last two weeks of December. Add the two repertory works performed by the striking Noemi Schloesser from Salomee Speelt, and I half expected to return to a smoking crater in the ground when I opened up the building on the 2nd of January. And we weren't the only ones near-living at the Wit, some of our members were here every weekend in the month of December just to see everything.

But of course, the holiday season passes and we're all supposed to take stock and consider our resolutions for a new year. My track record for personal New Year Resolutions is only about 50/50. The things I'm interested in at the beginning of each year tend to fall by the wayside as I chase new, shiny dreams. But the theater can make some resolutions as well. We've been in full operation for about 18 months, and I do think it's time to make a resolution or two. Here's our first:

Figure out where we are going. All of us.

This one is top of my list. And it comes directly our of our history, so a little examination of the past is probably useful in looking ahead to the future.

One of the key design decisions I made when organizing Theater Wit was that it was a theater with a space. I've written about why I feel that's critical for a theater. And then we, well, did it. Now, building out a space is famous for totally commandeering a theater's resources and energy. Mike Daisey talks, to great effect, about how making buildings destroys the integrity of producing organizations. In his gripping solo piece, How Theater Failed America, he has a fantastic story about how the pressures of running a large institutional theater permanently changes the type of work that can be presented there, often relegating the very art that created the institution to a small studio space ghettoized from the mainstage.

Now, I saw Daisey's piece one week after we opened our new theater. Which, in retrospect, was just as well, since it would have FREAKED ME OUT. But I think, in the spirit of our new year's resolutions, it's worth looking back at our first eighteen months and see what happened.

The biggest advantage we've realized is in gaining freedom to program. Far from changing or restricting our programming, having a home has enabled me to persue our artistic mission more truly. When we shifted from place to place, we spent all our effort telling you where we were, instead of telling you about the work. Settling down has enabled me to focus on our play selection, our deepening relationship with some of today's most important playwrights and tuning our work for a specific impact in a specific room. I feel much more freedom to offer work that isn't specifically "marketable" or has a great elevator pitch or tag line, because you, our audience, are coming to our shows much much more often.

I think some of this is directly attributable to the space and our new operations, where we did some counter-intuitive things.

We shrank. We had been producing in a larger house. The material costs of our productions shrank by about 18% and our rental cost dropped by about 20%. We put that money directly into performer salaries and adding preview performances which has allowed us to improve the quality of our work tremendously.

We shared. The model of our new building was always based around a shared space that other companies could rent and produce entire seasons in. More importantly, we resolved not to finance our own productions with rental income from the theater space. This was a risky strategy because we didn't know if we would get lost in our own space. And it entailed a huge investment of time and money without direct recompense. How do we best support work by other companies while still maintaining a direct relationship with you, our audience? So we decided to share the audience as well. We started programs like the FlexPass and Membership cards to actively encourage our audience to explore other companies' work. Again, we run these programs at cost so we don't profit financially from them, but we deepen our audiences' relationship with us and the visiting companies simultaneously. We redesigned our website to help audiences find the amazing variety of work produced in the building. And it seems to be working. Last season, twenty five thousand people came to Theater Wit. Three thousand of them attended shows by two different companies. A growing number of members attend our theater two to three times a month. Single ticket sales for our own shows are increasing 15% show over show for the last eighteen months. This year, 18,000 people have come to the Wit in the last three months.

We stopped discounting For our own shows (we don't impose any pricing practices on renting companies), our new ticket model releases tickets to each show in blocks, starting at $18. Once the $18 tickets are sold, the next block goes on sale for $24 and so forth and so on. I wanted to ensure that prices were egalitarian while still making sure we kept ourselves operationally afloat. Rather than subject people to a crazy hunt for discount codes and discount ticket mailing services and sites, anyone can see any one of our shows for a low price with a reservation far enough in advance. And members get to see multiple plays even cheaper if they wish. We do still release tickets for same day sales at the HotTix booth to support that community of theatergoers and the League of Chicago Theaters. We also offer discount tickets to students under 25 at the door. Apart from that, there are no special offers, no deals. And both audience size and revenues have increased since we started this policy.
Bring ticketing in house. The current trend for theaters is to outsource their ticketing systems to third parties. We wanted you to talk to our own staff about all the shows, and we also wanted to get rid of aftermarket ticketing fees. This has taken a huge effort of time and money, but we can now staff a box office by someone who's actually eaten at the restaurants he recommends, who's seen the plays, etc. And we can do it without charging you facility fees, service fees, credit card processing fees, renovation fees, etc.

When I look at the company's history over the last seven years, I see so many of our decisions made in response to a key operational concern: We're making a space. From the conception of our company, starting with a home base was a given. This affected a huge range of decisions, from frequency of production to type of programming. It's hard to over-estimate how critical the long-term plan of building a home was in every aspect of our operations.

Now, of course, we have a home. And, unlike most of the dire warnings about how space confines you, having the physical building completed is wildly freeing for us. We have a much broader range of options available at every turn. The loss of the build-a-space priority (and the gain of have-a-space) has multiplied our options immeasurably.

But all this means we have to refocus as an organization. We are refocusing on our mission, our values and our artistic sensibility, and we need to do it company-wide, from the board down to the interns. Here are the questions we are looking to answer this year.

What is Theater Wit?

Who are we and what do we want to become next?

How does our space and our programming enhance our community of theaters? of audience?

I can't answer those questions in a bubble. So, we are doing some formal strategic planning sessions with the staff and the board. We're also just sitting at the bar and hashing these questions out. And we are going to our audience and other theaters and finding out what they have to say. Heck, I'm going to this blog, so if you have any ideas about these questions, sound off in the comments. I'd love to hear from you.

Three Venues. A Thousand Performances. And You.

2011-12-14T10:45:00.000-06:00

This holiday season is always a time to look back and appreciate all we have. And I have a lot to appreciate.

Today, Theater Wit is an award-winning, critically acclaimed theater whose plays about the fun and dark moments of life continue to speak to people like you.

Today, we can say we’ve worked with some of the most talented artists in Chicago and nationwide that continue to connect with people like you.

Today, we operate one of the most sought after performance venues in the city that provides you with unique exposure to a variety of Chicago’s best storefront theater.

Today, we are home to a vast variety of exceptional performing arts and provide one of the most vital places of expression and education in Chicago.

We could not have written today’s story without the help of our donors and audiences. We cannot write tomorrow’s without you.

Each year, we expand our programming and reach into the community in ways that take us one step closer to being the center for Chicago’s top professional storefront theater. In 2012, we have four funny, intelligent, nationally celebrated plays to produce. We're offering 750 performances to over 25,000 audience members. We have a dozen partnerships with other arts organizations to support with quality communications and an exceptional performance space. We cannot fulfill these needs without the partnership of our donors. We invite you to become a part of that special family and help us raise $15,000 by the end of 2011.

We know times are financially tough for many people. As a nonprofit organization, we certainly feel the effects of the economy on the cash flow that makes our programming possible. But every little bit truly helps and we ask that you please consider contributing $25, $50, or more to Theater Wit before the end of 2011. Your contribution would support Theater Wit’s 2012 programming and be fully tax-deductible. It could cover essentials like a performance by one of our talented actors, a picture perfect costume, or the very floor the actors walk on.

When you contribute to Theater Wit, you become an invested part of this community. You share our story, you contribute your ideas and you learn firsthand about our activities. As a donor, you help write the one big story that transforms everyone inside our walls and connects our community, from person to family, artist to audience, company to industry, and neighbor to neighborhood.

We hope you’ll join our family of donors today and share your story with us.

To make a secure online donation or learn more about your donor benefits, please click here. You may also make a contribution over the phone by calling us at 773-975-8150 or sending a check through the mail to Theater Wit, 1229 W Belmont Ave, Chicago, IL 60657. If you have any questions about Theater Wit, please feel free to email me at jeremy@theaterwit.org.

Thank you so much for your time, interest, and support. This year has been a joy for me, and I look forward to sharing another one with all of you.

The Artistic Opportunity of Membership

2011-08-16T10:16:00.000-05:00

Artistic Director is a weird position. When folks from the outside the industry ask what that means I usually haul out the standard answer, “I pick the season.” Of course, that’s a ridiculous answer, since I don’t pick seasons; I pick plays, I pick artists. In any event, it’s doubly ridiculous because they look enlightened for a moment, then you can always see them think, “how long can that take?” And the real answer is, not very long. Because I think it’s the smallest part of the job, even if it’s the most visible.

But my actual job as artistic director? I create community. A community of artists gather to create a story to tell a group of watchers. That group in the theater builds another community during the event, and that spills outward and mixes with (and sometimes changes) our larger cultural community. My job is to foster and nurture that process from the page outward.

Our community story here at Theater Wit is even more complex, because 80% of the work in our building is generated by other companies, each with their own communities of artists and audience mixing under one roof. This interaction has been part of our intent for the building since its conception. There are real reasons I don’t have a main stage with another studio space ghettoized on the side. Theater Wit wants to build a city-wide egalitarian community of artists and a central gathering place for those audience members interested in their work and theatrical work in general.

And that is why I am so excited about the community opportunities offered by our new membership program. In a nutshell, it works like this:

You buy a membership for a flat monthly fee, about the price of a full price ticket.
With your membership, you can attend any production at Theater Wit, presented by any company, at any time as many times as you wish.
The monthly fee auto-renews on your credit card.
After three months, you can cancel anytime.
Twice a year you can bring a friend for free.

And that’s the entire program. It’s a really simple, basic story but I think has the potential to be a powerful community building force.

In the theater, we are always bemoaning the difficulty of attracting new audiences. New audience is essential to our art form, not just from a financial perspective, but new audiences directly foster experimentation and growth in the art. How many times have we heard theaters say “our subscribers would never go for that”? A constantly developing audience base is a challenge to every artist involved in the project, a constantly shifting bar that forces you to always be reaching and changing your work. The moment you think you know what your audience wants is the moment you stop giving it.

But, to get a new ticket buyer into our shows we need to a) explain to you the story of the play, b) provide context in the form of reviews or recommendations as to the quality and type of the work, c) make a personal connection to your life, d) teach you where the theater is, e) assure you that the “difficulty” of getting to the theater will be worth the effort, and f) ask you to risk $25-$45 dollars based on all the above. And we need to do all this in the context of a print ad, a tweet, perhaps a postcard, or we have to marshall six different communications to hit that prospective audience member to tell all those facets of the story before we close in 2-6 weeks.

Seriously, it’s a miracle anyone makes in the fucking door. And all this has to happen BEFORE we get to present work to the public. Then, you decide if that work is speaking to them and maybe start building that tenuous connection with our theatre that will turn you into dedicated audience. And if your experience isn’t fantastic, each time? Add (g) make you forget the last experience to our impossible new audience development list.

And everyone agrees that our new generation of audience is making decisions based on the individual show even more than institutional reputation. So we need to do the impossible over and over again. This leads to safe programming and marketing driving programming that says “here’s what we can sell” rather than “here’s what we can create”. And that just betrays the artists and audience ever more.

So let’s change the entire process. Let’s alter the entire relationship between the artists and the audience. We should use Theater Wit’s unique situation to try and build community for EVERYONE, every company, every artist and every audience member.

Transform the audience by changing the question

First, imagine the question for each audience member isn’t “Is this play worth it?” but “What should I see next?” As a member, the first show you see is basically prepaid for with your ticket price. The second show is free. And so forth.

Experimentation therefore becomes an extremely low-risk venture for our audience. There is a real tyranny of choice in Chicago theater. Hundreds of companies. Think about that for a moment. Hundreds. How do you try and evaluate if a particular company, much less a particular show will be worth the cost? You can’t; it’s impossible. Sure, you could spend an hour googling about, researching a show, the company history, the artists’ histories. And then another hour doing the next listing, etc. After you’ve spend 40 hours researching the “best” thing to do Saturday night, it’s Monday and you’ve been fired.

Choice is in some ways the enemy of experimentation. If you can find the “perfect” show for them (or believe you can), you feel more personal responsibility to find that specific experience and so make safer choices for yourself. When is the last time you said “Why not?” and went to see a show you knew nothing about beyond a short plot description? You don’t, because you’re making a $80-$120 gamble with your evening (assuming you aren’t going alone). What if that evening was $0? Would it change your entertainment calculus?

Imagine the new question: “What can I see tonight?” You’ve got a membership, you go to the site and look at the three to six shows being presented. You only need to ask “do I want to experience this?” because the additional cost is only in time, not in money. That’s a powerful change.

We can reject the model of selling tickets in favor of offering you an opportunity to come to the theater.

Build connections between audience members and theaters while avoiding cannibalizing that relationship

We can act as a matchmaker between you, our audience and the theaters in our space (including ourselves). The entire point of the membership program is to encourage you to find new experiences. We try when possible to present multiple works by a company in our space over a year, giving multiple chances for the audience to connect with the work a particular theater does.

It was also very important to make sure memberships didn’t ruin opportunities for theaters to build separate subscription relationships. I’m not a subscription fan, but I recognize that they are an essential part of a number of institutions. A membership is more expensive than a subscription. Of course, you get more opportunities to see theater with a membership and there’s no upfront cost, but subscription pricing is a better choice for some people and we don’t want to undermine that. We can’t cannibalize our hosted theater’s revenue models. In fact, we should…

Increase revenue for every theater and their artists in our space

We pay a flat fee, roughly equivalent to other discount outlets, to the theater for each membership ticket. It is consequently very easy for us to lose money on a membership but I think this model is the only ethical way we can do it. Memberships have to work in all directions within the community. We can’t shortsell the artists in order to serve the larger community goals. And its all opportunity driven. A membership doesn’t guarantee you a ticket to every show; it just allows you to reserve available stock.

Theater Wit is uniquely suited to do this work, because of our placement in Chicago which is unquestionably one of the world’s centers for theater. Our multiple venue, curated model for companies allows us to present astonishing work by Chicago’s best storefronts. Because I just identify the company and not the individual projects, Theater Wit can act in an editorial way, presenting the best storefront companies while still providing artistic autonomy for shows and not poisoning the well, so to speak, with our own expectations and whatever expectations we think our audience is bringing to the table.

I don’t know what we’ll learn from the membership program. I don’t know if we’ll lose thousands of dollars. I don’t know if this will change how audiences gather in our space in any way, or if it will strengthen our community.

I do know that we have a unique opportunity to create a new community. And hey, that’s supposed to be my job.

See you at the theater!

Jeremy Wechsler
Artistic Director,
Theater Wit
smart.art
http://www.theaterwit.org
@jwechsler

CT(a)C 2011 after the dust settles

2011-08-09T11:07:00.000-05:00

The Chicago Theater (anti-) Conference just drew to a close a day ago, and like many of the participants, I’ve been reviewing the weekend. While the theme this year was structured around sharing secrets of excellence, i.e. what do the member theaters do that has worked wonders for them, this idea actually pulled out another common thread:

Lazy thinking kills more art than economics, funders, and bad business practices combined.

(Although the first certainly causes the last)

Last year, I spoke with Paul Botts, who used to act as the Managing Director for a theatre, and then moved into the role of funder for the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation. He’s since moved on, so this example won’t, thankfully, be sycophantic. He spoke for about five minutes on his deep distrust for “common wisdom,” and called for actual data to inform theaters’ business and artistic practices. At the close of CT(a)C 2010, Roche Schulfer from the Goodman talked about the youth of the regional theatre movement, and how pulling lessons from the last forty years could be a trap. While certainly theaters have hit upon some winning strategies, they aren’t written in stone. And there’s ample evidence that those lessons and tactics were very temporal and local. Figuring out how to be an artist/run a theater NOW is a totally different kettle of fish.

From my geek computer background, I think of forty years in technology. Forty years ago, we had no home computers. My dad had a digital calculator the size of a brick. There was no internet, no social media, no computer animation, no mobile phones, etc. For fuck’s sake, there weren’t even fax machines. And you can see the corpses of technology companies over the last 40 years who failed to reinvent themselves. Any company who built a business model on what went before instead of what’s next was dead in a matter of months. It’s so well known that we don’t even think about it anymore. When’s the last time you went to renew your mobile phone and asked for last year’s model? Sent a physical newsletter to someone? Clipped something from the paper to send to a friend? (Or for many, picked up a newspaper at all?)

But here we theaters are, acting like fax machine manufacturers expecting Pulitzer awards for innovation. Don Hall’s presentation on alternative spaces had good and bad points, but one of his key arguments, that theaters spend money on theater venues without thinking about it was incontestable. Lazy thinking. Don suggested that theaters needed to think about the work they were doing and ask themselves the question, “Does this work need to be in a theater space to fulfill its mission?” (Well, something like that. He probably swore more). Over the next six hours, I heard a quick description of “subscriber numbers” from three theaters. And I’m discussing small theaters. If these groups had more than six subscribers, I will have an aneurism in utter shock. One of these groups is happy if they had six AUDIENCE members some evenings. Why are they talking about subscribers? Because they think they need to. Lazy thinking.

Deb Clapp from the League of Chicago Theaters talked over lunch about the small companies that give a staff list of folks like “Marketing Director” and “Grant Manager.” “What does your Marketing Director do?” she might ask, and the theatre would say “Well… they’re pretty busy with a day job at the moment, so they haven’t really been around.” To which the reasonable (but never asked question) is “So why do you have a marketing director?” Not “why do you have a lame marketing director that can’t spend any time on your theater” but “why do you have a marketing director at all?”

Because that’s what theaters have. We can see it at the larger regional houses. And so people follow the model blindly. Because it’s there. Lazy thinking.

Katy Klassman discussed pricing practices from the perspective of luxury retailers. And made some key points that I’ve long believed.

No discounts
Simple pricing
Limited sale channels

I’m on board. For our own productions, we never offer discounts except occasionally to test new response channels (and the need for that in online has mostly disappeared). We present two prices for single ticket buyers, General Admission and Student rates. And over experimentation for the last five years, I believe that, for us, discounts and special ticket promotions make no difference in our market at all. But we also have a lot of data from other companies who rent from us, and many of them do an astonishing range of promotional deals. One theater had over 35 different promotional codes. 2 for 1s, $2 off, $10 off, $5 of on Thursdays only, $10 industry day of, 20% off second tickets, etc. They do this every show. Number of tickets redeemed with special offer code for their entire run? 27. Out of over 1700 tickets sold. What is the cost in lost messaging opportunity for those 27 tickets? And would those people come anyway?

Or consider the theater that sold group on tickets to a show that then got rave reviews and began selling out? Total dollars for that company lost? $10,800. And that’s not an exaggeration. Their run at Theater Wit was sold out. We turned hundreds of people away. Maybe those folks got to see the show anyway, maybe not.

And all these pricing strategies come with “common knowledge” stories:

Audiences are scared away from theaters because of high prices, so reducing the price increases the likelihood of attracting new audience.
Groupon introduces a wide range of people to your work, so an initial 75% discount to bring those people in pays off in the long run.
Students don’t have any money for theater, so having a student rate increases the chance of bringing them in.

Now, these may be true. They may not be but the point is that we have no idea. It’s extremely difficult to tell and so we accept the story. And I have student tickets, so I am by no means immune. Lazy thinking.

So I was feeling pretty smug but then another theater [UPDATE: It’s Filament Theatre] spoke up and explained how they sold their tickets by direct subsidy. You didn’t buy a ticket, you bought “one light rental, one week” for $18 or “one costume, $26” or “1/10 of our insurance, $66” or “one night rental of the theatre, $125” The tickets were all the same, but the opportunity for engagement with the audience was enormous. And folks cheerfully bought their tickets based on their means and their emotional investment in the show went up. I don’t know if the show was a success financially, but the ticket experiment was a success. Their sales went up and it flies in the face of not only the conventional theater wisdom, but in the face of the conventional retailer wisdom that Katy had just explored. Not lazy. Inspiring. “And maybe,” I thought again, “I’m also not as clever as I might think I am”

And the question of lazy thinking really struck home for me on the artistic side during a session with Julian Rickert, co-artistic director of one step at a time like this, an Australian company that is creating works based on one-to-one interaction with individual audience members. Julian talked about how the company ended up with their unique take on the theatrical experience, and it was, more than anything, a constant series of questions. Julian came to the theater late, from a position of cheerfully admitted ignorance and has evolved though a lot of trial and error, a vivid and unique experience for his audience. And there is a host of things his experience requires that go directly against everything we know.

They sell fifteen tickets a day.
The press doesn’t describe their work, because foreknowledge of the experience prevents the experience from happening.
They never perform in theaters
They receive no arts subsidies from the government (which is apparently what is what everyone does down under)

and so forth. An amazing 90 minutes for me. Why? Because one step at a time like this is working without a long term plan, without a business model as their guide, without an established artistic model and they are constantly having to reinvent themselves and find out something new. No net. Not lazy thinking.

And this idea kept coming up at CT(a)C for me. How the enemy of theater is not recession, or audience disinterest, or the internet, or cable, or reliance on grants, or high real estate and utility costs, or aging audience, or falling subscribers, or commercialism, or disinterested boards, or American culture, or resources, or time, or anything. Our enemy is laziness and complacency. Our enemy is ever believing we know “how things are” and wrapping ourselves into that.

I am not advocating specifically from a break from all forms and existing models. I’m not saying we all need to flee the theaters, take to the streets, kidnap citizens and perform plays in their homes, taking our payment in canned goods and cocaine. I’m saying that we must always question what we know. About our place, our art, our business. “What do I know” vs “What do I believe is true” vs “What does everyone know”

I turned 42 the day after the conference. Big meaning of life year for the science fiction geek such as myself. And I want to make a call for enlightened ignorance. Not anti-intellectualism, but a suspension of our belief that we can ever know “how things are”. We are doing things at Theater Wit that haven’t been tried. About which I know nothing. In a situation where we have no guide or indication of what will come.

We are going to run aggressive experiments in marketing our work and the work of others this year. We may lose thousands and thousands of dollars. I don’t know where that money is coming from, but I think the questions need to be asked.
We are going to do an experiment in building a theater comprised of our work and the work of a dozen other theaters. And we are going to try to do this without diluting audience engagement with ourselves or any of the visiting theaters in our space. We have no idea how this is possible, but I have been assured it is NOT possible.
We are going to dramatically expand and deepen our connection with our audience. We’ll be using food, liquor, computers, people, telephones, parties, and music to do this. We will not be using money to do this. I believe that latter may be impossible, but we are going to try.
We are going to try and make a theater experience that lasts for days for our patrons for our shows. This, surely, can’t be done.
We are going to increase the amount we pay both staff and artists. I’m told there’s going to be another recession, but I don’t know how there can be a second recession before the first one is over. In any case, I’m told this is impractical.

On the other hand,

We built a building as a nearly unknown theatre only five years old. If I’d known we needed institutional support to do it, it wouldn’t be done.
We have a staff of two people to operate the building. We have one part-time employee and everyone else is unpaid. If I’d known that this was impossible at our size, we’d have nothing.
We created a conference that the entire community can attend for $45 for the weekend, including five meals and three parties. My conference consultancy friend told me two years ago that the entry point should be $350. Take that, knowledge expert!

I don’t know what’s possible. Hopefully CT(a)C has connected me to some enlightened ignorance that I can use.

So, that’s my takeaway. But I am thinking about one other moment in the conference. During a press panel, Chris Jones from the Chicago Tribune said something like “Theater is unquestionably Chicago’s art form. It’s what we are known for. Not our visual arts, or even our music. People know and take pride in Chicago’s performance scene across the city. We are first and foremost a theater town both to our residents and the world.”

And once again, my perspective shifted. Lazy thinking.

Rereading THIS: An open letter to the cast

2011-02-22T11:58:00.001-06:00

We’re about to plunge into tech. Our rehearsal process has been a touch fitful, with snowstorms, commercials, work schedules, etc. and I know that everyone is starting to feel the pressure of our increasingly imminent previews. BUT, take a moment to step back from the minutiae of the six dozen different things we each want to get done before Friday and remind ourselves about the story we are telling.

Rereading the script at night is always a sort of liberating experience. Instead of trying to watch each rehearsal with fresh eyes, I can return to the imaginative play that inspired my choice to begin with. I reread This twice in two days and there are a lot of challenges the play presents. Our task is to integrate on the whole. Hours have been spent in utter, critical minutae (who’s drinking from what glass when, etc.) and in feeling out the style of the play. This is heavily linguistic, comic and dramatic, often simultaneously, and working with these different demands can cause you artistic whiplash. But here’s what I think:

The contradictions in this play are what make it a great evening, and are the very heart of the experience of watching This.

This is about the tensions inherent in all the myriad contradictions of being human. Our theatre industry too often presents work that is too pat, too safe in its boundaries of tone, of character arc. Too distilled. That’s not this evening. The play is messy – like life – and complicated – like life. We need to trust the shifting sands that Melissa has built. On rereading the play, I am struck by a few things:

These people are highly educated. Just like most of us. :) They are very smart. Not MIT specialist smart, but well above competent. This doesn’t mean they don’t do stupid things and make bad choices. So do we. But there is a lot about these people that suggests they lead with their heads more often than their hearts. In fact, I think they distrust their hearts. Jane’s heart keeps misleading her; much of her problems in the play have to do with her uneasy relationship with her own emotional life. Her denied needs for intimacy, for trust, for friendship, for grief have her not so much twisted around as ricocheting back and forth. Tom’s heart tells him he loves Jane, but he mistrusts his own desires. Merrill believes she should be happy and fulfilled as she embarks on this new journey as a parent with Tom, but her heart tells her to flirt with Jean-Pierre. Alan’s heart is demanding a life change, and for the first time, his intellect is failing to instantly provide an answer.

So, one of the key dramatic tensions in the play is, oddly, the characters working against their own instincts or judgements. We’ve all been there. In many ways, the characters in This are their own worst enemy. There is no antagonist, no external obstacle. The characters aren’t working against each other, which I think can feel a little odd to the traditional “Who is preventing me from reaching my objective” acting class trope (what I wouldn’t give in life sometimes to have a concrete enemy), Melissa’s characters are confronting the weight of their accumulated life choices, our universal suspicion that—at some ill-defined point in the past—we’ve created our own less-than-optimal present, and might face a potentially bleak future. That our situation is in large part attributable to our own actions, and that we need to deal with and control the consequences.

Before hitting forty, I kind of thought that a mid-life crisis was a sort of dramatic deus ex machina, a way of arbitrarily creating crisis in plays and novels that you didn’t have to explore: So-and-so is having an affair, character X is recently divorced, character Y is finding their job unfulfilling, blah blah blah, and... GO conflict! But we all evaluate our life choices and (sometimes) feel compelled to make big changes. This is about, in part, that dawning realization/fear that we can’t just amble on indefinitely. That life isn’t forever, and that we need to be active participants in our own existence, not just passengers.

And then, of course, it’s very funny. Which is an exciting mix; rue + laughs might seem contradictory, or it might really be the heart of our human experience. The dialogue is so quick and so smart and so intricately built, that we need to manage the technical demands of the comedy, the overlapping naturalism of the group scenes and the time for the real human interactions. It’s just a lot of logistics to juggle. But, over the last few days, we’ve found the real key to the dialogue. Simplicity. We have been packing a lot into each of these moments. Performance is about the experience of letting that reality play in you, and creating something new and fresh every night. There is a spareness and lightness in Melissa’s diction that we need to trust. You’ve felt it; consider those times in rehearsal when you didn’t control your reaction, you weren’t playing to a pre-written score, but where the conditions of the play and your fellow performers resulted in exactly This.

It’s going to be an incredibly rewarding experience to perform, even more than to explore in rehearsal.

It’s going to be a true and memorable evening for our audience. Because I really really do love this play, and you are going to love performing it as much as I’m gong to enjoy seeing it.

See you Wednesday,

jw

Putting the adult back into adultery, or "Why THIS?"

2011-01-31T10:15:00.000-06:00

Why This?

We’re about to start rehearsal this evening, and I always think it’s good to reconnect with my motivations for choosing the play, and to remind myself of the story we’re trying to connect with before we get distracted by the minutiae of the individual performative moments, the finances of the design and the million individual mechanics of actually mounting a production. Every story wants to be told at a particular time, for a specific reason, and one of the questions we need to ask as a theater is why talk now, and about what?

So, “Why This?” which is actually a question I ask at the start of every rehearsal. (Even if it’s usually less italicized, more like “why this?”)

Putting the adult back in adultery

In This, Jane has been widowed for a year and is still reeling from the premature death of her husband at only 35. Her best friend, Merriil has invited her to the first party Merrill and her husband, Tom are throwing 12 weeks after after the birth of their first child. They’re joined by Alan, a longtime friend, and a new friend of Merrill’s, Jean-Pierre, an expatriate Frenchman who works for Doctors without Borders. Merrill thinks it’s time that Jane came out of her shell and starts dating the charismatic Jean-Pierre. But after a party game misfires, Tom and Jane admit to an attraction that threatens to unravel their entire circle of friends. And it’s all wrapped up in playwright Melissa James Gibson’s astonishing knack for smart, witty and--above all--human dialogue.

This depicts a circle of friends who are all passing through what I like to think of as a “pre-midlife crisis,” which I think is a generational characteristic. I think there’s a whole section of my peers (generation X, I suppose) who managed to elongate our adolescence. We all bopped around throughout our twenties and early thirties and then thought to ourselves, “Hmmm. Maybe it’s time I stepped up and bought a house/had a child/found a career?” “Maybe it’s time I was an adult...” Speaking for myself, I remember thinking (at 33) “Seriously? We’re going to be charge? We’re the responsible ones? I don’t feel responsible at all. I’m not ready; all this is way way too much for me. Shouldn’t some grownups be lurking around to step the fuck up?”

I actually don’t know why this is, but tons of my friends (and not just those in the arts) followed a similar pattern. My daughter’s preschool is filled with Moms in their late thirties/early forties, which is an interesting bump in the demographic curve. I’m not sure that, as a generation, we’ve embraced adulthood with any particular vigor. I think we have been slow to mature, by and large. Life and time have their inexorable effect, and at some point, life has presented us with forks in the road that many of us considered the “last chance” so we had to step up. We are now, surprisingly, the grownups in the room much to our astonishment and faint dismay.

Gibson is a perfect playwright for this moment. Her first big hit, [sic] visited my generation a decade ago to hilarious effect. In This, she turns her considerable knack for comic insight to a play that’s far more than a nominal tale of adultery. This is a story about Generation X-ers acknowledging that responsibility can no longer be passed. And how are we to manage all this: this child, this marriage, this friendship, this career? This life? Jane’s affair and it’s repercussions are all about how the essentially messy reality of life tempers us, and makes us grow. Sometimes, with luck, we grow into ourselves.

An interview with the Red Bastard

2011-01-30T22:21:00.000-06:00

The Red Bastard is coming to Theater Wit on February 11th and 12th! Who is the Red Bastard? Honestly, I had no idea when they contacted us, but a bit of examination of Eric’s considerable resume and a ton of information online at http://www.redbastard.com has me remarkably enthused to see the show in two weeks. With permission, I’m reprinting an exchange between Chicago’s own Dean Evans (The Magical Exploding Boy and the ChiTown Clown Revue) and Eric Davis (the Red Bastard himself). Enjoy, and I’ll see you at the theater :)

Dean Evans: I noticed on your website that you have a significant amount of new
material. How do you begin to develop new stuff?

Eric Davis: It seems a mystery to me, now.. Like some parts of it were ideas rumbling
around in my mind or in journals unrealized or even untried for years. Then
slowly they edge their way forward. I began to go into studio with my
co-writer/ director Deanna last January and we just slogged away at it. We
would invite people to open rehearsals and workshop material. It's quite
complicated audience interaction, in a way so it's taken time to develop and
figure out how it works, and we're still listening to it and finding its
form. I try to work things out on my feet. It sounds and looks very
different if I write something on the page versus if I improvise it and then
transcribe it. I remember watching a documentary about Lily Tomlin creating
her Broadways show and still look at that as a model. Working with a
cowriter, improvising and taking the best stuff.

Do you find that audience members who resist are the ones who want to be
pried open the most?

I don't open people with a crowbar. I have a gentle touch. I can be
forceful, but inviting someone is always a more effective way.

Have you ever surprised yourself by how far you've been able to push an
audience? If so, what happened?

Again, this implies a sort of violent forceful quality, I think. However
some amazing things have happened. People have crossed amazing boundaries,
shared intimate truths, acted in courageous ways to change their life. In a
way I would rather not name the things, because it gives people a sense of
what they are supposed to do. I want the audience to find their way when
they come to the show. Not before hand.

Does Red Bastard's lumpiness free up Eric's inner madness? Do you find that
the body distortion helps to provoke a response from the audience as well?

It is a way for me to release my shadow self! The space between myself and
Red Bastard is the space in which I get to play. It's a gift to myself and
the audience.

Who or what makes Eric Davis laugh, clown or otherwise?

I laugh at shows when other people are not laughing a lot. Not at the
intended joke, but at the real human moments when I see performers on stage.
Butt Kapinski makes me laugh. She is my director and also a clown. Chris
Rozzi as William Shakespeare. People you probably don't know yet :) And
David Cross.

Word is your moving to LA to create and perform in Cirque Du Soliel's
Hollywood show. Will Red Bastard go to sleep for a while, or will we be
seeing bits of him under the big top?

Well, I suppose that there will be something of him in the show, because
It's me... but It will be a different character, and It will be a very
different performance space. So different tactics must be used. But As I
near the creation of the Cirque show, I feel my Red Bastard show getting
stronger...evolving. I want to know where it is going...

Lecoq said "while we make fun of the clown, the bouffon makes fun of us."
Are you going to laugh and point at us?

Me? Of course not... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! (fades into the abyss).

Casting THIS: A bunch of new faces, and one returning favorite.

2011-01-24T16:21:00.000-06:00

OK, rehearsals are about to start for Melissa James’ Gibson’s stunning unromantic comedy This, and our casting is finally complete. I’m really really excited to get started on the play, and a chief part of that is due to the cast. Check them out!

Rebecca Spence (Jane) recently portrayed the role of Merteuil in Remy Bummpo’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Jeff Nomination, Supporting Role) and Catherine Donohue in Rivendell Theatre Ensemble’s These Shining Lives (Jeff Nomination, Lead Role). Film: Contagion, The Dilemma, Audrey the Trainwreck, Earthling, Public Enemies, Grace is Gone and The Break-Up. Television: Detroit 1-8-7, The Chicago Code, The Beast and Prison Break. This is her first collaboration with Theater Wit. If you haven’t seen Rebecca act (I saw her for the first time in Les Liaisons Dangereuses), you’re in for a treat.

Lily Mojekwu (Marrell) will be making her Theater Wit debut, but she blew me away in The Overwhelming at Next Theatre. Chicago theatre credits include: Romeo and Juliet (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre). The Brother/Sister Plays (u/s), The Elephant Man, Intimate Apparel (u/s) (Steppenwolf Theatre). Well (Next Theatre). Greensboro A Requiem (Non-Equity Jeff Nomination: Best Supporting Actress) and In Arabia We’d All Be Kings (Non-Equity Jeff Award: Best Ensemble) (Steep Theatre).

John Byrnes (Tom) is thrilled to make his Theater Wit debut with This. He is a proud member of The Hypocrites, with whom he has performed in The Hairy Ape, Our Town, 4.48 Psychosis and many others. Recently, John has appeared in Port with Griffin, Thieves Like Us with the House, All My Sons at Timeline and The Overwhelming at Next Theatre. I’ve seen John perform in nearly a dozen plays over the last fifteen years, and I really look forward to him bringing his characteristic heart and passion to the role of Tom.

Mitchell J Fain (Alan) is a favorite of of our audiences, as he’s portrayed the Elf in The Santaland Diaries for us the last four years. I first worked with Mitchell on my very first professional production at 1229 W Belmont (back in it’s days as Bailiwick Repertory) in 1992, so we’ve known each other a looooong time. I’ve directed Mitchell as a prostitute, as Henry VI and a bitter bitter part-time Christmas worker. I’m looking forward to spending some time with him as Alan, a performer with eidetic memory and a sharper wit.

Steve Hadnagy (Jean-Pierre) will be working at Theater Wit for the first time. Steve was most recently seen in last year's production of Bertolt Brecht 's Baal at TUTA and in the title role in Macbeth at City Lit Theatre. Other area appearences include Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, also at TUTA.

I swear to God, this is going to be one hell of an evening. Casting This was very challenging; it took us nearly six weeks and we contacted about 190 performers to have them read. The script requires both genuine comic timing and technique alongside some very real and heartfelt human behavior. When done right, This is a lovely, funny and heartbreaking evening. And after all this casting work, I’m happy to say we’ve found the group who can carry us through this experience.

We start rehearsal in seven days, and I’m counting down. If you are even a tenth as excited as I am, you should seriously consider ordering some tickets today, because until February 1st, tickets are only $18. Go Go GO!

A center for the community

2010-12-06T15:17:00.000-06:00

If you had a chance to build a new home for creativity,
entertainment, and community hijinks, what would it contain?

Theater Wit has been thinking about that question since its beginning, knowing its future depended on not only answering it, but making it happen. Because of your support over the past few years, we have the possibility of that future and you have a new home to experience the best of Chicago storefront theater. In the first year alone, 19 incredible multi-disciplinary arts organizations are telling their stories for youth and adults in our three spaces. Since we officially opened Theater Wit on September 1st, the building has been hopping, with up to eight performances a day happening in all three spaces. I spent last Saturday here and it was a positive joy to see the building so active: four theaters held classes, auditions, one technical rehearsal, five performances, and one birthday party over a period of 14 hours. The staff was wiped out but really excited; you can really feel the theatre becoming a center for the community.

“Theater Wit is GORGEOUS. More importantly, it is functional in a way
that no other Off Loop theater in town is.” Don Hall, blogger and Artistic Director

The companies producing in our space depend on Theater Wit to provide exceptional amenities for their valued audiences and unique opportunities for reaching new audiences and working with the community. We cannot do this and continue to produce five-star theater without your help in offsetting certain costs associated with being in the majors.

“Theater Wit is...a major player in town.” Chicago Tribune

Theater Wit has the maximum amount of fun possible with every opportunity and dollar within its reach, which has gained our company considerable status in a very short time. Already this year, we have:

hit home runs with a highly recommended Chicago premiere of Itamar Moses's The Four of Us
welcomed over 8,000 audience members to our theatrical multi-plex
established a partnership with a local youth theater, university, and community group whose programs are made possible by the home Theater Wit is providing them
designed a new software program to save theaters and patrons across the county hard-earned money on their entertainment
launched an annual conference for the Chicago arts community to explore how to improve its service
begun an innovative residency program that is gaining the attention of other leaders and innovators around the country
heck, we even hosted a wedding

When I came up with the idea for the building, it was a vision of the sort of theater space I love, where dozens of artists intermingle with audience and each other, building new friendships and seeding new ideas. Where children's classes, political plays, comedies, dramas, community fundraisers, weddings, conferences, churches and birthday parties are all thrown together into the mix to create a sort of uniquely Chicagoan chaos stew. It really is a thrilling place to work every day. I and the staff ore so grateful for this opportunity to give something back to the city that we live in.

Theater Wit has quickly become an essential leader in the Chicago arts landscape. Now, I must ask you to continue helping us build our organization.

“Theater Wit is the very real thing.” Pulitzer Prize nominated playwright Will Eno

Theater Wit would not be where it is today if we had not inspired people like you and Will Eno to believe in our vision. We promise to continue to entertain and build , but we cannot do it without your partnership. If you are able to donate $15, $50, $100, or more, we pledge to offer you consistently excellent work, new opportunities for involvement and exploration, and a home for Chicago’s unique brand of theater.

We're in the middle of auditions for Melissa James Gibson's beautiful new play, This, which I am really excited to show you, particularly if the last day of auditions is as amazing as the first two have been. This really is a town of extraordinary performers and artists, and I'm really looking forward to working with them this February for our March 1st opening.

2010 was an astonishing year. 2011 is going to be amazing.

Please consider making a donation today by calling us at 773-975-8150 or going online, filling out a quick form and we'll call you :)

Happy Hunnukwanzmas,

Jeremy

At last...

2010-04-26T15:43:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe we've finally reached opening. Seven years is a long time, and the last 16th months has seemed even longer. But, we're finally ready. As I type this, it's late, about 2am, and I'm sitting in the house of Theater 1. The space is dark and quiet but it doesn't feel empty. It feels anticipatory. When the building was under construction, being here at night was unnerving; I felt like a trespasser. It wasn't our space, it belonged to the construction workers and the city inspectors and the general contractor and the engineers.

But now it's ours. As soon as the stage and seats went in, the building was transformed into the familiar. If you haven't been in a theater late at night, it's really a very singular experience. All day, the theater has been a cacophony of activity. The construction crews have been installing doors, the electricians wired theater two's dimmer lines in, painters have been painting our brand new doors, the occupancy inspector for the city has walked through the building, five people are laying carpet tile everywhere and we've had five hours of rehearsal in the middle of all this ambient noise and activity. For the last three weeks, there have been crews working on the building for 18 hours a day. Deliveries, arguments, scheduling conflicts, power tools, paint fumes—all those things disappear late at night.

Empty theatres never feel dead to me. There are the ambient building noises, of course, the whisper of the air through the heating ducts, and the creak of the metal in the lighting fixtures as they cool down. When it's quiet, I can't sit in one without dozens of previous audience experiences flashing through my mind, or a hundred moments that haven't happened yet. There is a hush in the air like in a church. Not silent, but expectant.

All this money, all this effort to create such a delicate thing: an empty space filled with the future.

And we are bringing you a truly remarkable play. While our plans to build a home have been in progress for eight years, Spin has been in development for nearly nine years. Penny's work is erudite, funny, warm and remarkably insightful. I cannot think of a better introduction to Theater Wit than an evening in the company of this multilayered and intricate comedy.

This was my scheme, but it was certainly not my doing. Over 150 people have worked on making this building a reality--from donors to masons. This building and the quality of their contributions will make this space a reality for decades to come. I think that their time, skills, money and devotion to this project is awe-inspiring.

Welcome to Theater Wit.

First Time Sex

2010-04-23T12:38:00.000-05:00

Spin had it's first preview last night to a crowd of about 60 random members of the public, and it was a smashing success. It's one of my favorite performances of a play, when it first interacts with the audience. Always amazingly unexpected, and so many discoveries get made during that first performance. Sure, it can be a little rough around the edges, but it's one of the most surprising and honest evenings a play has in it's life.

Penny made the observation afterwards that the first preview is a little like having sex with someone the first time. There is a lot of "Oh, you like that, do you?" and "Wow, that's one of my A-list moves--I was sure that was going to work a lot better." At one point, the audience started laughing and clapping; none of us had any expectation of that particular line eliciting any reaction at all and we lost the next few beats. The audience also applauded right before the last line of the play, so we had a bit of a premature climax moment.

But there were a ton of pleasant surprises as well: the timing of the dialogue was dead-on, the play seemed to move the audience effortlessly between the more heartfelt, emotional lines and the comic moments. The evening felt warm and effervescent. And at the end, the show got a standing ovation, which I have never had at a first preview.

We'll do it again tonight. I guess now we're in a relationship.

"Saving" money

2009-12-22T22:42:00.000-06:00

Weeks 10-14: Some more missing bits

When last we left our little project, I had just discovered some minor omissions from the plans: specifically, the sound systems for the theatre. So as I worked to pull together specifications for that little addition, a few other items came to light
:

Some of the pipes carrying wires to WHO KNOWS WHERE?!?

• Where are the light switches for the lobby?

What lights are tied into the emergency lighting system?
Where are the work lights for the spaces?
How is power getting to the step lights for the seating?
Aren't there supposed to be light fixtures in the window displays?
Where are the running lights in the dressing rooms?
How are we controlling the house lights for the different configurations in Theater 3?
Where are the functional outlets in the theatre?
Where are all the switches for the 217 lights in the building?

And so forth... As the framing for the dry wall is erected, the electrician is starting to put in the conduit to all the various lighting positions. The questions are mounting up daily, until I call a meeting of Carmen (the electrician), Trent (the GC), Richard (the architect), and Michael Rourke (theatrical lighting consultant). As it turns out, the electrical plans are not as fully detailed as they should be. A number of things got lost in the translation between my meetings with the architect meetings and his meetings with the Electrical Engineer who drew up the plans. A number of minor details were overlooked and (as you can see above), a few major ones.

We answer as many of the minor questions as I can, but some of the major ones require research. ie, if we select a new distribution system than the one originally planned, will it make the installation of the house lights cheaper? What fixtures exactly are we hoping to use? What system are we using to integrate the house lights? I can't answer a damn one of these questions without understanding the implications, both functional and cost-wise. The meeting goes for three hours and Michael, Richard and Carmen go off to start pricing some of our various options. Gathering the full fixture schedule, pricing the electrical and theatrical changes, integrating the sound changes, etc. takes six weeks. Work is still going on in the building, but the electrical phase of the project slows waiting for information, and the nine weeks originally planned lengthen to fourteen.

Plus there is the question of how to pay for these changes. The changes are wide ranging, and while Trent is absorbing some of the costs due to insufficient specifications, the theater is on the hook for a lot of changes. Initially, the change bid comes in at $46,000. That is $45,000 more than exists in my "overage" budget. Back to the drawing board, cut things, reorganize priorities, etc. Time is ticking away. Now, it's important to understand that I know nothing whatsoever about electrical systems or dimmer controls or sound systems. I am getting various contradictory opinions and options, and doing my best to make decisions as quickly as I can, but I freely admit that I know nothing, and so often need a pile of information to try and understand the correct path. Usually what I need are rough cost estimates. Does something cost $500? $5000? $50,000? I can't make educated guesses, because that only works if you have actual education in the material at hand. And ever since the Bush years, I fear the "gut check"... so... revise, remove, rebid.

Each of these changes sparks a review of existing areas to try and save money. This process goes on for four weeks and at the conclusion of it, we have reduced our change order to about $34,000 which I feel pretty good about. It's still money we don't have but it's less money that we don't have, so I'm wrapped in a lovely false sense of security:

"Look, I saved $12,000"

"Lovely, let's see it."

"Well, not so much saved as haven't actually spent..."

"So, we'll get it back at the end?"

"No.... we won't not have had $12,000 less"

"I don't even think that's a tense. 4 weeks well spent!"

"Thanks!"

"I was being sarcastic."

But, cash worries aside, I'm starting to think construction is... well, kinda pretty...

Check out the newest gallery.

Current score
Weeks in Construction: 15
Money committed/spent: $538,000
Days Behind: 25
Over Budget: $55,000

Audition Notice: SPIN by Penny Penniston

2009-12-17T11:15:00.000-06:00

Theater Wit is currently scheduling auditions for SPIN by Penny Penniston, running 4/21/10 - 6/30/10. Rehearsals begin 3/22.

Currently casting:

Ruby Jones, professional tennis player (African American male, 20-30)

Danielle, street kid (White/Hispanic female, 16-18)

Jack, account executive (White male, 20-30)

Aaron, street kid/activist (White male, 18-20)

Ruby Jones may be Equity or non-Equity, all others non-Equity with competitive weekly rehearsal and performance pay.

Audition dates and times in January. For consideration, please send resume (include email) to

Theater Wit

attn: Spin

4720 N Winchester

Chicago IL 60640

No electronic submissions, please.

Mitchell hangs out with Ana Belaval

2009-12-17T00:15:00.000-06:00

Mitchell Fain, star of our current show "The Santland Diaries", was up bright and early Tuesday morning alongside WGN Morning News' delightful "Around Town" reporter Ana Belaval, to help spread holiday cheer, live from Michigan Avenue.

A big thanks to Mitchell, who despite the 15 degree temperature (or perhaps because of it?) was in fantastic sarcastic form. At one point, as they had a jolly Santa lurk behind him for the shot (one of his personal nightmares), Mitchell said, "Ummm, Ana, I need to ask Santa there to take six big steps back...I have a restraining order against him". The entire crew lost it and Santa looked like Mitchell had just accused him of being a rapist. It was awesome. Ana asked Mitchell if he likes children, and he leaned into the camera, saying, "Yes. especially YOURS" He's a friggin' genius, PLUS, he managed to squeeze in several great on-air mentions for the show so I pretty much want to marry him.

The show, by the way, is starting to pack 'em into Theater Building Chicago, now that the season is truly upon us. So don't wait, tickets are going fast, particularly for next week's holiday week performances starting Tuesday night. For tickets and info, go to theaterwit.org

Back to you, Larry and Robin.

Last chance for Drinks with Crumpet

2009-12-17T00:13:00.000-06:00

Enjoy cocktails with Crumpet the elf, a.k.a. Mitchell Fain - who is ALREADY playing to rave reviews in Theater Wit’s 2009 production of The Santaland Diaries - at theWit Hotel, Chicago’s hippest new downtown hangout, 201 N. State Street, this Thursday, December 17th, from 9:30 pm til ?

Crumpet is arriving straight from his evening shift working the “this way out” station at Macy’s Santaland, so he won’t have time to change out of his elf costume.

(Okay, that’s a lie, Mitchell’s really heading down to theWit straight from his Thursday, 7:30 performance at Theater Building Chicago.)

Either way, come help Mitchell and more friends of Theater Wit drown their seasonal sorrows in theWit’s sleek, second floor Library bar. Plus, you can enter-to-win free tickets and get exclusive discounts to The Santaland Diaries, playing now through January 2nd at Theater Building Chicago.

And if you haven't seen The Santaland Diaries, call the Theatre Building Chicago box office at 773.327.5252, or reserve online today at http://www.theaterwit.org. To learn more about theWit, check out http://thewithotel.com.

Stepping into the Empty Space

2009-10-26T22:14:00.000-05:00

OK, so between our benefit, Halloween and my desire to see EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF ENTOURAGE EVER FILMED, I have not been writing about progress at the new space, and there has been amazing, astonishing progress. So, here's a quick recap of what happening in our build out:

Week 3-4

This week was mainly about pouring the new concrete for the floor. The final amount, which had been quoted at $21,000 ended up being about $19,000 of which $4,000 was already budgeted so it could have been worse. When the space was clear, the concrete truck came, a sight that delighted my four year old daughter although the noise scared her a little. You pay for the materials, but you also pay for the truck hourly, and given the subcontractor's desire to limit the truck's time, I assume that portion is non-trivial. The truck poured concrete into the bobcat, which then drove it into place and dumped it. The concrete was then shovelled into place by one team, followed by two other guys who specialialized in smoothing it out. I asked if I could write my name in it, and the GC got a pained look and whispered, "wait till these guys leave." They work really hard to smooth it out perfectly, and then some asshole comes along with a sharp stick. Fair enough.

And of course, there are more pics in the Week 3 & 4 Gallery

The floor needs to be poured in two halves, primarily to allow the plumbers to finish their work and to wait for the city to examine the piping. While we wait, here is a little walking tour of the space at the end of week 4.

Week 5-6

After weeks of seeing nothing but empty space, finally I get to see some structures go into the space. We've completed the floor, which means we can start putting in the steel supports for the utility room and the blocks for the walls. We were kind of on hold for 5 days while the concrete cured, but now we're off and running. And look! A wall, a FREAKING WALL!!

And don't forget the week 5-6 gallery...

Suddenly, the space felt a lot more real to me...

Now, some of you may remember the OH GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE problem with the trusses and the roof. As you can see, the building is still standing, and the truss repairs also happened this week. These needed to be completed before most of the walls could be erected, as the truss is being secured with these 75' metal rods that can't be negotiated around the walls. They actually suspend the roof on supports they bring in while they fix/replace sections of the truss. It's excitingly disaster-y. The truss repair was completed in only four days, and then the steel guys came in to start building the platform for our heating units. As part of our new "don't collapse the building" strategy, the heating units need to be inside the building as they are too heavy for the roof. Even the air condensors for the air conditioning will need to sit on a platform bridging the walls. The trusses can't support anything but the roof; we're going to build separate supports for the light grid that will use our new walls.

Now, we've had some delays. At this point, the extra work on the floor has caused the project to run two weeks behind. At this point, have no idea how to make this up, but Trent is going to talk to our electrician and drywallers to see if we can put some more labor on the job when they come in in a month. But I didn't care; seeing the building start to emerge in the real world after weeks of doing nothing but demolition and prep work has me too excited. That is nothing compared with the next few weeks when I finally get to step into one of the actual spaces...

Weeks 7-10

The first space is framed out!

And more picture tastyness in the Week 7-9 Gallery

This actually made me choke up. Sure, it's a little like a concrete bunker, but I can feel what the space is going to be like. How the stage is really proportioned. How intimate and warm the performance space will feel. Don't get me wrong, I love lobbies and HVAC and all that stuff, but this room is what we are going through all this effort for. I'm not one of those directors who can read a floorplan and get a feeling for the set. Even models often fool me. In this case, we didn't build a model to save a lot of money but I have been jumpy about my decisions. Once I saw the walls going up, I knew it had to be perfect, because we can't afford to change anything. Move a wall, miss the opening and go $20,000 into debt. All the conceptual work we've put into the space has to work because we can't make any major adjustments. Fortunately, I LOVE MY NEW SPACE.

The next few weeks are about building walls. We are framing in all the spaces so that the electrical and mechanical work can begin in early November. Some walls we can't put up yet, because we still need to fabricate and install the supports to hang the light grid off of and get the (very large) heating units into the space before we box them in. So, concrete is going onto the HVAC platform early so we don't have to delay the walls. Of course, no one is entirely sure when the HVAC equipment will arrive, but we're hopeful it will be prompt.

And, Trent figures out a way to parallelize some of the construction work so we'll be able to pick up the two weeks we've lost dealing with the floor!

Lest things feel like they're going to smoothly, Carmen (the electrician) comes to me and--since he's done theatres before, god-bless-him--asks, "Aren't you going to put sound into these spaces?"

I say, "Of course?"

He replies, "Not on these plans you aren't."

Ah. So, I don't know how to read the electrical diagrams and apparently, we've left sound off entirely. So we have an emergency four hour meeting at my house, and attempt to find a way to cut enough costs to cover the new floor and install the lighting equipment. We're now about $25,000 over budget, but I am hoping that when Carmen redoes the numbers we'll bring that back into the realm of the possible. Hmmmm...

The last two weeks go incredibly quickly, it looks like the theatre is sprouting up all around us. Check out this teeny iPhone video I made with a walkthrough of the entire space at the end of week nine and seriously, look at the Week 9 Gallery. (And if anyone knows why all this black shows up around my video, drop me an email).

Truly. Amazing.

See you at Week 10.

Current score
Weeks in Construction: 9
Money committed/spent: $308,000
Days Behind: 5
Over Budget: $25,000

Good food, fine drink and elves

2009-10-25T22:19:00.000-05:00

Our annual bbq was this weekend and was a blast. In addition to some truly fantastic food and drink donated by Cooper's and Joey's Brickhouse (if you haven't eaten with our new neighbors, you should make plans immediately), we had a truly hysterical presentation by two of our former performers from The Santaland Diaries. Mitchell Fain and Lance Baker recounting bits from their years of performing our little sketch.

After doing some of their favorite sections (and ranting about some of their favorite audience stories), we all strolled over to the theatre. It was enormously exciting to us to see people's reaction to the space. Walking though it is a significantly different experience than seeing it in pictures (although those are pretty cool). I realized that I haven't posted any updates about the building, so that's the very next post I'm doing. Today. Tomorrow. Real Soon Now. It's kind of awe-inspiring to see the space emerging, and I loved showing it to our guests. And I'll share it here. In my defense, organizing lunch for 40 and arranging to tow a roast pig down the highway still cooking really sucks the time up.

There was so much excitement at the benefit. We found it completely reinvigorating to talk to our supporters and the resident company members who came to see the sneak peek. Seeing peoples enthusiasm for what the empty space promises convinces me that this project is exactly what our community of artists, staff and audience needs.

Few days. Big post. All about the new space. Maybe a few words about Santaland. I promise.

Week 2: Where walls will be

2009-09-07T16:34:00.000-05:00

Week 2 has mainly been about beginning the process of creating walls. Here they are, surrounded by exciting heavy machinery that I'm not allowed to touch.

a view from the house of theatre one. the trenches mark the interior walls. More pics in our Week 2 Gallery

OK, we don't have "walls" per se. What we are doing this week is creating a space in which walls can exist. In essence, the entire building is bisected along the north/south axis with one huge wall that separates Theaters 1 and 2 from the public spaces and Theater 3. The ditch that the crew is working in on the left is where the dressing rooms will be. The longer trench marks the position of the largest primary wall. The roof of the building is quite high (as much as 24' above grade at its top), so these walls are going to be quite big and heavy. In addition, they need to be pretty serious about sound insulation from the lobby and the other space. There are a lot of different wall construction techniques we are using in the new building.

The key insulating walls are being built out of concrete block and dry wall. This combination is cheaper than six layers of dry wall to achieve the same sound insulation factor, but is also heavier due to all the concrete. To keep these walls from shifting (and toppling), they get anchored to the floor with metal rods sunk into the ground with new concrete poured around them to keep the entire wall immobile. So, the steps are as follows:

1 Cut into the concrete slab so we make space for the anchors
2 Set the anchors and pour new concrete around them
3 Build the concrete block walls on the anchors
4 Put drywall and insulation around the concrete walls.

So, this week was spent cutting the trenches for the anchors. Actually, most of this week was also taken up by our continuing difficulties with the floor. After completing the survey, we found that the existing floor essentially ripples up and down like crazy. There is a 10" difference between the topmost point and the lowest, and it doesn't slope evenly to a single point. Further complicating the issue is that fixing it will require three different types of material: two different types of concrete and something called Laserflow. You use the different grades of material depending on the depth you are trying to even. So, for areas less than 1 1/2" deep you can use concrete (the cheapest). Any shallower and the gravel in the concrete is too likely to protrude, so you go to a finer grade. Finally, for the 1/2" areas, concrete variants won't do it as they are too likely to crack when poured that thin, so you use this other product called Laserflow which spreads like a paste but dries like concrete.

Of course, all these different products have different (and increasing) prices. And it's a lot of area. We estimate that we will need 6200 square feet of material to even the floor out. Even concrete, the cheapest, is about $3/square foot. Do the math, and it will cost about $21,000 to raise the whole slab, even if we go to great lengths to only use the more expensive materials where we must. Trent is going to reduce the amount of concrete required by cutting styrofoam blocks in the deeper areas and pouring the concrete over it, a standard industry practice, but even then we estimate the cost of our materials to be about $16,000. Included in our fixed bid was $4,000 in repairs for the slab, but that leaves the theatre with the remaining $11,000.

Hopefully when the job is costed, we can get the price closer to $2.85/square foot since there are cost savings as the contractor doesn't need to mobilize additional staff or equipment to pour _more_ concrete. Even so, that leaves the theatre with $10,000 of cash that we haven't budgeted. Hmmmmm....

Fortunately, our electrical bid was made without acknowledgement of our being tax-exempt. As we re-estimate it, the savings on the equipment purchases from same will be between $7,000 and $9,000. That brings us within spitting distance, so I'm going to put the cost overrun of this little item at $4,000 for the moment.

We also got a rough cost for the new iron pipe we found out about last week at $2,000. As I look, the extra time it took us to survey the floor has eaten up a day, plus one day lost due to late construction. I am told we are now two days behind, but that it will be made up next week. We'll see :)

Current score
Weeks in Construction: 2
Money committed/spent: $180,000
Days Behind: 2
Over Budget: $6,000

Week 1: Oh God, we're all gonna die!

2009-08-30T10:40:00.000-05:00

Demolition is complete. The space as of the end of week 1 looks like this:

Look, we found an old van under the mainstage! (not really). At this point, we can really examine the entire building to look for fun surprises.

Surprise #1: The floor!

The floor in the Bailiwick is remarkably uneven. We had noticed an decided slope in the hallway to the back of the building. Once we pulled out the walls, we could see that the floor was far more uneven than we had anticipated. The concrete guys mapped out a grid using cool little laser devices to check elevations. As it turns out, the floor has a variance of over 7 1/2" from its lowest to its highest point. But it's not an even grade, oh no. The floor bucks and twists, with whole portions raised above the grade, like this picture which is where the entrance to the mainstage used to be.

Conceivably, we could break up the concrete and repour the floor, or we can give up those 7 1/2" and raise the entire base. Our GC believes that the latter will be a small incremental cost, and one he will absorb as part of his bid, so hey--this is not only cheaper, but it solves another problem...

Surprise #2: The Alley, or "Mommy, where's all this water coming from?"

Yes, the alley is higher than the floor. Why do we care? One word: Rain. If we leave this unaddressed, water will pour into theatres 2 and 3 underneath the door every time it rains. Fortunately, by raising the floor and just building in slight rakes for wheelchair access in each entry alcove, we will have our theater safely above street level which should prevent the random flooding the old space was prone to.

Surprise #3: When Measurements Attack!

When Rick (the architect) initially measured the building, he had to make a few assumptions because of lack of access to parts of the buliding filled with debris. One of these assumptions caused us to mis-draft the fire exit door on the back of the building. The existing door will be bisected by the wall separating Theater 2 from the Theater 3 dressing room. Fortunately, this is an optional door. We already had to add additional fire doors for the two spaces on the back of the buliding so we can just brick it in. I don't know how that impacts the plans we put in with the city, but Rick is looking into it.

Surprise #4: Hoffa! At Last!

We uncovered a catchbasin in the center of the building covered by concrete while the plumber was tracing pipes to prevent accidents when we sink the wall supports in. This is the original catchbasin whose purpose is to help filter out silt from the roof drainage. What we discovered was that the existing plumbing lines for the bathrooms run into this catchbasin, which goes a long way to explaining the occasionally rich odors floating up from the restrooms. The upshot is that we are going to have to lay new pipes to the front of the building, about 35 feet. This does add to my cost, so we'll see next week what the incremental cost is.

But, the most exciting news has been the trusses. In November, we had a structural engineer in to look at the existing trusses. Trusses are exciting things, as it turns out. They simultaneously keep the the walls and roof from collapsing. Plus they look cool. They look so cool, in fact, that the city won't let you build buildings with them anymore.

Actually, the city frowns on buildings engineered this way because it's hard to keep the trusses in good repair with the heavy snowfalls here in Chicago and the propensity of tenants to hang things on the trusses like light grids (the old tenant, not us). What this has done is start to bow the trusses slightly, and partially split one of them on the side. Apparently, one dramatic thing about trusses is that they are rarely overengineered for the weight of the roof. Therefore, if one truss collapes, the entire building collapses. Or so I'm told. When we first looked at the truss, one of the engineers sort of fled the building, but hey--he was an electrical engineer. The structural engineers were reassuringly bored and have provided a solution to keep us all from sudden, crushy death.

The bowing can be corrected by essentially building supports into the walls that stretch a metal cable that can be tightened annually to keep the walls supported, and the truss that's starting to give can be repaired. These repairs have been designed and we are currently looking in to bids to fix them. Fortunately, as this work will cost over $20,000, this is marked in the lease as one of the landlord's responsibilities. The Stameloses have been great supporters of this project, and the trusses should be fixed soon. But, there is a point where we may have to stop work to allow for truss repair to be completed. I'm waiting to see if there is an additional delay there.

Here's our progress so far:

Schedule - 1 day behind
Budget - $0 over, but could be several thousand dollars once we get the plumbing costs.

This coming week they will be cutting the concrete slab to do the pour and put in the fittings. It's looking awfully construction-y there!

Construction Begins!

2009-08-24T10:13:00.000-05:00

Friday, at long last, construction finally began.

this pic is also in the demolition gallery

I can’t tell you how excited I was to actually see work happening after almost 6 years of planning. This really has been a long road. I spent about three hours Friday morning putting up some signage in the front window and nominally meeting the subcontractors, but what I was really doing was watching the bobcats chew up the theatre like fucking tissue paper. I tell you, strike with one of these bad boys would take an hour. The above photo is from the old bailiwick shop after about an hour of work by one guy. Now, I did a clean up of this space in the early nineties, and it took three of us TWO WEEKS.

Here’s a video:

I mean seriously. How cool is that? (What you don’t get to see is the way five seconds after I took this video, the pile of platforms in front of collapsed toward me, taking out a part of the stairs and the work lights as I scrambled back. Also fun!)

I suspect demo is going to be one of the most exciting part this entire process since it’s so fast. And so full of possibility. The changes are dramatic. Here’s a picture of the space after only two days of work:

I must confess it was a little weird tearing down the stages that I had my first directing breaks on. Like so many others, I worked for Bailiwick Repertory. As an artistic associate from 1993 through 2004, some of my first full-scale directing experiences were at this theatre. First, in the directors fest while I was in college, and then in productions I still remember fondly like Henry VI: Blood of a Nation, and now then again. I’ve spent countless hours in this building working and seeing work. Watching it get cleared away was a curious mixture of glee and remorse. Watching demolition did reinforce my determination to transform this buliding into a truly beautiful place for the whole community to enjoy. Removing a theatre and not replacing it with an even better one sounds like a ticket to hell to atheistic ol’ me.

Lastly, here’s a video with really crappy sound I took on my iPhone showing where everything is going to be. For more pics, take a look at our gallery.

Three theatre visions

2008-09-30T15:34:00.000-05:00

Those of you who've visited the bailiwick will see some common qualities here. The existing space is a smaller front lobby with a large hall that extends down the length of the building along the south side of the mainstage space. The above scheme cuts the mainstage in two and sacrifices the shop as I had asked. It will require a new door for fire exit in the new north space. This plan also gave a pretty large chunk of backstage area but the architect had to label it "dressing" as I couldn't tell what it was for. Access to it is limited to the first two stages.

Access to the north stage is a little odd, as it requires the audience to enter onto the stage space, something I really hate in performance spaces. Let the stage be it's own space, if we are doing something specifically to pull the audience in or through a performance space, fair enough, but don't force them to wander through every single stage to find their seats. Do we really want the audience wandering through pools of blood at the end of *Titus Andronicus?* No, thank you.

Tragically, the SW corner space is also too small. Even with the rough sketch, I can see that the stage is a) too shallow (16') and more significantly, b) without backstage or dressing rooms. Once we add those, we end up with a sort of mini-studio, with seating for 40-50 and a cozy stage. All very cozy, but not what I want. Of course the SW stage is much bigger but is quite deep.

Lastly, we added a backstage toilet. Absolutely critical in a space with so many venues and one of the more requested amenities over the years at Bailiwick. But this has it's own problems. I am worried about sound bleed but more concerned about access from the SW space, no matter how configured. How can we manage to get a backstage bathroom that's accessible for all three spaces without requiring passage through the common spaces?

Curiously, the bathroom makes me think in a whole new direction. I'm contemplating Disneyworld, where there are connected passages and tunnels that run parallel and under the existing attractions but are never in the public traffic pattern. Obviously, we can't drill down into the ground and build a huge underground complex (or lair). But we *can* hide an access corridor along the center of the building. I sketched out a terrible drawing of a space divided into three roughly equivalent theaters, with the remaining quarter of the building for public space.

A corridor would run down the center of the building, broken up by access corridors for audience traffic. The corridor could connect all the backstage spaces while still offering a nice, air-buffered passage to help prevent sound bleed between spaces.

This is where I confess to being a terrible artist. What's amazing is that Rick (the architect) can take these ideas and turn them into something workable. And that's what he goes off to do. Three spaces, roughly equal in size. We will lose the existing studio (and some of my under budget dreams have just vanished in a puff of smoke), but I hope we'll get a more workable flow. New marching orders:

Corridor for backstage and tech movement

No stage under 20' deep

Don't forget dressing rooms for each space :)

Keep a bathroom if we can.

Good luck, Rick!