Illinois Theatre Association Convenes

The Illinois Theatre Association had its convention in Chicago last weekend. The Saturday pre-convention theatre tour day was a remarkable success for the twenty-five participants who gathered to bus around the city from 8:00 AM to almost midnight.

The day began with tours of the Ford Oriental and Cadilac Palace theatres and the spacious home of Bob Schramn's Broadway Costumes. A picnic lunch on Navy Pier was followed by a visit with Chris Henderson, Chicago Shakespeare's Executive Director. He covered the history of this remarkable theatre and gave us a complete tour of the building. I discovered that his parents had attended Monmouth College.

After that we treked on down to the old Biograph Theatre--the Chicago movie house and "Untouchable " landmark where John Dillenger was gunned down in the 1930's. It has been remodeled to a several million dollar tune for the use of the Victory Garden's Theatre. The artistic director, Dennis Zacek, has been in his post encouraging local playwrights for thirty years and we were met at the door by his wife, Marcie McVay, the managing director. This ebullient and obviously glowing woman met us with proud smiles and shepherded us through the new (it will open its first production next week) building from the trap room to a closet in the lighting booth where a remarkable plaster statue from the old theatre lies in dark repose. Still under construction are two gorgeous upstairs spaces with massive palladian windows opening out onto the busy streetscape below. One is to become a main stage rehearsal room and the other will be a small theatre space. Sometimes good things do happen to deserving people and the Biograph restoration and refurbishment is a magnificent tribute to a long and deep commitment to Chicago Theatre.

Our final stop before dinner was at the warehouse and showroom for Chicago Spotlight. I never knew there were so many different kinds of tape. We left with bulging goodie bags of catalogs and gel samples and headed for deep dish Chicago Pizza at Geno's. No finer in the land and it forced a time-out on the low-colesterol diet.

And then it was back to the Cadillac Palace where a preview performance of "The Pirate Queen" was waiting for us. This pre-broadway tryout of the Les Mis author's latest effort has the advantage of Frank Galati direction, which means that the show looks gorgeous. The costumes, especially the gowns of Elizabeth I, are spectacular, the stage compositions are dynamic, and the lighting literally sparkles. Unfortunately the narrative line lacks both clarity and tension and the music is recycled Les Mis with synthesized bagpipes and an Irish whistle for ethnic ambiance. Tis a work in progress as they say and clearly a lot more needs to be done before it hits the Big Apple.

The Sunday convention of ITA at the Metropolis Arts Centre in Arlington Heights didn't move around as much as the Saturday hopscotch of Chicago theatre sites, but it was equally stimulating.

Rives Collins, chair of Northwestern University's theatre department, got us off to a rousing start. He used his love for "the Bean" in Milennium Park to illustrate his hope that we would be able to "raise our gaze" and "see our blind spots" as we interacted with "robust civility" throughout the day.

He got us ready for our our Re-Invention Convention Facilitator Steve Barberio. Steve is the current president of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education and he challenged us to define our dreams for the Illinois Theatre Association and perhaps more importantly-- how do we get there? For each of our ideas he wanted us to consider:
1. Who will it serve?
2. In what way will it pursue the vision?
3. How long will it take?
4. How will people be held accountable for executing it?

Later in the afternoon we had a visit from Rebecca Gilman, author of Spinning Into Butter and Boy Meets Girl. We saw a short scene from the latter show and Steve Scott, the director, conducted an informative interview with Gilman. My favorite quote from her was about reviews. She said she doesn't read them because, "The bad ones go to your heart and the good ones go to your head."

We closed the day with a banquet and a fond farewell tribute to our retiring Executive Director of some twenty three years, Wallace Smith. It was a long weekend; we didn't get back from Chicago until after eleven Sunday night, but it was worth every minute.