April 27, 2007
BY JONATHAN ABARBANEL
Four award-winning Off-Loop theatre companies are exploring development of a cross-company and cross-cultural subscription series to strengthen diversity both on stage and among audiences. The series would be dubbed Looks Like Chicago, a phrase and logo the organizers already have trademarked. Initiated by the Silk Road Theatre Project, Looks Like Chicago encompasses Silk Road, Congo Square Theatre Company, Remy Bumppo Theatre Company and Teatro Vista – Theatre with a View. The initial four-troupe partnership would be for two years with an option to renew.
Looks Like Chicago is not yet a done deal. As facilitated by Silk Road, a stepped development strategy is in place between now and a possible launch date next year. Key to development are private and public meetings to ascertain whether or not the concept is considered useful and viable.
A panel discussion with members of the funding community already was held on Feb. 22, according to Silk Road executive director Malik Gillani, who strategized Looks Like Chicago along with Silk Road artistic director Jamil Khoury. A second invitational meeting, with arts reporters and critics, is expected in early summer. Two additional discussions will follow with theatre professionals, and with leaders of ethnic and racial communities. A concluding town hall meeting will engage participants from the four earlier meetings.
Never doubt the power of the press: Gillani and Khoury say the idea for Looks Like Chicago grew out of a Time Out Chicago cover story last July 27, “Why is Chicago Theatre so WHITE and how can we fix it?” written by Novid Parsi and Time Out Chicago theatre editor Christopher Piatt.
The printed prospectus for Looks Like Chicago elucidates the issue: “Chicago’s demographics tell the story. It is a city with no racial or ethnic majority, a city where less than one-third of the citizens are of European ancestry, and yet, on any given night, Chicago’s stages reflect an environment that is overwhelmingly Caucasian. But while Chicago theatre may not look like Chicago, it does indeed look like Chicago’s theatre going audience.”
The challenge, then, is to create a Chicago theatre industry – both onstage and off – that looks like Chicago.
The prospectus goes on to state that the issue of whiteness is due to the content, artists and audiences of local theatre. “The stories being told, the artists being nurtured, and the audiences in attendance are disproportionately white and not reflective of the city’s demographics… The fact that Chicago’s theatre scene is rich and vibrant is not the contested point. The point is that Chicago’s theatre scene is grossly unrepresentative.”
Looks Like Chicago would offer productions by theatre troupes representing, respectively, African-American, Latino-American, Asian/Middle Eastern-American and European-American stories and themes. Of the four participating companies, only Remy Bumppo describes itself as a mainstream theatre, although the other three companies certainly have made a strong imprint on mainstream – read “white” – audiences. Looks Like Chicago will provide all four companies further opportunities to cross-fertilize each other’s audiences, among other benefits.
Remy Bumppo managing director Kristen Larsen says her troupe has wrestled for several years with diversity issues, recognizing that the company’s repertory largely is European and its present ensemble is exclusively Caucasian. The need to address diversity was one of the chief reasons Remy Bumppo launched its Think Tank program this season; a program which already has engaged several of the Looks Like Chicago partners in its events.
“The artistic associates are excited to meet the artistic personnel of those [other] companies. It’s helped us evaluate within our own organization what the value of Think Tank is,” she says.
Development of Looks Like Chicago, which has been in the works for nine months, already has led Remy Bumppo to cast two Teatro Vista actors in a Think Tank production, although Larsen adds, “We might have done that anyway. I don’t know which was the chicken and which was the egg.”
But artists tend to cross-fertilize each other easily, as few actors, directors or designers work exclusively for one company. What about audiences? How do the four troupes expect to benefit at the box office?
“Audience development is what we seek through the project,” says Larsen. “We don’t expect to get many new subscribers, but single ticket buyers. Looks Like Chicago satisfies diversity questions that both our audiences and artists have been asking.”
The program would offer a rotating subscription in which series ticket holders would attend shows by the participating troupes at the venue of each. Says Gillani, audiences would “enjoy a season of plays in which ethnic and racial diversity is demonstrated through the content of plays, the artists involved, and the audiences present…a truly multi-cultural and poly-cultural experience of Chicago’s rich diversity.” After the initial year or two, other forms of collaboration or co-production might be explored.
Assuming the planned panel discussions and town hall meeting affirm the merit of Looks Like Chicago, there still would be practical details to work out. Larsen observes that the participating theatres “all have different ticket prices and different needs, so finding a price point is a challenge” as would be devising a formula for splitting the cash. All four troupes are thinly staffed, so they’ve already agreed on the need to hire a manager to oversee Looks Like Chicago; a position for which funding would need to be found. Absence of funding could derail the project, Larsen suggests.
The developers of Looks Like Chicago insist it’s not an effort to steer white audiences to non-white plays or to coerce mainstream theatres into greater multi-culturalism, although that certainly would be welcome. In drafting the document, Gillani and Khoury respectfully have maintained that all theatres – even those presenting primarily Caucasian themes for primarily Caucasian audiences – are producing “in a manner that is organic and integral to their respective missions, ensembles and audiences.” Nonetheless, Looks Like Chicago is meant “to bolster and strengthen those companies that produce diversity 24/7, 365 days a year.”
The implication is that Looks Like Chicago hopes to broaden what “the mainstream” is, although that already is happening. For example, Teatro Vista recently co-produced Jose Rivera’s Massacre – Sing to Your Children with and at the Goodman Theatre. That’s about as mainstream as it gets. Whether Teatro Vista came to the mainstream, or the mainstream came to them, may be a distinction without a difference.