January 31, 2008
Chicago: A new subscription-based program, designed to highlight the non-white theatre offerings in Chicago, seeks to address recent questions about the Illinoistheatre capital’s image as too predominantly white. Silk Road Theatre Project, the League of Chicago Theatres, Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, Congo Square Theatre Company and Teatro Vista banded together to create a new $98 subscription package, “Looks Like Chicago,”which would give audiences a chance to see one ethnic-specific work from each of the four local companies.
The initiative, spurred by Silk Road, which focuses on Asian and Middle-Eastern American works, “aims at cross pollinating audiences and expanding the makeup of the art from the ground up,” says artistic director Jamil Khoury. “Chicago’s theatre scene is rich and vibrant, but it is also woefully unrepresentative.” Adds executive director Malik Gillani: “Chicago is a city where less than one-third of its citizens are of European ancestry, and yet, on any given night, Chicago’s stages reflect an environment that is overwhelmingly Caucasian. The stories being told, the artists being nurtured and the audiences in attendance are not reflective of the city’s demographics and its global profile.”
In addition to the four play offering, the pilot program includes a ticketing plan, welcome packets, special events and a June 16 town hall meeting to recap the events. If it is a success, the program will launch a second pilot January through July ’09, with a yearlong subscription in 2010, partnering with other Chicagotheatres. Launched this past October, the cross-cultural subscription deal covers Congo Square’s comic drama about Howard University alums, The Talented Tenthby Richard Wesley, which begins performances Feb. 7, and Javon Johnson’s Sanctified in April. Starting March 20, Remy Bumppo stages Polly Teale’s Brontë. Silk Road’s production of Yussef El Guindi’s Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat, about Arab-Americans in the media, begins Feb. 21. The Latin-American troupe Teatro Vista is preparing Octavio Solis’s Dreamlandia later in the spring.
Visit www.lookslikechicago.com