Memories and Time
I wish I remembered things better, or I wish I journaled more accurately. Now that Bruised Orange Theater Company is days away from opening Lakefront Property, I wish I remembered more about first time we produced Lakefront.
The first thing I do remember is the E2 nightclub disaster. Being part of a new theater company with no practical producing experience in the city of Chicago, at a time where theaters were temporarily closing, or adjusting their schedules in order to scramble and resolve safety issues cited the city, wasn’t a fun time. Finding an affordable space for the meager budget we had, would have been difficult enough in the best circumstances. The post E2 crack down didn’t make it any easier.
I also remember in the beginning being undaunted, through a mixture of naiveté and bravado. Bruised Orange at that time was three people, Clint Sheffer, Mary Foster and myself. We had a script, and we had a producer, Grant Simmon, a friend that was thinking of starting a production company. For whatever reason, the bumps in the road we met trying to find a performance space didn’t phase us, we were moving forward with auditions and rehearsals regardless. Finding a rehearsal space was no problem, so finding an actual performance space would ultimately come together as well. An education on what a PPA actually meant, especially in a time where everyone was scared to get fined, would happen very quickly.
From the city’s website: A Public Place of Amusement License (PPA) is required if an establishment offers entertainment whether or not a cover charge or admission fee is required for entrance. Examples of entertainment are: theater, live acts, live music, dancing, two or more pool tables, less than four automatic amusement devices; provided, however, that when calculating the number of automatic amusement devices, jukeboxes shall not be counted. A pool or billiard table shall be included when calculating the number of automatic amusement devices if players must pay to use the pool or billiard table. While there were no pool tables in the show, we were still hampered by this license. Futile attempts at acquiring a temporarily license were dismissed very quickly. While we were starting to get a bit nervous, obviously smart and resourceful people such as ourselves could come up with something.
Auditions happened; we cast three people that we were in school with, James Overlin, Noe McDonald and Katie Clausen, and someone we’d never worked with before, Melissa Faulkner. Rehearsals started, rent was being paid, budgets were being distributed, money was being spent, but no performance space had been found. Clint was directing the show, with Mary assisting. I was doing sound for the show and trying to help Grant find a space. Any time spent not rehearsing was spent trying to find a space. By this time we started looking at unconventional spaces, but the owners were very weary of having any kind of performances on their property under the current climate. We kept inching forward, but with weeks before our scheduled tech, things were starting to get tense.
At the time I was working at the Virgin Megastore downtown, and at a job off Cumberland. One evening as I was getting off at my Brownline stop, Francisco, I noticed that a storefront was emptying and would be up for rent soon. The business was a specialty toy web distributor, and had to move quickly in order to find a bigger space to hold more product. As soon as I got home, I called Grant to tell him about the space. In a matter of days, with the storefront now empty, Grant and myself met with Mr. Kim to hash out the details of a possible one month rental.
I would never call Grant Simmon a bullshitter, but the guy has an uncanny skill to connect and communicate with someone. Days later, I saw Grant walk in and calmly convince this man to let us rent the storefront for a month. It wasn’t a bamboozle, just a well executed sales pitch based in confidence and preparation. Mr. Kim didn’t really quite understand how his 1200 square foot storefront could be a theater, but when it came down to it, all he was concerned with was getting paid rent, and who would be culpable if someone had a heart attack. I will probably never forget this Asian man, in his 60s, repeatedly acting out a heart attack, to make sure Grant and I knew exactly what his concerns were.
Once we locked down the space we were weeks from tech, so things move quickly. Grant worked had access to tech, lights, sound equipment, black curtains, and we soon started loading material into “Mr. Kim’s Theater”. Then came the big question, do we contact the press? Would the press alert the “officials” if they came to a PPA-less space? Were people keeping an eye on this kind of thing, to make sure no scofflaws were performing in unlicensed spaces? In retrospect, I think we would have been fine, but back then, we had no idea. We made the decision to only email our friends, back then we’d just gotten out of school, so we had a large amount of fellow NIU grads in the city. Our only hope was that they would tell their friends, and we’d get audiences by word of mouth. No reviewers would be alerted, and postering would be limited to places we worked. Essentially, the public at large would not know about the show.
As we loaded in, we literally drew the shades and continued rehearsing while building sets and hanging lights. The building’s other tenants were very friendly once they heard what was happening, and sad to hear that it was a temporary situation. The whole thing went off without a hitch, except for one incident. Days before we opened a fire truck had been called next door because of a small kitchen fire. This happened during rehearsal, and I remember Clint almost fainting, convinced that, days before opening, we’d finally been busted, and it was all over.
The run went well, very well. And while we expectedly had to call some shows, we performed way more than we canceled. Under those circumstances, I considered that a success. That isn’t to say that there weren’t regrets. Lakefront is a wonderful script with universal themes, and that production was executed with touching performances and a great design. The regret was it didn’t get the recognition it deserved.
The show always stuck with me, stayed in the back of my mind. And the more Ann Sonneville got involved with the company, the more she fell in love with the script as well. When we came to the point of choosing the final show for our current Chicago cycle, the idea of Lakefront surfaced. We quickly knew there was no reason to try to do a “remount” with similar design ideas, and reassembling the cast was physically impossible, even if we wanted to. If we were going to do it, it had to be almost an original take; returning to the script and story, and discovering how best execute this new production. The production we are opening in a couple days if vastly different than the original, but in a way, very much the same. We have a completely new cast, a few holdovers on the production team, and living in a cavernous old church, instead of a dark storefront.
Directing this production of Lakefront has reminded myself why I do what I do. Seeing a 25 year old Pokey all those years ago, only to see a 30ish Pokey now, saying the same words, dealing with his problems in a different way; at his core, he is still Pokey and his challenges are all of our challenges. Time moves on and people change, but there are parts of us, for better or worse, that evolve, but never go away.
Lakefront Property opens this Thursday at 8pm, and whether you saw the original, or have yet to see any show by Bruised Orange, I invite you out to Acme Arts Space, 2215 W. North. You can buy tickets online at bruisedorange.org, and call 773.338.2682. Hope to see you there. Also, while there is a bit of an audience, I would like to communicate my heartfelt thanks to the OG Lakefront folk. I am hoping this production meets the quality of the original..
-Mark Spence
