Finally, in late December, a member of the ”Nunsense” staff told Frazier that her roommate`s Jamnastics classes were moving to another building. He and Sharpe visited the soon-to-be-empty Jamnastics space and knew their search had ended. The arching roof permitted clear sight lines across a vast expanse, and the location placed the facility nearly in the middle of a burgeoning Theater Row of legitimate stages sprinkled from Belmont down to North Avenue. ”It has become Chicago`s Broadway in a crazy kind of way,”
Sharpe said.
In January, Frazier signed a 2-year lease (his co-producers are involved only in the show, not the building) with an option to renew after another two years and an option to buy the property for $2 million after the second lease expires. Rent would begin at $147,500 the first year and rise in steps to $200,000 by the fourth.
Frazier keeps his landlord and producer hats strictly separate. His usual financial backers invested either in the show or the building, but not both. Besides money for the lease and all the costs associated with operating a theater (about $325,000 the first year), Frazier needed approximately $160,000 for renovations. To rearrange the space, Frazier hired architect John Morris, who had designed the new Steppenwolf theater farther south on Halsted, as well as several other entertainment-related facilities.
Theaters that go up from scratch, of course, cost far more than what Frazier`s backers will spend. For example, the three-stage complex being built by Cullen, Henaghan & Platt Productions on North Avenue will run in the neighborhood of $6 million.
Spring arrived, and Frazier found his construction choreography still worked. Contractors occasionally agreed to schedule two shifts. And one, a plumber who was also a Seventh Day Adventist, rounded up a crew willing to work on Easter Sunday-just three days before the first preview.
Balky parts shipments were giving Frazier fits, however. Urinals and toilets had only just arrived in time for installation by the holiday plumbing team. Restroom partitions would be later still. The final heating and air conditioning work had not been completed. And the roof had sprung a leak. ”I was not doing much sweet-talking during those days,” he recalled.
Even so, Frazier retained a vision of what he expected from the Halsted Theatre Centre months and years after its debut. He and his colleagues said they would settle for nothing less than the creation of a unique Chicago institution.
They went so far as to propose naming the theaters and cabaret after Claudia Cassidy, the Chicago critic who dominated theater here for more than three decades. Much to their disappointment, Cassidy declined to respond.
Frazier seemed aware that he might be accused of constructing a sort of suburban-style multiplex with stages instead of screens, another offshoot of what already has been described as ”shopping mall theater,” or ”K-Mart theater,” or ”theater of the lowest common denominator.” He does not agree with that assessment, but neither does he apologize for his commercial leanings.
While ”Oil City Symphony” grinds out the corn-and the profits-in the main room, Frazier said he hopes to fill the adjoining smaller theater and the upstairs cabaret with more experimental fare.
”I want this place to have a pretty eclectic complexion,” he said.
”We`ll have good, strong commercial stuff so that the money flows to keep the place operating. Then I can afford to play around with some other things. ”I think entertainment forms are changing,” he continued. ”We all live more casual, comfortable lives, and some of those big, old theaters just don`t lend themselves to that. With these smaller operations, you really feel involved. It`s what theater was supposed to be, something that`s approachable and touchable.”
Whether productions like ”Oil City Symphony” constitute great theater remains an open question, but the idea of a smalltown musicale, skillfully performed, seems to have wide appeal.
”People want hokey things. That`s really what we all want,” declared
”Oil City” director Larry Forde during a break in rehearsals. ”We keep hoping we`ll find that hokum in offices, in clubs, or when we`re greeting each other in the church pew. We want that hands-on feeling of touching and being touched.”
Mary Murfitt, an original cast member, came into Chicago in February to help with auditions and then chose to stay, joining the husband-wife team of pianist Joel Raney and drummer-vocalist Susie Vaughn-Raney. George Tenegal, the fourth member of the Chicago company, also sings and plays the electric keyboard. All three served in ”Pump Boys” at various times, and Murfitt said the neophytes showed such an immediate grasp of the ”Oil City” concept that she felt compelled to join them and renew her own enthusiasm.
”I`ve been reading about a trend toward people being more nice. ”With this show we`re on the cutting edge of that trend,” Murfitt said one afternoon, only half kidding.
Just before a rehearsal immediately preceding the first preview, Forde, Murfitt, Tenegal and the Raneys arrived at the theater to find the newly cast concrete risers lined with folding chairs but dotted with puddles. They had been working in a rented hall until a few days earlier and were hoping, at last, to get the feel of their permanent quarters, but water dripped upon the plastic sheets that had been hastily tossed over electrical control panels.
”Oh, great. We were going to work on our lighting cues today,” Forde moaned. No way. Electricians announced they couldn`t hook up the board until the water stopped.
Frazier felt an even more pressing problem. The building management-Wrightwood Development-had proven cooperative in the past, and he was certain it would get the roof patched on time. But workmen still were hammering away at huge outdoor heating and air conditioning ducts. The weather had changed radically over the last few days. What if his first preview audience alternately froze and stifled?
Yet, as so often happens when a bunch of optimistic people set out to put on a show, almost everything fell into place on that first preview night. Frazier had invited the Wrightwood Neighborhood Organization to serve as first spectators, reasoning, ”If you`re going to get caught with your pants down, it should be in front of neighbors.”
The 250 who turned up clapped and howled and danced in the right places, while the ”Oil City” cast ripped through its repertoire. Floors and seats were miraculously dry, the climate perfect. The sound and lighting systems obviously would require some finishing touches, but the audience cheerfully put up with the glitches, and at the end, the members gave the troupe a standing ovation.
Shortly thereafter, everybody filed into the lobby, where they found the cast behind a table, still beaming and serving up cookies with punch. It was a show-business moment that quickens the heart in a way that aerobics never can.
