Theater tours combine the adventure of new places and the chance to see top-notch theater from the best seats with other like-minded fans.
Some favorite destinations from Chicago are New York, London and Stratford (site of the Shakespeare Festival) and Niagara-on-the-Lake (home of the George Bernard Shaw Festival), both in Ontario. Recently, Wisdom Bridge Theatre added a new destination for theater lovers: Miami Beach, where a spa vacation is a bonus.
Guided by well-informed leaders, these 3- to 10-day excursions by plane, train or bus often feature discussions before departure and valuable post-trip sessions.
Some are sponsored by Chicago theaters, such as Victory Gardens, Goodman and Wisdom Bridge. Others are led by teachers, reviewers and commentators.
– By far the most popular theater tours in Chicago are those to Stratford. One of the groups that offers tours to Stratford, the Chicago Associates of the Stratford Festival, will celebrate its 10th anniversary this April.
The group raises money for salaries of young Chicago-based Equity actors who work at Stratford and attempts to stimulate interest in the annual Shakespeare Festival.
Hope Abelson, honorary chairwoman and co-founder of the Associates, says the actors are selected through auditions conducted in Chicago by the artistic director of the Stratford festival.
“Every August on the first or second weekend, members of our group go up to Stratford.”
Theodora Anderson is chairman of this year’s tour on the weekend of Aug. 6-8. For more information, call her at 312-908-5005.
– Another tour to Stratford is offered by Suzanne Faberson, who conducts three adult classes on the Chicago theater scene through various organizations. Faberson describes her annual trip to Stratford (and Niagara-on-the-Lake) as “falling out of the world for a day.”
“There is a real bonus this year in our trip to Stratford,” she says. “Someone I have long idolized is speaking there on the same Sunday (Aug. 22) we will be there. Robertson Davies is a celebrated Canadian writer who will speak on `The Noble Greeks, an Introduction to “The Bacchae.” ‘ We’ll be seeing the play (`Bacchae’) that afternoon at 2 p.m.”
Faberson’s bus tour, Aug. 16-23, stops at the Shaw Festival in Niagra-on-the-Lake then proceeds to Stratford.
If enough people are interested, the bus will be available (at no extra cost) for side trips to the farmers market in Kitchener, the Amish country near Stratford, or the costume warehouse and the art museum in Stratford.
Tour members stay at the Queen’s Landing in Niagara and the Victorian Inn in Stratford, where a full breakfast is included. Prime center seats are guaranteed for six shows, but those who want a “theater marathon” can buy tickets for additional shows.
The trip costs $1,095 a person, double occupancy (single supplement $450). Contact Marcia Purze, Windy City Travel, at 312-951-0710.
– The Goodman Theatre’s 11th annual London tour is to be Oct. 2-10. It will be led by Howard Lichterman, manager of London Arts Discovery Tours. He will be joined by Roche Schulfer, executive director of the Goodman, or Michael Maggio, Goodman’s associate artistic director.
The package includes rooms at the Waldorf Hotel, tickets to at least five shows (including Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new musical, “Sunset Boulevard,” with Patti LuPone), tours of Cambridge and Stratford-on-Avon, plus visits with a London critic and an actor.
The cost is approximately $2,300 a person, double occupancy, but air fare is extra. Contact Laura Hecht at 312-435-2770.
– Theater reviewer Roy Leonard with his wife, Sheila, have been conducting tours to New York, London and the Shakespeare and Shaw festivals for eight years. Their first trips were for 100 people, but 100 more were on a waiting list.
“We found it too difficult to manage,” he says, “so we limit it now to 45 people.”
Leonard’s London tour includes air fare, hotel accommodations, tickets for four evenings at the theater and a cocktail party on the final day at which tour members share their reviews of the plays they’ve seen. The tour departs Chicago Oct. 16 and returns Oct. 24. Last year the cost was $2,899 a person, double occupancy ($600 single supplement); this year’s cost is expected to be about the same.
Leonard also leads weekend theater trips to New York each April and September. These tours include air fare, hotel accommodations, tickets to three shows (Friday and Saturday nights, Sunday matinee) and lunch on the first day. The tours leave Chicago Friday morning and return Sunday night.
“This year on the weekend of April 23-25,” Leonard says, “we will see the American premiere of `Kiss of the Spider Woman,’ `The Sisters Rosensweig’ and a new musical, `Ain’t Broadway Grand?’ based on the life of Mike Todd.” The cost of the tour is $989 a person, double occupancy ($210 single supplement).
Arrangements for Leonard’s tours are handled by AAA Travel Agency at 708-390-9111, ext. 264.
– Allen Schwartz has been a theatergoer for the past half century. For the past 30 years he has been a leader of book and film discussion groups as well as an adjunct lecturer and instructor in the humanities at Oakton Community College and in the adult education extension programs at Northeastern University.
For 15 years, under the aegis of those schools, he also has taught a popular course called Theatergoing in Chicago, in which he takes his class of 50 to 100 to off-Loop theaters, then leads discussions (often with cast members) afterwards.
This year he has four trips planned to the Stratford festival: June 22-26 ($569), Aug. 3-7 ($550), Sept. 29-Oct. 3 ($569) and Oct. 14-17 ($440). All prices are per person, double occupancy; the single supplement is $13 a night.
The tours include transportation by bus, accommodations in privately owned guest homes, prime theater tickets, a day trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake and lunches to and from Stratford. An introductory seminar, “On Stage at Showtime,” precedes each trip.
Contact Allen Schwartz at 708-679-4123.
– Marvin Mirsky, senior lecturer in humanities at the University of Chicago, has been leading theater tours to London for 10 years for Victory Gardens Theatre, but this summer’s trip to Stratford (June 22-25) will be the theater’s first to the Shakespeare Festival. Artistic director Dennis Zacek will lead a second trip (Aug. 5-8), which coincides with the Chicago Stratford Associates’ weekend.
Six plays are included on each trip, and accommodations are at bed-and-breakfast inns. Travel for the first trip is by train; the cost is $430 a person, double occupancy ($60 single supplement). The August trip is by plane at $640 a person ($45 single supplement). A $75 tax-deductible contribution to Victory Gardens Theatre is included in the price. Both trips will be preceded and followed by seminars.
Mirsky also will lead a series of two-hour lectures at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays April 28 to May 12. The cost is $60, though those taking the tours will get a discount. Four of the six plays will be discussed: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “King John,” “The Bacchae” and “Antony and Cleopatra.”
The theater’s annual weeklong theater trip to London is planned for the Christmas holidays. The approximate cost, including air fare, is $2,200 a person, double occupancy ($390 single supplement).
For more information on the Stratford or London tours, call 312-549-5788.
– The Lido Spa in Miami Beach will again be the scene for the twice yearly Wisdom Bridge tour, led by artistic director Jeffrey Ortmann.
“South Florida has some of the most interesting, diverse and gorgeous performance spaces in the country,” Ortmann says. “We (see) a mixture of things-some musicals, some straight plays. Some are in places which seat 150, others accommodate 4,000 people. Often they will get Broadway road shows before Chicago does. I saw `Lady Day in Emerson’s Bar and Grill’ at the Cocoanut Grove Playhouse, and we brought it here with great success.”
Tour participants can walk to the Jackie Gleason Theatre or take a half-hour ride north to Parker Playhouse in Ft. Lauderdale in their van. “Often we go to some coffee or wine bar and sit on the oceanside and talk about the play or discuss it in the van on the return trip,” Ortmann says.
The first 1993 trip was in early March. The second trip is planned for the Christmas holidays. The cost is $895 a person, including room, meals, classes, daily massage, theater tickets, side trips and discussions; air fare is extra. The single supplement is $200.
For more information and reservations, call Joyce Heitler at 312-973-3523. –
