Don Jacklich, who has largely shunned the limelight since the passing of his Ad Hoc Theatre troupe in 1989, returns this month with the world premiere of his own musical, titled “Till You See the Rainbow,” slated to run three weekends through July 17 in Lisle.
“Rainbow” represents a major comeback for Jacklich, who as founder and producer and artistic director of Ad Hoc from 1984 to 1989 guided the troupe to great local acclaim.
A Lisle-based business training consultant whose spare time is consumed by a love of music and stage performance, the 54-year-old Jacklich has been working hard at “Rainbow” for five years. The show has been frequently tested in a concert format with hand-picked audiences and endured numerous rewrites.
Original musicals are an exceedingly rare species in the suburbs. In his only similar creative venture, Jacklich authored an uneven Wild West spoof titled “Rapscallion,” that had a brief run in Lisle in 1989. It aroused little attention from audiences but plenty of critical barbs.
Ad Hoc was nearly alone among local companies in presenting premiere works, though it was better known for big, splashy Broadway musicals-a list that included “Annie,” “West Side Story” and “The Sound of Music.”
As a recent press preview revealed, “Till You See the Rainbow” is something of a throwback to a 1950s musical era. Jacklich’s 18 compositions are written in a Tin Pan Alley style.
The plot, about a small-town playwright and his niece from the small town of Minooka, Ill. who are catapulted to fame on Broadway, is nearly as hoary as anything from “42nd Street.” Jacklich doesn’t apologize for his easy melodies, and in fact laments the passing of memorable tunes in modern musical theater. “I feel just fine being old-fashioned,” Jacklich says.
He also enjoys the role of producing his own work, though the current run of “Rainbow” is costing him $30,000 out of pocket to finance.
“Producing is hard work,” Jacklich acknowledges. “But it’s always more enjoyable producing your own show. If it’s successful, I own the show and I win. If I’m producing `Phantom of the Opera’ and it’s successful, it’s only a transient kind of success. Somebody else owns the work.”
Jacklich is already contemplating an autumn revival of “Rainbow,” perhaps at a high-profile venue in Chicago. Further revisions are possible in the meantime. “I’ll ask theatergoers to call a special phone number after each performance and leave suggestions for improvements,” Jacklich explains. “I’ll probably produce the next staging, wherever it is, too.”
But he’s unlikely to return to producing full-time. Ad Hoc performed an enervating schedule of eight plays a season for five years, leaving Jacklich worn out and his finances depleted. A dispute over rent at the Convent of the Sacred Heart Theatre in Lisle, where Ad Hoc performed, further hastened the demise of the group.
“By the end, I was a typical burnout case,” Jacklich recalls. “But we attracted good crowds and proved that there was an audience in this area willing to sustain good theater.”
Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays and 7 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through July 17 at the Rapp Theatre in Lisle Junior High School, 5207 Center Ave. in the western suburb. For tickets, call 708-964-9600.
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