In February 1998, a grinning Garth Drabinsky addressed journalists in his Ford Center for the Arts in New York City. Dropping names like Marvin Hamlisch and Terrence McNally, the founder of Livent spoke of his determination to build a pedigreed stable of affiliated celebrity writers, all working their fingers to the bone developing new musicals to fill Drabinsky’s burgeoning North American network of theaters.
The centerpiece of that planned network was Chicago’s majestic Oriental Theatre.
And with the promise of a vibrant future filled with a constant succession of grand, high-profile shows, Drabinsky had persuaded the City of Chicago to invest some $13.5 million toward the costs of renovating the historic Randolph Street theater.
“We don’t enjoy the enviable position of owning a library of animated movies that can be adapted to the stage,” Drabinsky said at the time, digging cheerfully at Walt Disney Theatricals. “I’m there in the trenches putting together individual artists and looking for chemistry.”
That chemistry failed.
Charged with a wide variety of financial misdeeds, Drabinsky parted company with the company he founded. In 1999, Livent collapsed altogether. Pieces of the company, including its ownership of the Oriental Theatre, were bought by SFX Entertainment, now the dominant force in touring legitimate theater (and many other aspects of the entertainment business). Through its Pace Theatricals subsidiary, SFX brought the national tour of “Fosse” to the Oriental last fall.
But the dance revue left Chicago on Jan. 9 to continue its road trip and although the Oriental’s expensively restored marquee continues to shine, there’s little activity inside. The experienced manager put in place by Drabinsky, Dulcie Gilmore, was quietly let go from her job at the Oriental last year. And there is no announced plan to bring any new show to the Oriental in the near future.
Last January, Daniel P. Coffey, the architect who restored the Oriental, cheerfully predicted that once the theater district is completed this fall, upward of 15,000 tickets a day will be sold on Randolph Street. That prediction, of course, makes the assumption that there are shows for the public to buy. So all of this begs the question: Chicago has built the theater district–with a goodly amount of public money–but will the shows come?
Miles Wilkin, the CEO of Pace Theatricals and the booker of the current Oriental, refuses to be drawn on his future plans for the historic theater.
“We don’t have to make an announcement about the Oriental,” he says. “When we have something, we’ll make an announcement. . . . The Oriental is absolutely no different from any other theater in Chicago. It’s available to take whatever show is available, short run or long run. When there is a good show, we’ll book it.”
Other theaters, of course, are after those same good shows. The Shubert Theatre, controlled by the rival Nederlander Organization, has a full slate of subscription shows. The Auditorium Theatre is also fighting aggressively for its share of business (and has begun creating its own productions, such as the upcoming “Ovations” series of concert-style musicals). The Chicago Theatre, booked by Columbus, Ohio-based CAPA,, is also trying to keep its stage full of performers. This winter, CAPA has moved more aggressively into the touring business, booking a full week’s run of “Forever Tango,” among other things, at the Chicago.
Ironically, the New York-based SFX is also in the peculiar position of competing with itself. The company has part ownership of the Cadillac Palace Theatre, the latest downtown theater to be renovated. The Entertainment Group, which books many popular family shows into the suburban Rosemont Theatre, happens to be a subsidiary of SFX. And to confuse the picture even further, many of the shows going to the Shubert are productions in which SFX has a financial interest as producer.
Such are the bizarre (some might say incestuous) complications of the touring theater business. But this wacky scenario leaves the Oriental in a tricky position.
The Cadillac Palace not only has the best backstage facilities, but also a locally based operator, Michael Leavitt of Fox Theatricals, who is constantly pushing for bookings and original projects. Rosemont has proven itself as a highly successful venue for family fare; no astute presenter would move shows like the upcoming “Blue’s Clues” downtown. The Shubert has a long-established subscription series that is unlikely to disappear. In all, it has become a crowded Chicago marketplace and the Oriental does not have an obvious advocate.
“There are,” acknowledges Wilkin, “more theaters in Chicago right now than there are shows.”
By “shows,” of course, Wilkin is referring to tours emanating from and heading toward New York. And it’s here that the New York-based SFX philosophy differs radically from the Gospel according to Drabinsky. The fallen Livent mogul produced uniquely Chicago incarnations of shows such as “Showboat” and “Ragtime” — i.e., companies organized specifically for Chicago — marketing them with such aggression that they could sustain runs of many months in this city. Drabinsky envisaged the Oriental not as a roadhouse, but as an independently busy theater, presenting the latest of his national projects.
In the SFX rulebook, the Oriental is like any other provincial theater–just another stop on the road. And if New York is not dispensing the saleable product quickly enough, the theater must remain dark.
Drabinsky, of course, was notorious for over-spending and running his shows longer than was viable. The financially savvier SFX, if anything, takes the opposite tack. When “Fosse” sold well here over the holidays, it seemed that the producers were taken by surprise. In extending the show in Chicago, they were forced to cancel a previously announced booking in Toronto.
So are the architects of the cultural district concerned when they walk past the dark Oriental?
“I don’t think there’s a big cause for concern yet,” says Lois Weisberg, Chicago’s Commissioner of Cultural Affairs. “If there is anyone out there who can bring shows to the Loop, (SFX) is the company to do it. They seem to be very responsible people.”
“At any one time it might look like one particular theater is getting the short end of the stick,” says Leavitt. “This is a cyclical business. And when you are in a weak period, the shortcomings are in your face.”
Leavitt also notes that the new venues have come on-line with dizzying rapidity, and it might take years for producers in New York to catch up with the theaters in Chicago.
The city has brought back a theater district the likes of which has not been seen here for decades, Leavitt says. “Eventually, it’s all going to work out.”
Still, Weisberg acknowledges that the public-private partnership at the Oriental was originally worked out under the paradigm operating at Livent, not SFX. The city may not have been pleased when the theater changed hands, but there was nothing it could do about it.
One of the fundamental ways in which Chicago’s downtown theaters differ from those in other cities is their competitive practices. In Pittsburgh and Cleveland, for example, non-profit entities control all the major downtown theaters and book them cooperatively. In Chicago, competition requires a measure of secrecy over future plans for the various venues. It is, therefore, entirely possible that SFX has plans for the Oriental but is just refusing to discuss them until the last possible moment.
Sometime in 2000 or 2001, the Oriental could be housing projecting tours of “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Cinderella,” “Gumboots,” “Saturday Night Fever” and “Mamma Mia,” all shows with which SFX is likely to have some involvement as producer and/or presenter. But then every other theater in town will be competing for those same shows. The showcase Oriental, it would seem, needs a master plan that would hold it above the fray.
“Theaters here are very secretive,” says Weisberg. “If we all cooperated and told each other what we were doing, I have a feeling that everyone would do better.”
