In the southwest suburbs there is a growing movement to create offerings and venues appealing to growing audiences and homegrown talent.
“When we look at doing things for children, our goal goes beyond our theater or even the creation of future actors and actresses. We’re audience-building,” said Burt Dikelsky, executive director of the Center for Performing Arts at Governors State University in University Park. “We’re creating an appreciation for the arts so the arts can survive.”
The center instills an early interest in the theater through two children’s programs, Arts in Education and Especially for Kids.
Especially for Kids is family programming based on children’s tales such as “Charlotte’s Web.” Moraine Valley Community College’s Fine and Performing Arts Center in Palos Hills, among other venues, offers similar entertainment.
Inviting audiences in
Arts in Education is fertile ground for productions of varied types and audience participation, according to Dikelsky. Its series of shows and workshops that run during the school year allow “kids to move their classroom to the stage,” Dikelsky said. Students engage in post-show discussions with professional actors and attend workshops, like an upcoming jazz clinic featuring Maynard Ferguson.
The center also will be the only southwest suburban location to again host the Missoula Children’s Theatre. Next year the traveling band of 23 actors will be at the center from Feb. 25 to March 2 to recruit area children to perform “Treasure Island.”
Getting interactive with adult audiences is another major goal. The center’s New Stages will feature Famous Door Theatre Company’s “Hellcab” and the Irish Repertory Theatre’s “Buckets o’Beckett,” a selection of short plays by Samuel Beckett. These two cabaret-style events will be staged before small audiences, who will occasionally be lured onto the stage to interact with actors.
“We want the audience to feel invested … like they are part of what’s going on,” Dikelsky said.
Challenge of promotion
After creating art, the biggest challenge, some supporters say, is promoting it.
Two advocacy groups bent on adding art and culture to the suburban mix of neatly groomed homes and shopping malls are Orland Park’s Public Arts Commission and the Chicago Southland Visual Arts Coalition.
According to Orland Park Mayor Daniel J. McLaughlin, the commission is in the formative stages and is still recruiting members. McLaughlin said the new art council could commission the creation of a statue for the village, initiate annual art shows or work to increase public awareness of Orland’s community theater or new community band.
“I don’t want to be too specific. . . . I don’t want the commission to feel obliged to follow my lead,” said McLaughlin.
The Chicago Southland Visual Arts Coalition was formed to promote an annual fall event called Art Trek and to unite and market artists living in the south and southwest suburbs and northern Indiana.
“We wanted to do more than just coordinate Art Trek. We wanted more exposure and to [surpass] the political borders sometimes associated with particular groups dedicated to particular types of art,” said John Spomar of Beecher, coalition director and a commercial and fine arts photographer.
“[Art is] here. We need to let people know that we are here,” Spomar said. “We’re not Saugatuck, Mich., where galleries line the street. But people are excited about us just the same.”
This year Art Trek occurs Oct. 11-14, at the close of Illinois Arts Week. Tourists will travel by car or bus to visit 27 galleries and studios and participate in interactive workshops in several south suburbs and northern Indiana.
The coalition soon will expand to include kids’ activities as well as workshops to assist artists in honing their business skills, creating professional portfolios and marketing themselves, Spomar said.
In need of space
Networking also has been key to innovation in Frankfort, where the Lincolnway Community Theatre is rapidly expanding and weighing its venue options.
The troupe surveyed 60 area residents to get a handle on the group’s venue needs, purpose and audience desires, according to Harriet Hamilton, president of Lincolnway Community Theatre.
They found people wanted a mix of musicals, plays and dinner-theater. Last season the group staged “Some Enchanted Evening,” which featured the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and partnered with Frankfort’s Court Yard Bistro in their first attempt at dinner-theater. It was a success, said Hamilton. Overall, the musical attracted about 375 people.
This year the group will put on “Up the Down Staircase,” its first drama, at the Trolley Barn in Frankfort Sept. 28-30. The Trolley Barn, an antique mall, is the venue for the group’s productions, but only 65 people can fit into each show. The group stages about four productions annually and usually sells at least 80 percent of the house. Hamilton expects these numbers to grow and is working with other area groups in hopes of relocating to a larger space.
Like Lincolnway’s troupe, the Oak Lawn Park District already has experienced the growing pains that occur when audience needs surpass resources. The district’s theater is located in the Oakview Center, 4625 W. 110th St.
The theater is a comfortable, well-equipped auditorium with features one would expect in a dedicated playhouse, from dressing rooms to spotlights, from control centers to high-technology sound equipment.
But things weren’t always this way, according to Jim Popko, the Park District`s cultural arts supervisor and technical director for theater productions. There was a time audiences sat on cushioned folding chairs without benefit of air conditioning.
Flexibility the key
Oak Lawn stages four annual productions in that room, but when plays aren’t playing, children are. Everything in the auditorium folds up or comes down, from the lights to the stage, according to Popko, who conducts the conversion himself.
Like the folks at Governors State, Oak Lawn Park District wants to keep more people engaged. Its fall schedule includes recruitment of a boys’ choir and a performing dance troupe that merges storytelling with music and movement.
Other cultural outlets also can be found in the southwest suburbs.
Those Were The Days Radio Players often convene to reintroduce nostalgic radio shows from the 1940s and ’50s. Formed in 1992 by College of DuPage radio station host Chuck Schaeden, the group performs vintage radio shows, like . “The Lone Ranger,” “Suspense,” “Fibber, McGhee and Molly” and “The Mysterious Traveler.”
“We try to be as authentic as we can. We’ll throw in commercials from the ’40s and ’50s if they are in the scripts we read,” said Anthony Janka, who also facilitates Tinley Park’s Arts Alive poetry and writing groups.
Art with a brogue
Another find is the Gaelic Park Players, who have been performing since 1992. The troupe is the only southwest suburban based group dedicated solely to performing works by Irish playwrights.
“We are trying to keep the Irish drama tradition alive in the southwest suburbs,” said director Larry Coughlin, whose troupe baptizes audiences in everything Irish, from literature to food to beer, at Gaelic Park, 6119 W. 147th St. in Oak Forest.
“It’s part of bringing the culture back to the people,” said Coughlin. “And no, you don’t have to be Irish to join the group or see our plays.”
Heeere’s the troupes throughout the region
The southwest suburbs have plenty of cultural and fine arts offerings sponsored by park districts, community colleges, universities or venues that host touring professionals. Here are some of those options:
Illinois Theatre Center
371 Artists’ Walk, Park Forest
708-781-3510
Drama Group
330 W. 202nd St., Chicago Heights
708-755-3444
Gaelic Park Players
6119 W. 147th St., Oak Forest
708-687-9323
Lincolnway Community Theatre
Trolley Barn, 11 White St., Frankfort
815-464-7079
Fine and Performing Arts Center
Moraine Valley Community College
10900 S. 88th Avenue, Palos Hills
708-974-5350
Nathan Manilow Theatre
Freedom Hall, 410 Lakewood Blvd., Park Forest
708-747-0580
Oak Lawn Park District Community Theatre
Oak View Center, 4625 W. 110th St., Oak Lawn
708-857-2200
Orland Park Community Theatre
Jane Barnes Annex (Civic Center)
14750 Ravinia Drive, Orland Park
708-403-6100
Philip Lynch Theatre
Lewis University
Illinois Highway 53, Romeoville
815-836-5500
Rialto Square Theatre
102 N. Chicago St., Joliet
815-726-6600
The Center for Performing Arts at Governors State University
Governors Highway at Stuenkel Road, University Park
708-235-2222
Those Were The Days Radio Players
Call Janet Hoshaw, 847-729-1668.
Southwest Suburban Arts Advocacy Groups
Orland Park Public Arts Commission
708-403-6145
Chicago Southland Visual Arts Coalition
708-946-9880
— Tina Jenkins Bell
