“Once a play opens, I never touch a drop,” says Marie Meyer, sounding like she’s had a few. She weaves, stumbles and collapses into a chair, legs stuck out like swizzle sticks.
It is halfway through the second evening of community theater auditions at Wheaton Drama Inc.’s Playhouse 111 and, in this bank-turned-theater smack in the middle of the western suburb’s downtown, everyone is loosening up.
Convincingly tipsy though stone-cold sober, Meyer, a 24-year-old administrative assistant at an Oak Brook architectural firm, is among nearly 50 amateur actors auditioning for George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s “You Can’t Take It With You.” Each is hoping to land one of the 17 roles in the 1936 Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy, which opened at the Wheaton Playhouse last week.
Presiding over the late-May tryouts is veteran community theater director Craig Gustafson, 46, of Glendale Heights, a gregarious, highly organized fellow (and longtime custodian) who has allowed me to sit in on auditions and stick around to see whom he casts. (The director avoids callbacks. “I’d rather have a root canal,” he says.)
Gustafson, who has been addicted to the stage since age 9 when he saw a couple of high school productions, studied theater at the College of DuPage. He has directed, acted in or worked on 175 productions at area community theaters, including First Street Playhouse in Batavia, The Summer Place Theatre of Naperville and Elgin Community Theatre. “I’m a nomad,” he says. “I’ll go anywhere someone will take me.”
In lively suburban outposts like Wheaton’s Playhouse 111, far from Chicago’s professional theater scene, community theater auditions regularly draw eager amateurs hoping to be cast in a play or musical. Pay is zero and rehearsal schedules are demanding: four evenings a week for six weeks, for example, for “You Can’t Take It With You.”
“It’s a big commitment,” says James Turano, 41, of River Forest, who has come in to read for Gustafson. “I saw `A Christmas Carol’ at Wheaton Drama, decided to give [acting] a shot and got a role. Once you get the bug, you sort of keep going. I was unaware of how big the local theater scene is,” adds Turano, who works in public relations.
For his “You Can’t Take It With You” tryouts, Gustafson sets up shop at Playhouse 111 theater facing faux-marble steps and columns–part of the set for “Annie,” Wheaton Drama’s late spring production. (Director Jim Liesz auditioned 102 girls for the lead role.)
The Wheaton community theater group, one of the oldest in the Chicago area, has been in existence since 1931. In January, a $460,000 renovation of Playhouse 111 was completed that raised the stage roof to allow for two-story sets, and expanded the number of seats from 110 to 172. The all-volunteer, non-profit organization typically does four plays and one musical a year.
Gustafson, who works for free at Wheaton Drama, is paid by most other theaters where he directs. He says it’s not hard to understand why community theater is alive and well in so many suburban settings. “It’s a lot cheaper and you don’t have to drive downtown.”
Wheaton Drama tickets cost $15 for plays, $18 for musicals and many shows sell out. As for quality, adds the director, “I’ve seen bad shows downtown, and I’ve seen some really good community shows.”
By 7 p.m., start time for the Monday night auditions, most of the prospective cast members have trickled in. Among them are Sydney Martin, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign student freshman who has never been in a play, and Joann Smith of Naperville, a mother of three, who studied theater at Illinois State University and works as a server at Ed Debevic’s in Lombard.
Aimee Kennedy-Cohler, 33, of Downers Grove is a stay-at-home mom who did “about 30 plays” in her home state of Kansas. Colin Delaney, 15, who earlier this year played George Gibbs in “Our Town” at Steel Beam Theatre in St. Charles, gave up track at Wheaton North High School and wants to act professionally.
Before Gustafson lays out the evening’s ground rules, he notes that unlike many directors, who leave a show once it opens, he stays “to help the actors every night”–unless he has “a family emergency.” “Family” is his wife, Margie, whom he met at the Village Theater Guild of Glen Ellyn.
“She auditioned for me,” he says. They were married onstage at Playhouse 111 in 1998. “We had a set, we had lights, we had sound. We figured the best way to get a handle on [the marriage] was to treat it like a theater production.” Adds the director, “I’ve had about nine marriages happen out of my shows.
“I’ve also had a few divorces, but I’m not taking any blame for that.”
Gustafson explains to the assembled actors that he “will have everyone read something from the play–no monologues, no improv. All that shows me is that you can talk to yourself and improvise, and I won’t be doing that in the show.
“I’ll be looking for three things tonight–comic timing, how well you relate to the other people onstage, and [now shouting] how well you project! This will be the first show I’ve done in here since the renovation and [shouting again] it’s a lot bigger! I really need to see that you can fill this space with your voice.”
For two hours, he runs scenes from the play, giving the actors a chance to read different roles. Joann Smith does a convincing accent as Olga, the play’s fading Russian duchess. “My father has Russian on his side, so I can relate,” she says.
Susan Barry of Carol Stream takes a chirpy turn as Penny, the character who became a writer (why not?) when a typewriter was delivered to her by mistake. Barry easily becomes the bubble-headed Penny, who explains that though she has been writing for eight years, “you shouldn’t count the first two because I was learning to type.”
Merel Marine of West Chicago, a retired drama teacher who taught at Andrew High School in Tinley Park, and the 15-year-old Delaney both use big, booming voices as Kolenkhov, the loud Russian ballet teacher. None of the actors seems nervous, though Kennedy-Cohler, who has arrived late, is convinced she “bombed.”
By 9 p.m., Gustafson wraps up the auditions. The actors depart, and he and assistant director Ashley Ottenstein of Aurora, plus co-producers Penny Salvesen of West Chicago and Sutton Skowron of St. Charles, huddle to come up with a cast list.
He creates three piles of audition forms: yes, no and maybe. Right away, there are several no’s: one actor he labels a “stage hog,” another was “doing a Brando thing,” and still another has “memory issues.”
The group loves Susan Barry–she is cast as Penny–and settles on Kennedy-Cohler as the too-proper Mrs. Kirby. “Aimee has an uptight look that should be right,” says Gustafson.
They’re hung up on a few roles. The director thinks Delaney “had the best reading as Kolenkhov, but he’s so damn young.” Ottenstein jumps in: “You could spray his hair darker. But wait, he’s only 15. How’s he gonna get here?” “Parents,” says Gustafson, adding, “I’ll have to pull him back. He has these Jerry Lewis instincts.” They add Delaney to the “yes” pile.
Gustafson is frustrated by one decision he has to make. He doesn’t have a role for Marie Meyer, whom he calls “the little bitty funny one” who got laughs as sloshed actress Gay Wellington. “She’s too young for it. It kills me to lose her.” (Later, Meyer says she will “absolutely audition again and again, until someone casts me.”)
By the next afternoon, Gustafson has posted an online list of cast members, and that evening, they convene for a read-through. Regular rehearsals begin the following week. The show’s budget, covering sets, costumes, props and royalties, is set at $5,000.
The next day, I talk to cast member Alan Kortas, 32, of Buffalo Grove, a customer service supervisor for Burlington Coat Factory, who’ll have a half-hour drive to rehearsals. “That’s not bad,” he says. “I had to drive an hour to get to Batavia when I did a show this year at First Street Playhouse. I’ll go a long way for a good director.”
Kortas says he likes doing community theater because “It’s a great escape–a good way to get away from problems you may have going on at work or with personal things.”
Later, Susan Barry explains why she’s hooked on community theater. “It’s fun to try to be different people.” Barry, 43, met her husband, Bill, doing “Macbeth” at the College of DuPage in 1981. “I was Witch Number One and he was Angus.”
Barry didn’t do much theater when her daughters, now 22 and 21, were small, but has done three productions since January: “Nunsense,” Neil Simon’s “Rumors,” and “I Hate Hamlet,” all at First Street Playhouse in Batavia. “I’m making up for lost time.”
What Barry truly loves is getting a laugh off a good line. “It’s very satisfying to know that for a moment you have made other people enjoy themselves, that you got a reaction out of them. That is definitely a rush.”
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Upcoming community theater productions
Productions run Fridays and Saturdays, plus some Thursdays and Sundays. Call for times.
“GETTING MAMA MARRIED” Through July 23. Riverfront Playhouse, 11-13 South Water Street Mall, Aurora; $10-12. 630-897-9496.
“INTO THE WOODS” Through July 23, Starlight Theatre at Wallace Bowl, Gillson Park, Lake Avenue at Lake Michigan, Wilmette. Outdoor seating, free admission. 847-256-9686.
“JEKYLL AND HYDE” July 29-Aug. 14, The Summer Place Theatre, Naperville Central High School Auditorium, 440 W. Aurora Ave., Naperville; $7-15. 630-355-7969.
“ON GOLDEN POND” Through July 31, First Street Playhouse, 160 S.Water St. , Batavia; $15-18. 630-406-6367.
“YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU” Through July 31, Wheaton Drama Inc.’s Playhouse 111, 111 N. Hale St., Wheaton; $15. 630-260-1820.
For more information about Northern Illinois community theater, go to www.nicoth.com.
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onthetown@tribune.com
