Some suburban theaters soar, but others take a final bow

During a year in which Paramount Theatre in Aurora's profile continued to soar in its first Jeff Award eligible season and Writers Theatre in Glencoe broke ground on what promises to be a state-of-the-art facility, Drury Lane Theatre made big waves with the announcement it had secured the rights to the regional premieres of such hot Broadway tickets as the Elton John-Lee Hall musical “Billy Elliot” (April 10-June 7, 2015) and “Peter and the Starcatcher” (Aug. 27-Oct. 18, 2015).

On the heels of that announcement, came word earlier this month that Drury Lane in Oakbrook Terrace will stage “Beaches” (June 24-Aug. 16, 2015), a new musical based on Iris Rainer Dart's novel about the relationship between two friends over 30 years, which was made into a 1988 film starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey.

Signature Theatre's Eric Schaeffer (“Million Dollar Quartet,” “Follies”) will direct the show by composer David Austin with lyrics by Dart and a book by Dart and Thom Thomas, with an eye toward a Broadway run.

In other suburban theater news:

• Drury Lane favorite director/choreographer Rachel Rockwell made her Goodman Theatre debut with a stellar revival production of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's “Brigadoon.” Hand-picked by Lerner's daughter Liza to helm the musical's first major revival in 34 years, Rockwell delivered a beautifully sung, exquisitely danced production that earned the multi-Joseph Jefferson Award winner yet another statuette for her choreography rooted in traditional Scottish dance.

• Having attracted between 1,750 and 2,000 people during its initial four-day run in September, Elgin's Fringe Festival showcasing theater, music, dance, comedy, art and performance will return in 2015.

Elgin's Janus Theatre, Batavia's Troupe Strozzi, Arlington Heights comedian Tiffany Streng and Elgin's Core Project dance ensemble were among 60 artists and ensembles participating at the festival, which took place at seven Elgin venues and included events for all ages as part of the Family Fringe Festival.

Box office sales totaled $10,000, with all the revenue going to the artists, organizers said. Moreover, the festival earned recognition from the United States Association of Fringe Festivals, which organizers say will translate into publicity and other support for the 2015 festival scheduled for Sept. 17 to 20.

• Speaking of successful ventures, Writers Theatre, which opened 22 years ago in a Glencoe bookstore, broke ground on a new facility scheduled to open in 2016 and for which the acclaimed theater has already raised more than $25 million of a proposed $31 million campaign.

• Skokie's Northlight Theatre, the Chicago area's fourth largest, celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2014. Co-founded by Mike Nussbaum, director Frank Galati and Greg Kandel, Northlight has long championed new works. Among its 29 commissions are Craig Wright's “Grace,” which opened on Broadway in 2012, and Jason Robert Brown's 2001 chamber musical “The Last Five Years.” Led by artistic director BJ Jones, it counts Tony Award-winner John Mahoney and Jeff Award-winning playwright Bruce Graham (“The Outgoing Tide” and the upcoming “White Guy on the Bus”) among its most passionate supporters.

• Aurora's Paramount became Jeff-eligible in 2014, a move that promises even more competition for suburban musical theater titans Drury Lane and Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire.

• Waukegan's Clockwise Theatre announced it will partner with Evanston's Piven Theatre Workshop — where Jeremy Piven (son of the owners), John Cusack, Hope Davis, Jeff Garlin and Kate Walsh received their early training — to offer after-school theater instruction for children.

• First Folio Theatre in Oak Brook premiered two plays by Michigan playwright Joseph Zettelmaier: “Salvage,” about a collectibles expert whose business is floundering until a woman shows up with a rare trading card from a defunct professional hockey team; and “The Gravedigger,” a provocative “Frankenstein” inspired drama that imagines events Mary Shelley might have left out of her 1818 novel.

• Buffalo Grove teenager Jonah Rawitz, whose professional credits include “Les Miserables” at Marriott Theatre and “Sweeney Todd” at Drury Lane Theatre, received the best actor award and a $10,000 scholarship in June at the National High School Musical Theater Awards held in New York City. The 16-year-old Adlai E. Stevenson High School junior was among 28 finalists selected from 60,000 applicants to participate in the annual showcase.

• Theater lovers bid hail and farewell this year to Buffalo Theatre Ensemble. A Chicago-area mainstay for 26 years (the company's hilarious, expertly timed 2007 revival of “Noises Off” was among its memorable productions), BTE, which had called the McAninch Arts Center at the College of DuPage home since 1987, announced in December 2013 that it was suspending its 2014 season. In March, McAninch director Diana Martinez announced COD was ending its relationship with the company. Ensemble members indicated they would regroup, but that has not yet happened.

• After 34 years, Next Theatre in Evanston — whose 2007 musical adaptation of Elmer Rice's 1923 play “The Adding Machine” was remounted off-Broadway — closed in November, succumbing to debt, including unpaid rent owed for its Noyes Cultural Arts Center space. Mismanagement also played a part in the demise of the theater, whose previous artistic director left abruptly in 2010 amid charges of plagiarism.

• Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights continued to struggle financially in 2014, making it necessary for village board members to approve a $450,000 subsidy to keep the theater afloat through April 2015. Arlington Heights has subsidized Metropolis since 2005. So far, the investment totals $4.7 million, with the money coming from the village's food and beverage tax. This year also saw the ouster in May of executive director Charlie Beck, who was replaced by Joe Keefe, a veteran of Chicago's Second City who takes over Jan. 1.

• Last but not least, on a terrible day in September, the city and suburban theater community bid farewell to two veteran actors: Molly Glynn, 46, and Bernie Yvon, 50, both of whom died Sept. 6 in separate accidents. Glynn, who performed at First Folio, Northlight and Writers theaters as well as Steppenwolf, Goodman and Chicago Shakespeare theaters, died a day after being struck by a falling tree branch while bicycling with her husband, actor Joe Foust, on a Cook County Forest Preserve trail.

A 30-year veteran of Chicago theater and a consummate song-and-dance man, Yvon was a fixture at Marriott Theatre, where he earned acclaim for his performances in “The Music Man” and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” among other shows. He was killed on his way to a rehearsal at Theatre at the Center in Munster, Ind., when his car was struck by a semitrailer truck.

Several weeks later, director/writer/educator Sheldon Patinkin, 79, former Second City director and chairman of the theater department at Columbia College Chicago, died several days after suffering a heart attack, according to published reports. Revered in the Chicago theater community, Patinkin directed at Steppenwolf Theatre and was an ensemble member of The Gift Theatre. In the suburbs, he directed “South Pacific,” a 2003 coproduction between The Metropolis Performing Arts Centre and the now defunct Bog Theatre.