Suburban theaters take center stage on eve of Jeff Awards
There was a time when musical theater fans craving splashy revivals or cutting-edge works had to go to Chicago.
Suburban theaters always attracted top-tier talent and produced top-flight shows, but financial and space constraints prevented them from creating the kind of spectacles their Chicago counterparts delivered.
Not anymore.
Technical improvements helped Oak Brook Terrace's Drury Lane Theatre snag several regional premieres and a pre-Broadway tryout. Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire debuts, on average, a new musical every year.
And in the four years since it began self-producing musicals, Aurora's Paramount Theatre has earned kudos for its Broadway-quality revivals and emerged as a force to be reckoned with artistically and commercially. In its first year of eligibility, it led all other Chicago-area theaters with 16 nominations for equity Joseph Jefferson Awards, which will be announced Monday.
Drury Lane earned the second-highest number of Jeff nods; Marriott shared third place with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre.
Some doubted Paramount could compete, said director/choreographer Jim Corti, a Broadway veteran who became artistic director in 2011, just as CEO Tim Rater was preparing to transition the theater from roadhouse to producing company. Yet, in just four years, Paramount boosted attendance to about 300,000.
"I know how ambitious Jimmy is," said local actor Ross Lehman, a five-time Jeff Award winner and a Marriott regular. "He wanted to produce big, well-staged, beautiful productions that have an artistic heft to them. And he did it."
Stories about scrappy upstarts making good have long been a theater staple. In the suburbs, those kinds of success stories have played out behind the scenes as well.
<h3 class="breakHead">Setting the scene</h3>
Musical theater took root in Chicago's suburbs in 1961, the year William Pullinsi and Anthony D'Angelo founded the country's first dinner theater, Candlelight Dinner Playhouse, in South suburban Summit.
By the time financial difficulties forced Candlelight to close in 1997, the suburbs boasted several dinner venues specializing in musicals. Among them were a number owned by real estate investor, restaurateur and theater impresario Tony DeSantis, who began producing plays in a tent outside his Martinique Restaurant in Evergreen Park in the late 1940s. His first theater, Drury Lane Evergreen Park, opened in 1958 and closed 45 years later.
Several other incarnations followed, including Drury Lane in Oakbrook Terrace, which in its 31st year remains a force in suburban theater.
Taking over after DeSantis' death in 2007, his grandchildren ushered in an artistic renaissance that began with the Jeff Award-winning "Sweet Charity," directed by Corti. The record-breaking "Ragtime" followed in 2010, along with regional premieres of "Spamalot" (2011), "Billy Elliot" (2015) and last summer's pre-Broadway tryout of "Beaches."
DeSantis also had a hand in establishing Marriott in 1975, by allowing the corporation to build on his land only if the resort included a theater. Forty years later, Marriott's 40,000 loyal patrons make it among the country's most subscribed theaters.
"In a space not created for theater," said Marriott artistic director Aaron Thielen, "we create magic."
The magic spread to Aurora a few years back when Rater decided to produce Broadway shows at Paramount and Corti joined him.
"People thought it was crazy," Corti said. Without a scene shop, costume shop and rehearsal space, "there was no infrastructure for producing work ... we had to build from the ground up."
Corti and Rater sought advice from award-winning designers Jesse Klug and Kevin Depinet, who described Paramount's sensibility as a "storefront theater mentality with a budget."
"I have never been a part of a scenario where (people) were able to build something like that so fast," said Depinet, nominated for a Jeff along with Jeffrey D. Kmiec for designing Paramount's "Les Miserables" set.
Depinet said Rater ran the numbers, studied the community and found "a huge population of people out there thirsty for theater."
<h3 class="breakHead">Valuable asset</h3>
Suburban theaters offer "great value," said Marriott's Thielen.
That value is rooted in high quality and low (relatively speaking) ticket prices, which are about half the price of tickets to the Broadway tours that play Chicago's Bank of America, Cadillac Palace and Oriental theaters.
Keeping costs low and tickets affordable was DeSantis' mission, said Drury Lane artistic director William Osetek. At one time, that meant renting sets and costumes. That's no longer the case, Osetek said.
"From the word go, we wanted to make an imprint on the artistic value," he said. And production values improved after DeSantis' heirs took over.
Of more than a dozen suburban venues, only Drury Lane, Marriott and Paramount make musicals their primary mission.
"Every theater in Chicago has a unique aesthetic," said composer/lyricist/actor Michael Mahler.
As a subscriber-based theater, Marriott has an obligation to deliver what its audience wants. Still, the theater premieres new works, including Mahler and Thielen's "October Sky," which runs through Oct. 11.
"I admire Marriott for taking a chance on new works," Mahler said. "They do it right. They deliver the meat and potatoes and expand the palette."
Corti hopes to do the same at Paramount, but he isn't in any rush.
"We're still in our infancy," he said. "We're still figuring out how to do each show and not repeat ourselves."
<h3 class="breakHead">Raising the stakes</h3>
Tom Vendafreddo, Jeff-nominated for music directing for "Les Mis," says Paramount has raised the stakes significantly. The scale of the musicals and size of the casts set the theater apart, he said.
So do Paramount's larger, 18-piece orchestras, which eliminate the need to reduce or re-imagine a score for pit orchestras that are typically half that size.
"We get to interpret every note that was intended to accompany that story at that moment," Vendafreddo said.
Devin DeSantis, a 2015 Jeff nominee for his performances in Paramount's "Tommy" and "Les Mis," agrees.
"There's nothing like doing 'Les Mis' in the way it was intended with a full orchestra," said Devin DeSantis, who is no relation to the family behind Drury Lane. "I've never been part of something where every person was invested 100 percent."
Paramount's success prompted the Jeff Award Committee to revise its equity requirements, which previously limited nominations to theaters within a 30-mile radius of State Street and Madison Avenue in Chicago.
"They're certainly doing great work," said equity chair Merril Prager. "They're part of our larger family and we wanted to include them."
Drury Lane executive producer Kyle DeSantis says his grandfather would have celebrated Paramount's success.
"Paramount producing at the level they are helps all of us," DeSantis said. "We're all unique. ... That's why we can all be successful together."
The competition remains friendly, said Osetek, who won a Jeff last year for directing Drury Lane's regional premiere of "Next to Normal," about a woman suffering from bipolar disorder.
"We all know each other; we use each other's people, we use each other's stuff," he said.
Susie McMonagle won a Jeff for her performance in "Next to Normal," which - like Paramount's "Tommy" and Marriott's upcoming "Spring Awakening" - exemplifies suburban theaters' efforts to nudge audiences out of their comfort zone and attract younger patrons.
"People are changing. Audiences are changing," said McMonagle. And the Broadway veteran, nominated for a Jeff again this year for her performance in Drury Lane's "Billy Elliott," welcomes the shift.
"This is not your mother's theater," she said. "There's something for everybody."
Daily Herald staff writer Robert Sanchez contributed to this report.