We’ve never been in the money

PILES OF BILL Chicago theater’s shoestring tendencies might save the day.

Illustration: Chris Kelly

So when do we start panicking?

Common sense would indicate that live theater, that perishable art form already on America’s endangered-species list, stands little chance for survival in the post-Bush economy. Broadway is inarguably in crisis: Hitherto bankable enterprises Grease, Young Frankenstein, Hairspray, Spring Awakening, Spamalot and Gypsy will all shutter within the month of January. A study released by the National Endowment for the Arts in December tells us that the supply of nonmusical theater has outstripped the consumer demand for it. And print journalism, that de facto form of arts marketing that buoys consumer interest, continues to downsize; several of the country’s longtime theater critics have seen their jobs excised as casualties of professional journalism’s war with the Internet.

Why, then, are Chicago plays selling so well? Times may, indeed, be tough. But last fall alone, an unruly, unlikely array of plays—the Court’s Caroline, or Change, the Goodman’s Ruined, Steppenwolf’s Dublin Carol, Lifeline’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Collaboraction’s Jon, A Red Orchid’s A Very Merry Unauthorized Scientology Pageant, Lookingglass’s The Brothers Karamazov and American Theater Company’s Celebrity Row—all sold well enough to extend their limited engagements, despite opening after news of the economic downturn broke.

Although it can’t be anything less than cautious in the extreme, a degree of optimism for Chicago theater in the face of national economic catastrophe may be permissible.

“Nobody’s seen anything drastic happen yet,” says Deborah Clapp, executive director of the League of Chicago Theatres. But she also notes, ever pragmatically, that the nonprofit status of the vast majority of Chicago theater producers means that although the immediate future looks secure (at least by the meager standard of nonprofits), 2010 appears a distant, mysterious galaxy. While foundational support will inevitably and substantially be peeled back, at the moment no one is willing to predict in what measure. This means 2009 must be a year of inventive strategizing (the plans for which are yet to be seen).

Ticket sales continue to flourish for a host of reasons, including continually good-natured local and international press. Even with chips universally down in the world of entertainment media, the seeds of August: Osage County continue to reap benefits for Chicago’s street cred in New York and London, generating not just raves but piqued curiosity about the town that produced it. And regular, favorable write-ups of local shows in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, coupled with a national interest in Chicago heightened by the election, have done nothing to damage anyone’s box office.

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