Listening to the NPR story about the House Theatre of Chicago, a few things were especially surprising for me.

1. The first theatre in Chicago occurred in 1837 for 75 cents a ticket. Wow.

2. A bunch of kids from Texas chose to move en masse to Chicago to start a company? I guess the theatre scenes in Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio must really suck.

3. Harry Houdini, Peter Pan, the Wizard of Oz, the Nutcracker... HTC shows would seem to capitalize on name-recognition of stories in the public domain.

4. The actors earn $1000 a show? Damn, that's pretty good.

5. The most successful young theatre company in Chicago and everybody still needs to work a day job? Interesting. Just how successful do you need to be before you can afford to quit your day job?

6. They've had 20,000 people in attendance for a production of a drama? Damn, that's really good.

7. With a budget of almost $500,000, everybody has to work a day job and the company is still listed in the "fringe and storefront" section of Time Out. Maybe if they reach an operating budget $3 million they can quit and work in the theatre full time. That seems absolutely crazy to me. Granted, NPR does not go into great detail about the HTC business plan, but that strikes me as an extraordinarily high figure for being able to pay out a living wage.

Again, how successful do you need to be before you can afford to quit your day job?

This morning's NPR Weekend Edition featured a story about the House Theatre of Chicago. Sadly, I don't have time to write up my thoughts, other than to say that it is definitely worth 9 minutes and 15 seconds of your time.

Newer on the block: The House Theatre of Chicago, started by a group of Southern Methodist University grads who came to Chicago six years ago. They had been offered funding in Denver, but they chose to come empty-pocketed to Chicago, simply because of the intensely competitive and supportive theater community.

The troupe's first show was at Halloween 2001: In a borrowed storefront space across from a cemetery, they premiered Death and Harry Houdini — an underground hit, a sold-out run. The Terrible Tragedy of Peter Pan came next, and the House was off and running, always with big shows in small places, with music and dance and battle scenes and actors flying overhead.

Okay. Is this digital theatre?

Steppenwolf concludes the festival with a unique collection of seven “digital plays,” created in Adobe Flash for online-only viewing.

H/T Mr. Parabasis.

Actually, the title of this post is a little misleading. In Don R. Hall's recent Angry White Guy rant his point was not to take-on Chicago's House Theatre, rather to question the wisdom and generosity of the organizations behind the Emerging Theater Award - namely Broadway in Chicago and the League of Chicago Theatres.

Now, I don't know enough about the situation to comment specifically, but Don did pull me in with erudite and stinging prose like this:

And in our readiness to declare that the House has or has not earned this award, we are blinded to the facts that A) this award has been presented by an organization dedicated to bring outside shows to Chicago, effectively displacing homegrown theater and B) that $5,000.00 from Broadway in Chicago is like getting a check for $5.00 from your rich uncle on your birthday.

Not only is the staff of the League advocating and working for the community everyday and seeing hundreds of shows every year, but several, including myself, are working professionals in the community as actors, directors and theater managers. To say that this group of people is out of touch with the local theater community is ridiculous. You won't find a group of people more committed to Chicago theater.

UPDATE:
Storefront Rebellion asks of the League, What Have You Done For Me Lately?

Tracy Letts, Steppenwolf ensemble member since 2002, and esteemed author of Bug and Man from Nebraska, is Pissed, capital P. He's pissed at The Talkers, The Cell-Phone Users, The Snorers, The Psychos, The Unwrappers, The Program Readers, and the rest of the audience that makes up the 1%.

Please don't e-mail me, saying "I can't believe Tracy holds his audience in such contempt." I don't hold you in contempt. I love you. I love you very much.

But I'm not writing about you, the 99% of you. I'm writing about YOU, the 1%. And I'm willing to wager the 99% know exactly who I'm talking about...

Bilal says Chi-town has plenty of new work, you just didn't see it. Peter Brook's Athol Fugard production will go down under.

Uh-oh. MC Euripides.6 Greek plays of gibberish right? Trying to hard to be weird and different, right? (Name that tune?)

Richard Nelson gave an impassioned and important speech about New Play Development. Mr. Excitement has it all. Boston's Globe amps up their small-theatre coverage. Here's an update on the Paper Mill situation. Theatre of the Two-Headed Calf is in Providence, Rhode Island.