We Are At It Again.

We are at it again - rehearsing our third show at the new space and about to finish up our “short” 2007 season.

It has been a testing ground.

The first two shows were interesting and drew some fine critique. Now we have to build on that and keep growing. Even though the theatre’s been around for eight years, it feels like we’re starting from scratch. Being in a permanent space is attractive. But it really forces you to think about what you’re doing. Will it sell enough tickets to pay the rent and, hopefully, everything and everyone else?

Our latest effort, Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, has been a challenge. The rehearsals have been serious and fun. The cast is very willing and talented.

Measure is one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays” mainly because it doesn’t have a strong resolution. There is a lot of ambiguity in the play. The great thing is how modern it is. There is political corruption, scandal and sex. You can see some Jerry Springer in this show, along with Bill Clinton, and certainly reality television. And yes, it also is pretty funny.

The problem, if there is one, is that the audience doesn’t know the show. This isn’t your typical Shakespeare offering in Chicago’s suburbs. Unlike the other familiar summer plays, where you remember what they taught you in school, or you saw a movie version, this play has a story we don’t hear very often. And yet, I believe it will resonate with people that see it. And then they’ll tell two people and so on. We will see.

The truth is this play has been on our director’s list (Terry Domschke) list for some time. He has a real desire to do this play. So I, in my let’s take on the world tone, said “Why not?” The reality is nobody else in the suburbs would do this kind of work.

Most classic theatre is absent in the suburbs. And when I say classic theatre I don’t mean the work of Shepard, Miller or Williams. They are certainly great authors, but I’m talking about the old playwrights with the larger-than-life stories and characters: Sophocles, Moliere, Marivaux, Goldoni, Chekhov, etc.

These are the playwrights that make the really good actors and directors. Working on these plays is tough. This is because they take some decoding to figure out. Unlike many contemporary scripts that do all the work for you, the classical theatre speaks a whole different language. But you learn the most working on them.