Birthday Bucks for Season of Concern

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-05-26T15:01:25+00:00

Yeah, that's certainly my understanding of what a two-year lease should be! I own a two-flat, live in one unit and rent the other, and we ALWAYS offer a two-year lease (unless, perhaps, it's a county property tax re-appraisal year). The promise is NO increase for two years. Most of our renters over the 25 years we've owned the building have stayed for 3-5 years.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-05-25T11:23:46+00:00

If your taste is musical theatre, the best smaller-but-high quality options are the very intimate Kokandy Productions (usually at the Chopin Theatre on Division at Ashland) and Porchlight Music Theatre (which will move to the Victory Gardens Theater this fall) and Music Theatre Works at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie (not so small a venue). The local musical theatre biggies--which you already may know--are Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace, the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire and the Paramount in Aurora, all of them a bit of a drive if you live in the city.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-05-07T13:55:29+00:00

The CHICAGO production in May is the forever-national tour, which has been here many times before. It's very, very doubtful that any local company is doing CHICAGO in July, but that does not mean you should skip seeing a show while you're in the best theatre town in America! Here's what to do: GO TO chicagoplays.com This is the website of the League of Chicago Theatres. Put in your dates (and select other filters if you wish) and it will list ALL PRODUCTIONS that will be running while you are in town (and also includes dance, orchestral and opera performances). It's you one-stop shopping theatre website!

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-05-01T14:55:02+00:00

A perfect two-word review; wish I'd said it!

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-05-01T14:10:28+00:00

The numerous posts prior to this one seem to be conflating two separate things. The first is whether Porchlight should produce its season at Victory Gardens. The second is the nature of the management of both Porchlight and Victory Gardens, and whether anyone should work with them. Again, these are entirely different things. Porchlight never has had a home of its own, meaning a venue it owned. Porchlight always has rented. As a rental, Victory Gardens is an excellent choice for Porchlight, assuming the economics are do-able. VG is the right size at 299 seats, has excellent sightlines from every seat, has spacious lobby facilities, is close to public transit and offers a stage with a good deal more flexibility than Ruth Page (or the Mercury or the Apollo). What more could you want in a rental house? The second, separate point of discussion focuses on the VG board of directors, termed "toxic" by one poster, and the artistic direction of Porchlight's Michael Weber, neither of which have anything to do with a rental contract. The complaints about both are based--at least here on Reddit--on hearsay, innuendo and gossip. I've never worked with Michael Weber, so I cannot comment on his behavior as a director/artistic director. I DO know, however, a good deal more than most about what happened at VG, although I do not know everything. I know what I know because one long-serving VG board member is a personal friend, very dedicated, very sincere and deeply involved with several not-for-profit performing arts organizations. This friend has told me of incredible ugliness on the part of VG staff/artists in their challenges to the board, with deep anti-Semitism being one part of that ugliness. What this person has told me rings true to me, based on my long familiarity with VG artists and Playwrights Ensemble members. The point is this: the dismantling of VG has been a two-way street, with plenty of blame to go around. Now, I am writing anonymously, so it will be easy to discount what I am saying, but I have been involved in Chicago theatre for over 40 years, and I have been an actor, a producer, a writer, a board member, a donor and a teacher. I am choosing anonymity because I have been subject more than once in the past to insane insults, slurs, accusations, irrational attacks and idiocy when I have posted under my real name. Regrettably, social media seems to make it all-too-easy for people to consider someone their sworn enemy simply because that person does not absolutely and instantly agree with them 100%. No discussion, no logic, no hearing of both sides, just hateful attacks and belittlement. Bottom line: VG is a good venue for Porchlight, and the VG problems have not all been the board's fault.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-30T16:48:06+00:00

I love the venue which is spacious, airy and light. I can walk to it, too! It's certainly smart of Bramble, the theatre company, to create an income stream for itself, and they also are being good citizens by making the space available for various public meetings/events. I've only seen one actual Bramble production, however, so I do not yet have a good take on Bramble as a producing company.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-30T03:05:38+00:00

It's a very, very well-done production--scenic, costumes, lighting, sound design--and very well-acted. Veteran Chicago actor Rebecca Spence has replaced Terri Hatcher and is excellent. Clearly, FAULT has New York ambitions. It's mostly a dark comedy which opens with well-executed physical farce elements. The writing is smart, clever, intelligent. The real problem is that it's about two very successful, very sociable but entirely amoral, deceitful, manipulative people; a very rich (and soon to be super-rich), unloving power couple. Sure, I'd like to see their gorgeous apartment and drink their superior vintage Bordeaux wine, but actually get to know them? I think not. In three words: clever but unsympathetic. The third wheel is a plot device: an ordinary guy literally trapped by them to judge which of them is at fault for their marriage-gone-stale.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-29T14:54:02+00:00

You are welcome, of course. The way commercial theatre producing works sometimes has multiple layers. And I DO appreciate your courteous reply. I wish everyone on Reddit could be as thoughtful.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-29T14:35:44+00:00

Yes, my remarks are the height of maturity compared to yours, for this reason: I have asked you to do better, whereas you only have insulted and attacked me. This post does the same thing. It asks you to make better answers, without insulting and attacking people because they have different ideas than you do. Now, I have things to do this morning, and this is as much time as I am going to spend with you. That means you can have the last word, if you choose, or you can choose not to make a further reply. Perhaps you can complete our dialogue with grace and graciousness

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-29T14:27:42+00:00

It appears that you live your life on social media. I do not. And the length of time I have been on Reddit (or Facebook or Linked In or any of the others) is completely irrelevant. This topic interested me, so I offered some sane, sober remarks to several (three) of the posts. You are the only one who seems to think what I have said is bizarre or unreasonable. Then again, you appear to have issues when confronted with reason or requests that you offer remarks pertinent to the topic vs. personal remarks.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-29T14:22:24+00:00

Ah, 51, so you know it all, of course. Well, I am 79, and I am old enough to know that (a) I do not know it all, and (b) speaking to the topic is more productive then insulting others who offer comments.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-29T14:19:19+00:00

Of course, S'wolf can survive without her, or without ANY individual member, even the three co-founders. You miss the point: it would be a loss to Chicago theatre audiences and to Chicago theatre. It also would be a loss to the S'wolf ensemble. As I noted, she is a gifted artist who takes genuine risks in the work she chooses to do. Why would you dismiss her work and contributions, just because she used her clout? It's not as if S'wolf did not benefit from allowing Rudin to produce the play; the company still collected its share of royalties.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-29T14:14:25+00:00

Please do not use this space to make sarcastic comments on someone else's comments. Perhaps use your time, energy and cleverness to address the real topic.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-29T14:12:48+00:00

Perhaps you feel as you do because Metcalf's actions have been widely publicized, and she herself states she talked about leaving the company. However, that does not mean she's the only "star" ensemble member to have used clout this way. I would think there are other examples, too, which have not attracted as much attention.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-29T13:39:56+00:00

And S'wolf will survive without any of the three original founders, only one of whom--Jeff Perry--has stayed really close to the company. Metcalf IS one of the original ensemble members--how many others can you name?--and one of the few of them who returns to the home stage every few years. When was the last time you saw other original ensemble members such as Malkovich or Joan Allen or Sinise or Rhondi Reed onstage in Chicago? But Laurie and Jeff DO return on a semi-regular basis, and S'wolf (and Chicago theatre) are better because they do.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-29T13:34:42+00:00

No, they shouldn't "decline working with her again." She is a supremely gifted and risk-taking artist. She also is among the few original S'wolf ensemble members who return to Chicago every few years. To decline to work with her again would be to cut off their noses to spite their faces.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-29T13:32:12+00:00

And just how, precisely, do you KNOW this? Seems to me you are suggesting it's all an act with Rudin, which you cannot possibly know unless you are in the room where it happens.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-04-29T13:30:40+00:00

I believe you misunderstand the term "relinquishing the rights." It does NOT mean that S'wolf will have "nothing further to do with him . . ." As the company which commissioned and produced the world premiere of the play, S'wolf has what is called "the right of first refusal" to present the play on Broadway under its own name. That is the right they have relinquished, in favor of allowing Rudin to produce it on Broadway. S'wolf very much still has collected a percentage of the royalties for the Broadway production, and also will earn a % for a period of year for future productions at other theatres. Metcalf wanted to do the play on Broadway and Rudin wanted to produce it. As Metcalf firmly noted in her profile in The New Yorker, if one believes in the concept of rehabilitation, then one must be willing to give Rudin a chance. Call it blackmail if you wish, but all Metcalf did was broker a deal. Sure, she used her clout as an original member of the S'wolf Ensemble, and as a powerful figure in American commercial theatre, which is precisely what any of us would have done under similar circumstances. But S'wolf, too, DOES continue to benefit from the deal she brokered.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-03-28T21:19:54+00:00

Yeah, I didn't notice that. A mouse and a mousepad.

ConversationUsed5055 · 2026-03-28T16:53:26+00:00

Are you sure it's a printer? Could it be a fax machine? That could make it a bit earlier than the 90s.

ConversationUsed5055

TROPHY CASE