Storefront Rebellion

Identity Jeffed

I should be writing my Under Milk Wood review right now, but just wanted to quickly acknowledge that the Equity Jeff Award nominations were announced tonight. You can read the full list at the Jeffs' site or at the TOC Blog, where you'll also find the latest helping of They Wuz Robbed. I considered switching up the format of TOC's response, but people seem to enjoy TWR—it's a true fact that at least one person has said they'd prefer a TWR mention to the actual nomination.

I was rushed in putting the post together today, and I'm already thinking of more I could have included: What about James Schuett's Tempest costumes? Hanna Dworkin for Picnic? How does it make sense that Ensemble is the sole nod for Scenes from the Big Picture? And I'll keep coming up with more. But I mean it when I say that the Jeff committee got a lot of things right this time around. I personally missed some of the most-nominated shows (Drury Lane's Miss Saigon, TimeLine's Not Enough Air), but I'm glad to note the committee didn't nominate much from shows that I did see and had lukewarm feelings about.

And more importantly, they made a number of good calls that I might not have expected: A double nomination for Tanya Saracho, Jake Cohen for Steppenwolf's Up, Taylor Mac for solo performance, Levi Kreis for Million Dollar Quartet, Spencer Kayden as the only acting nom for Don't Dress for Dinner. (And I'll just say that it's…interesting, if not perhaps a little cruel, for them to nominate one of the kids who played Noah in Caroline, or Change and not the other. Suddenly the Billy Elliot compromise makes more sense to me.)

Your thoughts are welcome, either here or at TOC (though it might make the most sense to consolidate the discussion over there).

Critics aren't obligated to support theater we don't like.

I'm reading with some fascination the comment debate on Chris Jones's review of Route 66's High Fidelity, which opened Monday night. I was there, but I'm not reviewing the show for TOC, so I'll leave my own opinions of the show aside until John Beer's review hits on Monday. But the bedrock of the comment by "allison" that kicked off the conversation, and some of the comments that follow, deal in what I consider to be fallacies about a critic's job description; they also address some of what I talked about in my post here earlier this week. Not that he needs it from me, but I feel compelled to defend Chris a bit.

Allison says:

chris, theatre in this country is suffering right now. you are a chicago theatre critic. by your own words "america's hottest theatre city." you are supposed to support and encourage theatre in this town.

Bullshit.

Oh hi. Remember this place?

What's up, Rebels? I know things have been slow around here, but I'm chalking that up to summer. Like many of you, I've taken a bit of vacation in the last couple of months, while juggling friends in town and still taking in some of the reduced number of theatrical offerings in July and August (though things have stayed fairly busy at TOC). Haven't had much to say here, but the season's about to hit hard, as Rob Kozlowski noted earlier today. (Speaking of Mr. K, *ahem*.)

Couple of things today worth pointing out. My friends at The New Colony (standard disclosure: I do count several TNC members as friends, and as a rule I don't review their shows) respond on their blog to my Time Out New York counterpart David Cote's recent wishlist for NYC theater. Their rejoinder is a new blog series about goals for Chicago theater, the first of which is: "Make Chicago the home of NEW theater."

This city can be an epicenter of new art if we choose to make it that. The only way for that to happen is for our theater community to collectively end the habit of remounting and reproducing the same shows over and over again (sometimes within the same season!).

Storefront theaters: we make up the majority of that scene. So rather than letting the 10% at the top control the direction of Chicago theater – let’s take that responsibility and herald in a new era of World Premieres and New Works!

Emphasis theirs, but as I said when I retweeted the link earlier, "YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN!"

Secondly, I found some interesting comments in regard to TOC's revamped star rating system on my Spring Awakening review. Suffice to say, this is far from the most emphatic feedback I've gotten about star ratings recently. I'm interested to hear what you guys think. Feel free to leave comments below, or email me if you'd prefer to keep your thoughts private.