I grew up on the stages of Chicago. I started working in Chicago theatre in 1988, back in the days before we were “Storefront” when we were all “Off-Loop” (a phrase I never really understood since the Goodman and Schubert were the only theatres anywhere near the Loop so everything was Off-Loop) and I was young and cute and marketable. I don’t know that there’s anything more essential to who I am than the years I’ve spent working in Chicago theatre; it’s probably the most central pillar of my identity. As a result, I’ve always been a big booster of Chicago theatre and have always felt very protective of the community.
That’s the thing about it, it is a community here, or at least scores of smaller, overlapping communities that form a larger gestalt community. The Venn diagram of Chicago theatre would look like the strangest but most awesome/incomprehensible Spirograph drawing ever. It’s always been that way, even growing up and competing for on-camera roles (of which there used to be way more though still not nearly as many as we deserve given the talent pool here). What’s good for one of us is good for all of us, that’s the way it always felt and still feels to me. It’s one of the myriad reasons I hated living and trying to work in LA, there was no community and everyone was out for themselves. I am not merely from Chicago, I am of Chicago and I do not function well elsewhere.
The other side of that, however, is that which is bad for one of us is bad for all of us. If you’re reading my blog, you’ve already read the outstanding Chicago Reader article about the abusive trash fire that is Profiles Theatre and if somehow you haven’t read it yet, do that now. I don’t know how to put my feelings into words, there are so many shades to my anger, it’s such a betrayal of not only the actors who were directly victims, but of community writ large. It’s an assault on our way of life. Bad for one of us, bad for all of us. But the response, the full-throated, unequivocal support of the community for the victims, the refusal to let anything like this happen again, that is heartening. That’s the community I know and love and was shaped by.