Download AEA Building Opening Program Final_Online Version

Historic Chicago Location
the Setting for Equity’s Next Act
By Travis Truitt
An Equity kind of town, Chicago is.
How appropriate that the oldest performing arts union in the
United States is moving into what’s believed to be the oldest
commercial building in Chicago—a union town and one of the
theatre capitals of the world.
As Actors’ Equity Association (Equity)
nears its hundredth anniversary in 2013,
the Union, which represents more than
49,000 professional stage actors and
stage managers, is celebrating its
newest investment: the purchase of a
building in one of Chicago’s most
vibrant, up-and-coming neighborhoods.
Actors’ Equity Association President Nick Wyman describes the
building purchase as “a real statement about our commitment to
the stage in Chicago. The new Equity building in Chicago is a
physical, tangible, bricks and mortar symbol of our support of and
service to our members—right there on Randolph Street.”
Before the Great Chicago Fire
“Everything in Chicago dates from 1871,” says Tim Samuelson,
cultural historian for the City of Chicago, “except the West Side,
which didn’t burn.”
The Great Chicago Fire began on the evening of October 8 and
continued through October 10 in 1871, burning and destroying an
area about four miles long. That area included nearly 18,000
buildings and left nearly a third of city residents homeless.
Wholesale grocer and flour dealer Henry Horner’s business
located on South Water Street was among the casualties of the
fire and Horner was forced to resume business at his former
location at the addresses then documented as 78, 80 and 82 West
Randolph Street.
Horner built three separate buildings on
Randolph, two side-by-side, with one in the back.
The buildings were later built up and combined
into one. An early history of Chicago by A.T.
Andreas lists 1859 as the year Horner built the first
of the three buildings. Samuelson believes that first
building—part of the new Equity building—is the
oldest commercial building in Chicago. He
estimates the second building was built in 1866,
though property records from the period burned in the Great
Chicago Fire.
Horner was a prominent player in early Chicago history. The
Bohemian-born Horner was one of the early founders of the
Chicago Board of Trade, and he’s considered one of the city’s first
prominent Jewish residents. Horner’s grandson, also named
Henry, became the first Jewish governor of Illinois in 1933. Born
Henry Levy, he adopted his mother’s surname after his parents’
divorce. He was the namesake of a Chicago Housing Authority
public housing development located on Chicago’s Near West Side,
not too far from the new Equity building built by his grandfather.
After the death of the original Henry Horner in 1878, the wholesale
grocery business known as Henry Horner & Co. continued at the
West Randolph location, run by Horner’s family. Besides Henry
Horner & Co., the buildings have since been owned by the
Pentecost Brothers fish purveyors and Zonta International.
Chicago’s West Side: The City’s Commercial Hub, An Area of
Early Union Activity
The area west of the Chicago River is
where most of the city’s early factories,
foundries and wholesale companies were
located. Because of this, it was an area of
early organizing. “Twenty years earlier,
there was hardly anything here (in
Chicago),” Samuelson says. Eventually, he says, “everything
going west came through Chicago. The city’s commercial hub was
west of the river. The West Side was a big area of union activity.”
In 1886, Chicago was becoming the center of the national
movement for an eight-hour workday. On May 1 of that year,
35,000 skilled workers walked off their jobs, followed the next
couple days by tens of thousands of other workers, according to
the online Encyclopedia of Chicago. There were at least a dozen
clashes between workers and police, plus three documented
shootings, before a bomb was thrown at police, killing one officer
instantly. Police began firing into the large crowds.
The ensuing tragedy at Haymarket Square,
located nearby on Randolph and Des Plaines
Street, became known as the “Haymarket
affair” or “Haymarket riot” and is considered
one of the most important events in the
history of American labor. During this same
period, a part of the building now owned by
Equity was also a center of organizing. Early
news accounts mention 1876 meetings of
West Side taxpayers convening in Horner
Hall to protest “unreasonable” taxes and
assessments. “There was plenty of labor and guild activity in
Horner’s Hall,” Samuelson says.
To this day, the Near West Side remains a hub of union activity. At
its new location, Actors’ Equity Association can count among its
neighbors: IATSE Local 2, representing stagehands; the Chicago
Federation of Musicians Local 10-208; IBEW Local 134,
representing electricians; SEIU, representing service employees;
the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 7; and Chicago Journeyman
Plumbers Union, Local 130, U.A.
members of the organization. The paper quoted Union President
Francis Wilson telling members “the object of this organization is
to secure for actors and actresses, members of the organization,
rights in their professions. Among what we seek are: Securing
transportation from New York and to New York; a limit of the
period of free rehearsals; to establish a two weeks’ clause; to
protect actors and actresses who shall have given more than a
week’s rehearsal from being discharged without compensation; to
prevent extra performances without pay; to get full pay for all
weeks played, and to seek an adjustment with regard to the cost
of women’s dresses provided for appearance in the cast. We are
not against the manager, but instead are trying to protect and help
him as well as ourselves.”
As Richard Christiansen wrote in A Theater
of Our Own: A History and Memoir of 1,001
Nights in Chicago, the history of theatre in
Chicago actually dates back to the city’s
earliest days. Christiansen begins his book
with the recollections of Joseph Jefferson,
who, as a 9-year-old, gave his first Chicago
performance in 1838. Jefferson’s final
Chicago performance came in 1903. The
Jeff Awards were established and named
after him in 1968, and awards for excellence
in Chicago theatre have been given in his honor since 1969.
Theatre continued to thrive in Chicago through the decades, and
Equity had a continuous presence in the city and the Midwest,
including an office in Kansas City, which handled the “tent circuit.”
Equity’s beginnings in Chicago
Equity’s presence in Chicago began to change during the 1970s
and 1980s. The staff increased in size, growing from a dozen in
the mid-80’s to the 21 employed today, and began handling
theatres outside of Chicago. The Midwest Region became known
as the Central Region as business reps began representing actors
in some southern states.
Actors’ Equity Association’s presence in Chicago dates back to at
least 1914. On July 17 of that year The Chicago Daily Tribune, in
an article titled “Actors Seek Better Conditions,” reported on a
meeting at the Auditorium Hotel attended by more than 150
The organization established the boundaries of the Central and
Western regions in 1991, and a new national representation plan
guaranteed each region seats on the Council, which is Equity’s
national governing body.
During the 1990’s, some New York-based theatre producers
began to establish Point of Organization companies in Chicago,
which current Central Regional Director Kathryn Lamkey, herself
an Equity member, says, “changed the face of what this office
does. The Central Region started getting Production Contracts for
the first time.” Those contracts were for large, Broadway-style
shows.
“I think you’ve seen an increase in the quality of Equity actors in
town. There’s great depth there,” Jones says. “A strong union is
part of that. The Equity office, with its flexibility and advocacy, is a
big part of why Chicago has achieved its prominent spot. None of
the producers in town can complain that the union is
unreasonable. There’s a sense in Chicago theatre that
everybody’s in it together.”
As growth and changes occurred, Equity looked at ways to
address the changing theatrical scene. In 1971 the organization
approved the Off-Loop Theatre Agreement (COLT), which would
by 1983 become the CAT (Chicago Area Theatre) contract. Over
time, the CAT contract developed and grew from four tiers to six,
which included a developmental tier.
Like everything else, the theatre industry has been affected by the
recession. But Steve DiPaola, Equity’s Assistant Executive
Director for Finance and Administration, says the Central Region
has “proven to be more resilient to the downturn than other
regions.” He says statistically actors have a “much better chance
of getting Equity work in the Central Region,” work that he
describes as “very strong.”
“For some theatres, it wasn’t feasible economically to do eight
shows a week,” Lamkey says. “But they were often doing great
work, and our actors wanted to work there. Some of those
theatres grew into Tony-winning theatre companies.” Lamkey also
notes the importance of the growth of regional theatres. “That’s
where the liaison system came in,” she says.
During the 2008-2009 Season, actors in the Central Region
worked more than 51,000 weeks on Equity contracts, compared to
less than 41,000 weeks a decade prior. “The Central Region is
host to a multitude of wonderful theatres,” Equity Senior Business
Rep Christine A. Provost says.
The Central Region office now
represents 16 states, including the
area liaison cities of Cincinnati/
Louisville, Cleveland, Detroit,
Kansas City, Milwaukee/Madison,
Minneapolis/St. Paul, New Orleans
and St. Louis. “Our office is in
Chicago, but we represent the
region,” Lamkey says. “Half the members or more don’t live in
Chicago. We cannot lose sight of the rest of the region.”
Indeed, nine area theatres have won
Tony’s for Best Regional Theatre in the
last thirty years: Actors Theatre of
Louisville, Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theater,
Steppenwolf Theatre Company,
Goodman Theatre, Victory Gardens
Theater, Minneapolis’ Children’s Theatre
Company, Cincinnati Playhouse in the
Park, Minneapolis’ Theatre de la Jeune
Lune and Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
America’s Hottest Theatre City
Chicago Tribune theatre critic Chris Jones’s online column refers
to Chicago as America’s “hottest” theatre city. He gives some of
the credit to Equity. “I think Chicago, particularly in terms of Equity
theatre, has reached a new level, even compared to where it was
a decade ago,” Jones says. He points to the number of shows
starting in Chicago before going to Broadway.
Equity’s President Wyman says, “In a number of theatre nexuses
around the country—Seattle, Twin Cities, Philadelphia,
Washington—there are all these actors who make a living and
create wonderful stage work without coming to New York, and
Chicago has the most vital and prolific theatre scene outside New
York. Equity actors in the Midwest region get more weeks per
member than in our other two regions. I love the thriving acting
community in Chicago.”
Chicago Sun-Times theatre critic Hedy Weiss has high praise for
the “ensemble-quality of the acting” in Chicago. Weiss says, “That
sense of focus on the other actors on stage—instead of just on the
presentation—is very strong here.” She attributes that to the
amount of work available in the city, saying Chicago actors “work
often, and they work on serious projects often.”
An investment in the membership
Actors’ Equity executives and its Council began discussing the
possibility of purchasing a building in November 2008. Equity
purchased its New York building in 1978, selling it in 1981, but
keeping ownership of the land, enabling Equity to freeze its rent at
1981 levels. DiPaola says, “The long-term success of that deal
convinced us it would be wise to look for opportunities in other
cities.”
Central Region Vice President and longtime Equity member Dev
Kennedy calls the move a sound investment. He explains, “It’s the
difference between renting for the rest of your life and owning your
own home. It’s even better for an organization that has no end that
will keep going to perpetuity,” he says. DiPaola says Equity
created a “density map of where our members live. This location
was the most accessible to the greatest number of members,
either through public transportation or driving.” Parking is much
more plentiful at the new Equity building at 557 West Randolph
(numbered differently since Henry Horner’s days) than at the
previous location. The Ogilvie Transportation Center, Union
Station and CTA Green Line's Clinton station are all nearby.
Looking forward
According to Member Services
Coordinator Pam Spitzner, the new
Equity building features a larger
audition room than the previous
space and can accommodate more
dance auditions. The new building
also has soundproof warm-up rooms,
unlike the location on Clark and Adams, where actors were often
spotted warming-up in the stairwells of the Chicago Public
Schools building. Sixty-plus different theatres have held more than
120 auditions over the last two years in Chicago’s Member Center,
and it is anticipated that more will take advantage of the affordable
and convenient audition space in the new building.
Councillor and Actor Madeleine
Fallon says she hopes members
“will take advantage of a building
they can call their own, plus some
of the services, including our
excellent library.” Indeed, the
Lonergan Library will be
conveniently located in the building, which will also house an
Actors’ Federal Credit Union office with an ATM. The second floor
is designated rental space, creating another means of revenue.
The Actors’ Equity Building will also host the new server for the
organization’s core membership database, which, for the first time,
Equity is going to bring “in-house,” according to Doug Beebe, the
National Director of Information Technology. Of course, moving
into a 150-year-old building provided a number of challenges,
including floors and ceilings in the combined buildings that were
different heights.
The architects and designers masterfully worked through those
and other issues, creating a workspace maximizing the amount of
natural light that includes skylights and light shafts. Throughout
the process, efforts were made to be “as green as we could
possibly be,” says Lamkey. Old materials were recycled;
sustainable building materials were used when possible; and
eco-friendly lights, sinks and hand-dryers have been installed.
The finished product, with its soothing blue and green tones and
modern day functionality, is remarkable. Externally, the city’s
oldest commercial building maintains what historian Samuelson
calls “the beautiful brick work” of the era. “The western half of the
building is absolutely beautiful.”
“We combined a lot of modern things, while keeping what we
could from the past,” Lamkey says. “It’s the Members’ building…
it’s not the Chicago building; it’s not even the region’s building. It’s
the Actors’ building.”
PHOTO CREDIT
Cover Photo, Audition Room pg. 12, Lonergan Library pg. 13, Photos by © coyne + associates architects 2010
Welcome Home Cake pg. 6, New Building at Night pg. 7, Conference Room pg. 10, Photos by Tripp Chamberlain
Photo pg. 11, Ensemble member Amy Morton (back) and Deanna Dunagan (front) in the original Steppenwolf Theatre Co. production of
August: Osage County by ensemble member Tracy Letts, directed by ensemble member Anna D. Shapiro. Photo by Michael Brosilow
Joseph Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle 1869 pg. 9, Photo by Corbis-Bettmann