Chicago Theatre Company Gets Its Second Wind
After two years of uncertainty, the eight-year-old Chicago Theatre Company is showing signs of coming back to life. Before things began falling apart in late 1990, the CTC, headquartered in a 100-seat thrust stage theater at 500 E. 67th St., was known for mounting feisty productions that attracted a loyal body of theatergoers. Among its most successful shows were the Jeff Award-winning Have You Seen Zandile? and Po. “We had garnered a following, and audiences believed in what we were doing,” notes Douglas Alan-Mann, who founded the company with Chuck Smith in 1984. Alan-Mann is still with the theater company as producing artistic director. After taking a year’s leave of absence in 1990, Smith resigned in February 1991 and now teaches at Columbia College.
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CTC’s problems date back to August 1990, with the decision to bring in Keryl McCord from Oakland, California, as its first executive director. At the time CTC financial backers were pushing for new management initiatives that would help grow and better establish the young theater company, and the board of directors felt McCord was well suited to the task. But according to Alan-Mann, McCord quickly ran into trouble when it became evident she believed she should have total control over the company, including artistic matters. She locked horns with Alan-Mann, and board members began to take sides on the issue.
But Alan-Mann and Liberty and what was left of the board of directors did not want to give up on CTC. Liberty talked to representatives from philanthropic organizations and discovered they were growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of administrative leadership within the company. The philanthropies suggested CTC hire expensive management-development consultants, but Liberty and Alan-Mann felt that would involve too large a financial risk. Working quietly behind the scenes to reestablish solid leadership, they got their first encouraging sign of success last April when Arts Midwest granted the company $4,000 to hire a management-development consultant named Cheryl Yuen.
