Tony ‘n’ Joyce’s Venture
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Estimated to cost well in excess of $1 million, the center is being constructed in a relatively out-of-the-way location that has not yet proved to be particularly hospitable to theater. Russ Tutterow, artistic director of Chicago Dramatists Workshop, which has operated for seven years in a small space a couple of blocks west of the proposed center, described the area as isolated from the heart of the theater community; he is currently investigating other spaces on the near north side. Other theater companies, including Remains Theatre, previously looked at the site Tomaska and Sloane are developing but passed on it.
But at the moment Tomaska’s confidence isn’t shaken. Last month he went to London to scout possible productions for the new venue, and he points to partner Joyce Sloane’s many years in the theater business and her extensive contacts within the industry as assets. In addition to importing shows from other cities, Tomaska and Sloane expect to develop new works in the center’s small theaters and if the shows have audience appeal move them to the main stage for extended runs. “We want to give talented people a place in Chicago where they can be nurtured,” says Tomaska.
The Drury Lane Oak Brook Theatre, its owner Tony DeSantis, and the theater’s artistic director Gary Griffin appear to have been spared what could have been a long and costly legal battle. Late last week, DeSantis’s attorney Scott Petersen hammered out a tentative out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit filed in New York City in March by director Gerald Gutierrez, who alleged that Griffin’s production of Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella replicated aspects of Gutierrez’s copyrighted 1992 Broadway staging of the show.
