If you took a poll and asked people to name the best theatre cities in the world, it’s unlikely that many would put Chicago at the top of that list. Few would realise that the city offers as varied and vibrant a theatre scene as New York or London – even ‘theatre people’ outside Chicago seem not to have heard much about its merits (other than Steppenwolf, the jewel in the city’s theatre crown). And most people would be surprised to learn that the majority of Chicago’s theatres are what we would think of as fringe venues. It is a city full of storefront (shopfront) theatres.

The Storefront Theatre Movement in Chicago began in the 1960s–70s and established fringe theatres in shopfronts and found spaces throughout the city. Today there are more than 200 small to mid-sized theatres currently operating. And though you may not know the names of the any of these theatres, you certainly would recognise the names of many people who have worked in them, not only famous members of Steppenwolf like John Malkovich and Joan Allen, or countless Second City stars ranging from Mike Nichols or Bill Murray to Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert, but also actors as varied as Michael Shannon, William H. Macy, David Schwimmer, Carrie Coon, Gillian Anderson, and Jane Lynch, and playwrights like David Mamet, Tracy Letts, Rebecca Gilman, and Bruce Norris. Before their fame, all the people I’ve just named worked first in the small and quirky spaces that comprise the Storefront scene.

The scene is remarkable not only for the quantity of spaces where theatre happens, but also for the support it enjoys. Back in 1973 then-mayor Richard Daley specially created a new business category in the Municipal Code, “Theatrical Community Centers”, allowing storefront theatres to operate legally. The city continues to prize and promote its theatre scene, and despite the large number of theatres competing for audiences, most are well attended and supported. I would argue that theatre in Chicago is at least as ingrained in the city’s culture as it is in London. Attending theatre is a regular part of the social lives of people from all walks and of all ages, and Chicagoans surprisingly are as eager to watch a show in a garret or garage as in a gleaming hall.

It also has a distinctive flavour, based in two unique qualities. First, Chicago is the birthplace of improvisation as we know it (thank you Viola Spolin, Compass Players, and Second City), and so spontaneity and immediacy is part of its DNA. It also is grounded in the ethos of ensemble – the city is home to a remarkable number of ensemble-based companies. The work of these companies forges strong bonds among actors and makers, and their spirit of camaraderie and shared vision shapes the entire theatre community’s collegial character, atmosphere, and aspirations.

This is the theatre community from whence I came, a world of big theatre in little rooms (many tiny companies regularly tackle Chekhov or Shakespeare, damn the cast size) and big ideas viewed in tight focus. Having come up in that world, this is the style of theatre closest to my heart and fundamental to the dreams of what I hope to share with audiences.

A number of years ago, a group of neuroscientists discovered that watching live theatre can synchronise the heartbeats of the audience watching it. Playwright Ayad Akhtar penned a piece for The New York Times titled “An Antidote to Digital Dehumanization? Live Theater”, in which he discussed this phenomenon, and wrote,

“The living presence of the audience is what strikes me as so singular about the theater, why I love working in the theater so much, and why I believe in the particular importance of our beloved form right now…. A living being before a living audience. Relationship unmediated by the contemporary disembodying screen. Not the appearance of a person, but the reality of one. Not a simulacrum of relationship, but a form of actual relationship.”

Founding Steppenwolf member Jeff Perry has said that one of that company’s early aims was to have the fourth wall dissolve “so the activity spills into the audience in dangerous and funny ways”. During their inaugural-season production of The Indian Wants the Bronx, the two featured actors “ran around the outside of the theatre screaming and carrying on. . . . Then, on a signal from the stage manager, they raced down from the top of the hill roaring . . . and rocketed onto the stage. Their entrance amounted to a physical assault on the stage and the audience”. Chicago theatre critic Richard Christiansen saw that performance and wrote of it, “[The actors] were so intense, so convincing in their portrayals, that for the first time I lost the suspension of disbelief. I really thought they were going to come after people in the audience…I just got caught up in the illusion of danger and menace and the fear that they created”.

That sense of losing a suspension of disbelief – to no longer feel that you need to participate in a pretence that what is happening is real, because it feels actually real – is to me the greatest experience I can have, or help create, in theatre – well, perhaps without the running and screaming!

Of course that can be possible in any style or venue, but to me, a small theatre space – a storefront, a pub room, a garage or garret, someplace small enough to see the actors sweat – increases the likelihood of having this experience.

So I am happy to be finding my way into the London theatre community through pub theatre, whose history in many ways parallels that of Chicago’s storefront scene, and whose intimate spaces invite engagement and encourage the synchronisation of heartbeats. I am proud to be directing my first London show, This Bitter Earth by Harrison David Rivers, in its UK premiere in February-March at the venerable White Bear Theatre, one of London’s oldest pub theatres.

Our production has had an interesting genesis.

Although I had been acting and directing in the US for a number of years, I decided that I wanted to have a proper drama school experience, so I moved to London to train on the MA Theatre Directing course at Mountview.

For my final workshop project on the course, I wanted to find a small-scale new work with which I could try to achieve that sense of something true actually occurring in real time onstage, and to do the forensic moment-to-moment work with actors that I enjoy. Also, as a theatremaker I am drawn to stories centring on themes of human connection and social justice, and as a person with comparatively rather a lot of privilege, I feel it’s important to use that privilege to shine a light on issues that matter.

I also try to keep current with what is going on in Chicago’s theatre scene, and while I was searching for a script to choose for my final show, a play being staged there caught my eye.

This Bitter Earth is about an interracial gay couple navigating a relationship at the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement. Neil, a White activist from a privileged background, meets Jesse, an introspective Black writer, reluctant to join any cause. As tensions mount amid the killings of Black men across the US, and as Neil becomes more and more involved in activism, the two young men must find their equilibrium in ever-more-turbulent times. Wrestling with issues of race and class, love and loss, the play is a haunting reminder of the strength it takes to find your voice and live out loud.

Its author, Harrison David Rivers, is a gay Black writer who lives in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. He is an award-winning playwright, librettist, and television writer whose most recent show, The Bandaged Place, won the Relentless Award and was produced last November at New York’s Roundabout Theatre. This Bitter Earth has had a number of successful runs in the US, but Harrison’s work has not been performed abroad.

Rehearsal for THIS BITTER EARTH opening at London's White Bear Theatre 21 February - 11 March 2023

I wrote to Harrison and acquired the rights, and I staged a workshop production at Mountview’s Catalyst Festival. Later in the year, I graduated the MA program, and I began looking for opportunities to mount a full production of the show. I had some tantalising possibilities. And then the pandemic hit.

I thought the pandemic would last forever. Then when it didn’t, I still thought that the loss of momentum would mean that the show would never get done, and I would never find my way into working here. Fortunately, through friends I found my way to Michael Kingsbury at the White Bear, who generously offered the show a home, and through other friends, to the brilliant Sarah Lawrie, who signed on to produce the show with me under the banner of my new company, Storefront Theatre London, and she has been invaluable in helping bring me into the community and this brilliant and timely play to life.

I’m thrilled to be joining the world of London pub theatre, which feels like a home from home. In this new but somehow familiar world, I’m excited to have found fantastic collaborators and creatives with whom to connect, and I’m relieved to find here in busy, bustling London a sustaining sense of collegial support. I did not think I knew enough people yet to experience so many happy coincidences – many unexpected people have known someone else I know, and introduced me to others – so I’m surprised and grateful to watch my web of interconnections continue to grow, rooting me in a community of makers who value this work. I hope to carry on making meaningful theatre in small spaces and exploring ways to expand the possibilities of what small theatre can be – on its own, not necessarily as a means to a larger end.

Of course I hope our show does well, and I suppose that everyone who makes theatre openly or secretly harbours the jackpot dream of a transfer. But truly it is by choice and not necessity that I make work for small spaces, and my deepest hope is that if you come to see this or any future work I may make, you will find yourself in a smallish room full of strangers, all of whose heartbeats reach a shared rhythm. 

 This Bitter Earth by Harrison David Rivers runs 21 February-11 March at London's White Bear Theatre in Kennington, Tuesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. https://www.whitebeartheatre.co.uk/whatson/This-Bitter-Earth