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The signing capitalizes on a growing audience for dance and percussion that’s embraced Stomp, Riverdance, and Tap Dogs–last year the local Trinity Irish Dance Company signed a touring contract with the New York agency International Management Group. But Jellyeye is more of an acquired taste; since debuting in 1992 it’s developed a loyal following among off-Loop theatergoers, but its elaborately choreographed routines, running between 10 and 20 minutes and incorporating drums, gongs, cymbals, and other unusual percussion, are decidedly more abstract than anything in Stomp. The Truman program, which ran two hours, was criticized in some circles as too long and redundant, criticisms that Shubat takes to heart: “We really like our shows to run about 90 minutes.” Jellyeye is also trying to vary its routines by adding new numbers with handheld drums, which have a lighter sound than the large mobile drums the group typically uses.
Philip Kraus, one of the founders of Light Opera Works, has been dismissed as artistic director by the company’s board. Kraus did not return repeated calls for comment, and Bridget McDonough, general manager of the Evanston-based company, would not comment on Kraus’s departure. Last Friday the Chicago Tribune reported that Kraus was stepping down to focus on his singing career, and a press release from LOW states that he will become “artistic director emeritus,” the paper equivalent of a gold watch. Over the past few years critics have faulted the company’s shows, which tend toward frothy operettas and rarely produced musicals; tickets can cost as much as $49, yet LOW’s recent production of The Desert Song was lambasted by the Chicago Sun-Times for its “clumsy transitions and corny interludes.”
City Lit Theater Company is raging against the dying of the light: a source familiar with the company’s financial predicament says that aggressive fund-raising and cost containment have cut its $40,000 deficit in half. City Lit has vacated its offices at 410 S. Michigan for a makeshift space at the Theatre Building and is negotiating for the theater and office space at Edgewater Presbyterian Church near Bryn Mawr and Sheridan. That space, which formerly housed Stormfield Theatre, Commons Theatre, and Onyx Theatre Ensemble, reportedly rents for about the same amount City Lit used to pay for office space alone. The company hopes to present its adaptation of Alice in Wonderland at the new site this fall.
