Underage college students face the disappointment of missing a show or concert when held at a venue they aren’t old enough to get into. The Lakeshore Theater may provide a better alternative.
The theater, 3175 N. Broadway St., is stepping in a new direction since teaming up with the live music bar Empty Bottle and Paul Provenza, a comedian, director and actor. Together, they are trying to build a venue with an audience of 18-to 35-year-olds who can see a variety of hand-picked comedy shows and music acts.
Chris Ritter, who is not only co-owner of the theater but also artistic director, executive producer, general manager and janitor, bought the venue more than four years ago when it was still a single-screen movie theater. Since then, he has renovated the building into a 338-seat theater and concert venue.
He did not decide until recently to follow his artistic aspirations, which includes exposing a community of people to what he feels are great comedic and musical acts.
While he used to rent out the place to basically anybody—mainly for theatrical performances—now Ritter and his team are booking the acts, with an emphasis on all forms of comedy and independent music acts.
The theater kicked off its new programming at the end of March with “The Marijuana-Logues,” an off-Broadway comedy show. The list of upcoming shows includes acts like Julia Sweeney from “Saturday Night Live” and Mike Birbiglia from Comedy Central.
He said the venue should be unlike any other comedy club or house in the city because it doesn’t just cater to a certain style of comedy and strives to bring in acts that he feels are deserving but not exposed enough, or those that might not necessarily fit into any other venue in the city.
“We aren’t trying to be a stand-up club like Zanies or a sketch house like Second City or a home of improv like iO,” he said.
One example Ritter gave was of Sweeney’s show Letting Go of God.
“It’s a very personal monologue of her journey to atheism, but it’s very funny,” he said. “You just wouldn’t see that show at Zanies because it’s not a stand-up show in the traditional sense.”
While Ritter has had this idea in mind, it was not until he met Provenza six months ago that the plan started to finally come together.
Provenza, who comes to Chicago regularly to appear on NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” teamed up with Ritter and became the theater’s artistic advisor. He travels across the country with his work and said he comes across a number of comedians and acts to recommend to Ritter.
“I turned him on to some really interesting talent that he had never seen or heard before and we decided we could make something happen together,” he said.
Over the past six months, Provenza gathered a list of more than 200 acts he found and gave them to Ritter to consider.
Provenza, who himself looks forward to performing at the theater eventually, thinks the setting is ideal not only because of its location in Lakeview, but because of its small theater atmosphere.
“There’s really very few opportunities to find a theater as opposed to a night club venue to do comedy,” he said.
Comedians are able to perform and feed off of audiences better in theaters than night clubs because many of the crowds in bars are there to drink and not really participate actively in the show, he said.
Peter Toalson, booking agent for the Empty Bottle, says that while they have been doing shows at the Lakeshore for a little over a year, the new direction they are taking now gives them more flexibility.
“In the past, they had longer theater runs and the set lengths [for the music] were shorter and less times were available,” he said.
Toalson couldn’t think of any other music venue to compare the Lakeshore with in Chicago, except by saying that it’s along the lines of a smaller version of the Park West with phenomenal acoustics.
A couple notable music acts coming up are Magnolia Electric Company and Daniel Johnston, whose first show is nearly sold out, and a second one is set to be added.
Ritter and Provenza both said they hope to build a community out of the audience and have big plans for utilizing their webpage and MySpace as well. These pages will show clips from shows and allow a space for them to speak with attendees about what they would like to see brought to the theater.
“I’m really interested in comedy that’s not obvious comedy—that’s new and different and appeals to different audiences,” Provenza said. “We really want [the college crowd] in there—a crowd that is just sort of discovering comedy or just learning what it is they like about comedy and having them become our friends. We’re in it for the long haul.”
Lakeshore Theater is located at 3175 N. Broadway, Chicago. Tickets are available at (773) 472-3492 or online by clicking here.
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