Kicked Out of Our Theatre

[BeautifulThingChicag]

Posted: 11/29/12 at 2:10pm

Four days before Thanksgiving, the producers of our show received an email stating we would not be able to use the theatre at which we planned to perform Beautiful Thing and would need to find a new space.

The producers and their teams went into emergency mode and put out an SOS for a new venue. The biggest challenge was finding a space that was available – keep in mind that we are scheduled to open in less than two months and theatre spaces are usually booked several months in advance. The next big challenge was finding a space that is within our budget. After two days of fast and furious emails and phone calls, we were led to the Athenaeum Theatre. We contacted management at the Athenaeum, which had a theatre space available at the time that we needed. It’s a great theatre, a great location, and the staff is amazing, so it felt like a fantastic match.

Once our producers had a meeting with the Athenaeum, they were forced to make a hard decision. The space fits the needs of our production, but it comes with a higher price tag than the producers had budgeted for. After looking into various theatres in Chicago, the producers realized this really was the best deal they were going to find. After much consideration, the producers decided to move forward with mounting the show in the hope that they could raise the money needed to make up the difference. Not only do they need to make up the difference in the rent, now all of our marketing materials also need to be reprinted with the new location, which the budget cannot support.

So here we are under two months before our first preview and everyone has changed their focus from promoting the show to fundraising.

Anyone else experience something like this? How did you proceed?
Behind The Scenes of Beautiful Thing