Star of its own drama, theater finds happy ending

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Oak Park, 10/01/11--Missy Karle, right, of Chicago and other cast members during Saturday's rehearsal for "Smokey Joe's Cafe" at the Open Door Theater. | Jeff Krage~For Sun-Times Media

Smokey Joe’s Café

Open Door Theater will stage two preview performances of Smokey Joe’s Café on Oct. 19-20 at the new theater, 902 S. Ridgeland Ave.

The production runs through Nov. 20. Tickets can be purchased by calling (708) 342-0810. Online ticket sales begin Oct. 10.

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Updated: November 15, 2011 12:51PM

The lights in the new Open Door Theater — dark since spring 2009 — will soon go up.

The new space, at 902 S. Ridgeland Ave. in Oak Park, will feature raked seating for 70, a sunken stage, a formal lighting and sound booth, a concession stand and box office, and two large ADA compliant restrooms.

And it has a back-story as dramatic as the plays the theater will soon host.

For 12 years Open Door staged plays and musicals at Hatch Elementary School in Oak Park.

But artistic director Mary Pat Sieck realized the school’s purpose is educating children, not providing adults theater space.

When programming demand for Hatch’s auditorium spiked in 2009, Open Door’s last show was limited to just nine performances. Worse, they had to basically take down the set after every show.

“Every … single … night. We had to empty that auditorium,” Sieck said, her shoulders sagging at the recollection.

The limited show run, she said, also worked against the actors’ need for a minimum number of shows to “develop a sense of owning the show.”

More importantly, a theater production also needs a minimum number of shows to cover fixed costs.

“What we realized is you don’t begin to get to the place where you cover all your fixed costs until you’ve done 10 or 12 shows,” Sieck said.

Theater group needed an intimate, manageable and affordable space they could call their own — preferably near public transportation.

In 2009, Open Door board members looked at 15 sites. When they saw the old Convenient Mart on at the west end of the Arts District just south of Harrison on South Ridgeland, they knew they’d found their space.

Architect Errol Kirsch, husband of board member Lynn Kirsch, would provide the design services. Sieck’s husband, Bill, a master carpenter, would lend his skills.

They held fundraisers and laid plans. Then, in June 2010, as sometimes happens with even the best-laid plans, complications arose.

The Antagonist

As construction proceeded, a long I-beam spanning the length of the store and held up by several steel poles, including one pole anchored directly in front of where the new stage would be, needed to be removed.

“We dug one hole, and everything stopped,” said Sieck.

The excavation had released petroleum fumes from contaminated soil from an old Standard Oil gas station pre-dating the store.

“The gasoline fumes were sooo bad,” she said. “You could smell them everywhere.”

Open Door was suddenly Open Floor, with the Illinois EPA, the village and dozens of other people traipsing worriedly through the building.

Holes were drilled and soil tested. Contaminated soil was excavated down to 11 feet and replaced from under much of the building and parking lot.

Meanwhile, no other plans proceeded until the Illinois EPA gave its OK.

“Patience is a lesson we’re having to learn,” Sieck said at the time.

“I don’t think anybody had any idea how much work it would be,” she said 15 long, anxiety-filled months later.

The Protagonist

Yet through it all, property owner Jerry Bloom, a Chicago actor and voice-over artist, didn’t flinch as the bad news and expense mounted.

“Jerry Bloom simply asked, ‘What can I do?’” Sieck said, adding with emphasis, “And then he DID it.”

All those who’d written large donation and loans checks were just as understanding.

“Every one of them said ‘Don’t worry about it, just keep us informed,’” Sieck recalled.

In February, the Illinois EPA gave the site a clean bill of health. In early May, Sieck said, the stage area was still a large pit, graced by “two huge piles of rock and rubble.”

As summer waned, trades people and volunteers worked in the building from early morning to late at night.

“It’s overwhelming to look at this and see what people have done,” Sieck said.

Open Doors’ stage builder and technical guru Steve Salini has kept busy evenings “running wires, installing lighting, hanging curtains,” and a dozen other critical details.

“We’ll be working right up to opening night,” Salini said matter-of-factly this week.

On Sept. 24, with drywall dust still in the air, the Smokey Joe’s Café cast, which had been rehearsing at Ascension School and Sieck’s living room, stepped onto the unfinished stage for the first time.

Sieck said they’ll be performing not just a musical, but a thank you.

Sieck said Smokey Joe’s Café, which celebrates the songs of Lieber and Stoller, opens and closes with songs that also convey her feelings about the people who helped Open Door through the years.

On Oct. 21-22, the theater board will say thank you to “over 100” volunteers, donors and village officials and staff, as well as the Arts District community at two gala performances of Smokey Joe’s Café.

Sieck said the shows’ opening number, “In the Neighborhood,” is a song about all the people in the life of the play’s author as he grew up.

“It’s our way of honoring all the people who grew the theater between 1997 and 2009,” she said.

The musical ends with “Stand By Me.”

“It is what we feel everybody has done for us,” Sieck said. “At every turn, when it came down to it, the right person was there to make it happen.”