Copyright 1999 by the Chicago Tribune)

Additional material published Dec. 4, 1999: Corrections and clarifications. The Tuesday Tempo story on Famous Door Theatre included two incorrect amounts for grants the company has received. The correct figures are $5,200 from the Illinois Arts Council and $35,000 from Retirement Research. The 1999 budget amount also was incorrect: It should have been $386,000. The Tribune regrets the errors.

In the business world, new products are introduced only when there is a quantifiable demand, adequate resources and a plan to keep production costs under control.

In the world of off-Loop, non-profit theater, new products are introduced each week for reasons that, to the outsider at least, can appear entirely illogical. Often without regard to cost or profitability, shows are selected because they happen to contain plum roles for ensemble members, or because they stimulate the creative juices of the director, or because they just, well, seem to capture a moment in a city's creative consciousness.

In off-Loop theater, outrageous risk-taking is a trait that companies wear proudly on their sleeves. Even when it threatens their very existence.

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So when Famous Door ensemble member Calvin MacLean announced in December 1998 that he wanted to direct "Ghetto" because "it scared him to death artistically," this seemed a perfectly logical statement to the leadership of the Famous Door Theatre Company.

Because by any reasonable standards, staging Joshua Sobol's play did not make much financial sense.

For one, a dark drama set during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania is hardly the typical definition of a box-office success. Depending on the translation, the play needs as many as 30 actors, multiple settings (including a subterranean locale) and live musicians. There were also a number of troubling special effects, including the moment when one of the characters disappears in a puff of smoke.

Also, with so many actors, the potential costuming costs were daunting.

By the time it came down to make a final decision of whether or not to pursue "Ghetto," the notion seemed especially absurd. Famous Door's production of "Two Planks and a Passion" had been a financial disaster. The play had a production budget of $50,000, but the show was a huge disappointment at the box office. The resultant crippling loss of $35,000 was a threat to the continuing existence of Famous Door.

Had business logic prevailed, this would have been a time for retrenchment and cost reduction.

"My confidence was shaken," managing director Larry Neumann Jr. says. "After what we had been through with `Two Planks,' this proposal was very, very scary."

But unlike most managing directors of arts organizations, Neumann is also an actor who understood MacLean's passion (and he knew he could probably expect a juicy acting role for himself in this show).

Dan Rivkin, then Famous Door's artistic director, says he was "really drawn to the script." And MacLean continued to push for the gamble.

"I have always believed," MacLean says, "that if something is really risky then it's usually worth doing. This was a play that many theaters in Chicago had clearly been too frightened of to do. And it felt to me like it was right up our alley."

Risk prevailed.

What followed over the summer of 1999 was a typical off-Loop narrative spiced with foolhardy budgeting, desperate cost cutting, reckless use of credit cards and feverish - but largely unsuccessful - attempts at fundraising. Even though the plug was almost pulled on "Ghetto" several times, Famous Door made it to opening night.

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When an off-Loop theater company decides to do a play, it must first create a budget of the projected costs. In large arts institutions such as the Goodman or Steppenwolf Theatres, production budgets are only a small piece in a financial pie dominated by the huge ongoing operating expenses necessary to maintain a building (or buildings) and a large permanent staff.

But off-Loop troupes such as Famous Door live and die by the income and expenditures directly related to production. With no building to run and only Neumann receiving a full-time salary before this fall, Famous Door's day-to-day expenses are relatively low - the annual budget, even including all productions, was only about $250,000 for this fiscal year.

But that does not mean that a show like "Ghetto" is cheap to produce.

When Neumann and Rivkin finally sat down and "took a run at the numbers," they came up with a total cost for "Ghetto" of somewhere between $86,000 and $93,000. The most money Famous Door had ever put into a show before was the $50,000 ponied up to stage "Two Planks."

Part of the reason for the increase in costs was Neumann's desire to move Famous Door to a higher level of Equity contract. Theaters in Chicago can be divided into union companies (which must adhere to certain salary minimums and regulated working conditions) and non- union companies (which can pay as little and do whatever they want, as long as they follow the law).

In an attempt to help smaller companies and generate more work for its members, the union of actors and stage managers further subdivides so-called "Equity contracts" into tiers. In Chicago, most of the Equity theaters operate under Chicago Area Theatres (or CAT) contracts, which hinge largely on three variables: the number of Equity actors in the cast, the amount of their salaries and the number of permitted performances per week.

Beginning in January 1996, Famous Door became an Equity theater operating under a Tier-N contract, the lowest level of CAT contract, requiring only one Equity performer. But there were now several members of the ensemble - including Roderick Peeples, Patrick New, Marc Grapey and Neumann himself -- with Equity memberships, meaning that they could not act in "Ghetto" without a union contract.

Rivkin, a man with family responsibilities, also was anxious to join the union.

"So I already decided," says Neumann, "that we had to go to either Tier One or Tier Two."

Tier Two requires more Equity actors and slightly higher salaries, but allows for a maximum of five performances a week and thus more potential income at the box office. Tier One comes at lower cost but allows only four performances a week. At either level, no actor is getting rich. Even in the more generous Tier Two, the weekly minimum is only $202.

Such low wages also apply to those behind the scenes. MacLean directed "Ghetto" for a $1,000 stipend, which amounts to an hourly rate below minimum wage. The four main designers -- sets, costume, lighting and sound -- for the show were also each paid about $1,000.

Such fees are typical. While a set designer can expect to make $6,000-$10,000 per show at a theater such as the Goodman (depending on the complexity of the work), the designers' union has minimums as low as $1,800, which is about what, for example, the Victory Gardens paid designer Jack McGaw to create the set for this fall's "Bluff."

"At non-union theaters like the Next Theatre, the fee can be as low as $500," says McGaw. "When I work in graphic design, I can make that much in a couple of days." Still, McGaw, like many other passionate designers, keeps accepting gigs for reasons other than money.

MacLean would understand.

"I'm not doing this for the money but for artistic reward," the director says. "Down the road, when Famous Door can pay more, I'll be happy to accept a larger check."

Non-Equity actors invariably accept even smaller checks. The non- union actors in "Ghetto" are making $50 a week for their services. By off-Loop standards, that's reasonably generous. Many troupes -- such as the Trap Door Theatre -- cannot afford to pay their actors. And those that do try to offer something that ties salaries to how well a show does. If a show makes a profit, actors snag a percentage point or two of the net. But that often means a percentage of nothing.

"We at least wanted to have something fixed so they knew money would be coming in," says Neumann. "We keep trying to upgrade our salaries."

But not that fast. Since the more ambitious Tier Two would have added about $8,000 in production costs, Neumann eventually decided to produce "Ghetto" under a Tier One contract.

Then there were the questions of how many actors to include in the show and how many Equity contracts to include.

"We asked Cal to see if he could keep the cast under 20 and the number of Equity contracts to four," says Rivkin. "And if he found himself having to choose between a non-Equity actor and someone requiring a union contract, we asked him to look a little harder at the non-Equity person."

MacLean agreed and Neumann penciled in a production payroll of $33,895. But there were other expenses it seemed impossible to reduce - the Theatre Building charges about $1,500 a week in space rental; production materials would be at least $10,000; royalties paid to the playwright's agents were $4,500. By the time various administrative expenses had been added, Neumann was up to that $86,020 figure.

And where was that money to come from?

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The most obvious place, of course, is through the box office. But unlike theaters that have a subscription base guaranteeing a good proportion of their income, Famous Door has to start from scratch with each production.

Attendance at off-Loop theaters can be notoriously low. In recent weeks, the Shattered Globe Theatre, Footsteps Theatre and several other troupes have played to houses smaller than the number of people in the cast. And since reviews can have a huge effect on attendance, it's difficult to predict in advance of opening night how many people will attend a show after the reviews have hit.

Famous Door learned that painful lesson with the poorly reviewed "Two Planks," which brought in less than a quarter of what was projected.

Still, Neumann could look back on Famous Door's several past shows, including "Beautiful Thing," which attracted large audiences. Using an average ticket price of $24 (it's actually $22-$26, depending on the night) and a projected attendance of 37 people per performance (in a theater seating about 150), he decided that "Ghetto" could expect to draw $35,600 at the box office.

That meant Famous Door would be in the hole by more than $50,000. The rest of the money would have to be found somewhere.

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Famous Door's overall financial picture has been greatly improved over the last two years by a board member and investment banker named Noble Franson. Having decided that the troupe had been woefully poor at writing grant proposals, Franson helped to secure a multiyear annual grant of $20,000 from the MacArthur Foundation and to increase funding from City Arts and the Illinois Arts Council to $4,000 and $52,000, respectively. The theater's outreach program, Open Door, had also received some grant funding, including $29,000 from a group called Retirement Research.

Another moneymaker for Famous Door is the troupe's long-running co- production of "Hellcab" at the Ivanhoe Theatre, which brings in about $1,000 a month in royalties to Famous Door, which set the taxi in motion.

But most of this money was already earmarked for day-to-day expenses, including Neumann's salary and office costs, and would not stretch to covering the production budget for "Ghetto." Some of the money was being used to overcome the "Two Planks" fiasco. And to make matters worse, Franson had left the city in spring 1998 to take a job with the International Monetary Fund.

Enter Emmy Kreikamp, a graduate student at Kent State University who had some background in fundraising, who had been working at Famous Door as an administrative intern.

"Emmy developed a proposal and said that if we could find some money to pay her, she'd do the fundraising for `Ghetto,' " says Rivkin. Since there seemed to be no way the troupe could do the show without some infusion of cash, the board agreed to Rivkin and Neumann's request to hire Kreikamp part time.

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Large theaters such as the Goodman or Steppenwolf can raise money based on their high institutional profile. Smaller companies have to use other tactics.

Kreikamp decided over the summer to target groups that might have a specific interest in a Holocaust-theme drama such as "Ghetto." She visited The Donor's Forum, a fundraising resource center in downtown Chicago that is designed to help non-profits such as Famous Door.

She then made proposals to several Jewish family foundations, such as the Arie Crown Memorial Foundation and the Benjamin Rosenthal Foundation. In total, Kreikamp explored more than 100 such bodies.

It did not go well.

"Many of the foundations either did not want to fund a theater company, or didn't know us well enough to be able to take the risk, or didn't know the play or how it would be perceived," Kreikamp says.

In early August, Famous Door scheduled a reading of "Ghetto" that they hoped would pique the interest of people willing to contribute hard cash. But, although the event generated community awareness and artistic interest from the handful of Jewish community leaders (including two Holocaust survivors) in attendance, the event failed to attract the kinds of people with enough money to give and, ultimately, did not generate a dime in direct financial support.

The one financially positive result came from the Israeli Consulate. Although the Consulate philanthropic policies do not allow for direct contributions, the Israelis did offer to provide valuable in-kind support, such as flying in the playwright from Israel and assisting with marketing efforts.

Still, by the end of the summer, Kreilkamp had been unable to secure funding for the production, on which she would also serve as assistant director.

She, nonetheless, kept plugging away. And even now, several weeks after opening night, several of Kreilkamp's grant applications for "Ghetto" are pending."You have to get used to rejection in fundraising, and the number of denials can be very discouraging," Kreikamp says. "But if you can't get past that, you'll never raise any money."

Kreikamp had secured some excellent prospects for future cash and attracted funding for Open Door. In the short term, however, Neumann still had to face a situation where there were no guarantees of funding to make up that hole in the "Ghetto" budget.

His immediate reaction at the end of the summer? "Cancel the show."

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Part of the problem, Neumann now admits, was that Famous Door is not one of the Chicago theaters with an ongoing niche (such as the About Face Theatre, a gay troupe), so it constantly has to build relationships from scratch. Still more problematic was that this targeting fundraising had started much too late. "We really needed to work a year or so in advance," he says. "Some of these funders only make their decisions once a year."

But while Kreikamp had been filling out forms, MacLean had been casting the show, which was already moving forward.

"The ship," says Rivkin, "had already moved out of the port."

So at the company meeting in August, the question was whether it should be allowed to sail on. With Neumann worried about financial ruin, serious consideration was given to shelving the show.

Instead, Neumann and Rivkin eventually bowed to their artistic halves and the wishes of ensemble members and decided to refigure the numbers so that "Ghetto" would be slated to bring in more money at the box office. Instead of projecting 25 percent attendance, Neumann went with 33 percent. Some costs were cut in the production budget. (MacLean was told he could not rip out the floor for the sewer scene.) And Neumann and Rivkin spoke to the members of the Famous Door board and asked for their help.

Through a combination of gifts and deferred payments on outstanding loans, the board came to the show's rescue. And, although he did not reveal it, Neumann and other company members agreed to put some of their own money into the show, which was finally beginning to attract some lucrative and vital group bookings.

"The defining moment in the production of `Ghetto,' " says board chairman John Dalton, an attorney who also helps run his family's two pizza restaurants, "was when the company and board had confidence enough to put $20,000 of its own money into the show. Without that vote of confidence, we would never have gone forward."

By now, Rivkin was focused not so much on finding the total budget but on simply getting the show to opening night. Many of the cost items -- such as rent for performance weeks and some of the actors' salaries -- could be deferred until after opening. For the bills (like set materials) that had to be paid immediately, there was always the Famous Door credit card.

And it was through that uneasy but entirely typical alliance of deferred payments, personal loans, gifts, low salaries, people working for no money, favors called in, and much flexing of plastic that "Ghetto" eventually made it to the stage.

Budget for `Ghetto'

Approved by the Famous Door board of directors in May. All income and expenses are projected; much of the unearned income did not come in as planned.

Production income

Assumes an 8 1/2-week run, four nights per week,

$24 per ticket, with 25 percent of capacity.

Single ticket sales

$30,200

Group sales

$5,400

Total production income

$35,600

Unearned income

Foundation project support

$37,000

Grants from groups such as the MacArthur Foundation

Senior outreach program

$6,000

Grants to support its program for senior citizens

Total foundation support

$43,000

Government grants

$0

Individual support

$2,500

Private gifts, often from Famous Door board members

Benefit events

$5,000

Performance/party fundraisers

Total unearned income

$50,500

Total income

$86,100

Payroll

Performers/musicians

$20,604

Cast of 16 actors, four musicians

Stage management

$2,191

Stage director, assistant

Designers

$4,700

Sets, lighting, costumes, sound

Running crew/techs

$3,500

People who move props between scenes and

backstage/light board operators

Front of house

$900

Administrative/box office staff

Directors

$2,000

Musical director, director

Total payroll

$33,895

Materials

Set materials

$4,000

Costumes

$3,000

Props

$1,000

Lighting

$1,500

Sound

$500

Total materials

$10,000

Advertising

Photography

$500

Print

$10,000

Promotional

$3,500

Other

$1,000

Total advertising

$15,000

Other production expenses

Royalties

$4,500

To playwright, through agent

Miscellaneous

$750

Unexpected costs, such as props that break or costumes

that need alteration

Rent

$15,000

To the Theatre Building

Travel

$1,000

To fly in playwright from Israel

Total other production expenses

$21,250

Administrative expenses

Utilities

$0

Fees

$400

Supplies

$0

Payroll expenses

$400

Health insurance and pension/welfare

$5,075

Total administrative expenses

$5,875

Total expenses

$86,020

Net income

$80