Copyright 1999 by the Chicago Tribune)

Famous Door Theatre lost $35,000 on its last show, creating a financial crisis. So what does it do next? Stage the most expensive and ambitious production in the company's history.

On a Monday in May, a half-dozen actors gather at the otherwise deserted Theatre Building to execute what's known as a "strike."

They are dismantling the set, packing away the costumes and removing the lighting equipment for the production of "Two Planks and a Passion," which closed the day before and must be moved to make way for another show. "Two Planks," a period piece by Anthony Minghella, dealt with the rivalry between two guilds that put on passion plays. The Famous Door's forlorn set looks like the loser's camp.

Normally, there would be many people helping, but "Two Planks" closed early and lost the company, Famous Door Theatre, nearly $35,000, creating a financial crisis. It's so bad the troupe can't even afford the $10 a day it often pays actors and others to come in and help with post-production.

"Sometimes, striking a set can be fun," says actor Roderick Peeples, who's been with Famous Door since 1991 and helped with the sound design for "Two Planks." "If there are things about a show you hated, you enjoy getting revenge by tearing down its set. But so much hope and effort went into this one, and there was so much disappointment about the fate of `Two Planks,' that the atmosphere was deadly. Usually, someone brings in a boombox and plays music. This one was solemn, deadly ... more like a funeral."

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Members of Chicago's sprawling off-Loop theater scene are accustomed to such mood swings. Their fortunes fluctuate monthly, or weekly, and many such companies take their first bow in the fall only to disappear before the theater season ends, usually in late spring.

"It's a very uneven business in that, as far as most audiences are concerned, you're as good as your last show," says Marj Halperin, executive director of the League of Chicago Theatres. "There is no set formula, no timetable (for success). We've seen a lot of companies work up to midsize, or the brink of midsize. But for the next step, they need operational roots, artistic roots and depth."

Famous Door may be just such a company. It has been struggling for all of its 12 years, but the company has endured, and has often succeeded.

Only months before the "Two Planks" debacle, the company had a hit with the sentimental drama "Remembrance" and its production of "Beautiful Thing" went to off-Broadway (a landmark event for such a troupe). And the company was invited to perform at an arts festival in June in Singapore, all expenses paid.

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The League of Chicago Theatres counts 146 Chicago-area theater companies as members, including Famous Door. According to Halperin, there are 100 or so other, mostly small and fledgling, companies that are not members. All together, they produce some 400 new productions a year.

The Goodman and Steppenwolf Theatres stage, on average and including studio shows, eight productions annually and have budgets in the multimillions. Famous Door mounts three main productions a year and last season had a budget of approximately $300,000. There are tiny, struggling entities that do it for much less.

"The financial ups and downs of running a theater company would make a lot of business owners blanch," says Halperin. "It's a passion, and people will go much further out on a limb for this business than others, and ride the wave a lot longer before giving up."

Most theater companies are often a box-office disappointment away from the brink. Famous Door, for instance, had budgeted to earn $30,000 at the box office for "Two Planks" but sold only $7,000 in tickets; the company was able to absorb its losses with grants and even loans from its own board of directors.

Many other small theater companies do not qualify for grants, and such a financial blow would be lethal.

The wonder is that, given the odds, these people, these small theater companies, mount any shows at all. And yet they do, over and over, dozens of them week after week, often with no more acclaim than a single mention in the newspaper (if they're lucky enough to be reviewed at all; sometimes all they can hope for is a mention in the events listings) and the scattered applause of an elusive audience.

"There are two reasons (to) do it," says Jeff Dorchen, who would work with Famous Door as the music director of its next show. A veteran of work with smaller theater companies, Dorchen founded Theater Oobleck in 1983 and Theater for the Age of Gold in 1992. "Some people enjoy going (through the process) with a group; they need that sense of community. But most people do it because that's their work; they're artists. They have more opportunity to do their own work by creating a group than trying to get in an established company. Some people really need that support for their art -- and that's the payoff to the long hours and hard work."

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Later in May, as Famous Door's post-"Two Planks" rescue and rebuilding process begins, the company is doing it all with only one full-time staff member.

Managing director Larry Neumann Jr. oversees the budget, rents theater spaces, negotiates rights with agents and pays all the various part-time salaries, everything from actors in shows to the $10 a day to set strikers when they can afford them. He earns a little more than $20,000, at least when he doesn't voluntarily fail to cash a Famous Door paycheck to help the troupe.

In the company, Neumann is known for shaking his head a lot, for being cautious and curmudgeonly. A committed and critically acclaimed actor, he has dedicated his life to the theater. He has starred in Famous Door's "Hellcab," as well as in shows at the Goodman, Victory Gardens, Shakespeare Repertory and New Crime. For Neumann, keeping Famous Door alive isn't simply a business challenge, it is a labor of love.

The artistic side of the operation is guided by co-founder Dan Rivkin. He is, in many ways, Neumann's temperamental opposite: For Rivkin -- compact but powerfully built -- nothing is impossible. His dedication to theater manifests in what amounts to an unpaid full- time job -- hour after hour late at night reading scripts, attending meetings, schmoozing with fundraisers and board members and baby- sitting auditions and rehearsals. Although he is married and has a child and a full-time day job as a salesman for Johnson Controls, he has played a vital role, on and off stage, in all of the company's shows. But Rivkin, who isn't a member of the Actors Equity union, isn't paid by Famous Door even when he acts; at that level, normally only the union actors get paid.

There are other players at Famous Door -- actors, playwrights, technicians -- but it is Neumann and Rivkin who have their hands on the wheel after "Two Planks" sinks, and who are determined to keep Famous Door afloat.

"I think Famous Door has all the markings of a classic Chicago theater company," says Halperin. "Lots of energy, commitment and that roll up your sleeves and keep your eye on the art mentality that characterizes Chicago theater."

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As it became clear that "Two Planks" was in deep trouble, Rivkin and Neumann met with a small contingent from the company's volunteer board of directors at the Organic Theater in mid-May to confront an incipient financial collapse. They knew "Two Planks" would lose nearly $35,000 and wipe out the company's bank account.

With no real income or grant money expected until July, Neumann has no way to pay $13,000 in overdue bills. They include money owed to those actors who are members of the union and to the troupe's publicist, rent to the Theatre Building and a final balance due to the organization that provided the lighting equipment for "Two Planks." Even the office phone is in danger of being cut off.

"I need a loan," a weary Neumann tells the board. Slightly stooped, the bespectacled Neumann always seems like he's carrying the weight of the world.

"Some of these people will have to be put off," board chairman John Dalton says. "We can't possibly raise $13,000 between now and July."

The invariably sunny Rivkin approaches the problem with his unflappable optimism, but there is a growing air of futility, a sense of a group of likable, well-meaning people suddenly trapped in a corner. Even the per diem money provided in advance by the Singapore arts festival (a total of $800 per person) has been spent in advance.

"We might call those actors and ask if they would be willing to front the per diem money themselves and be reimbursed later," suggests a hopeful Rivkin.

"I can't make those calls anymore, Dan," Neumann fires back. "I just can't make those calls. I haven't cashed my own paycheck in six weeks."

For an instant, it looks like there is nowhere else to turn, that Famous Door has reached the end of its long and fruitful run.

"I believe organizations come through cycles and closing is the end of a cycle," says Susan Padveen, the former co-artistic director with Jeff Ginsberg of the National Jewish Theater, which went belly up in 1996. "You see it happening. Then you get to the point that you're as far you can get."

By the time "Two Planks" failed, Famous Door had already become adept at emergency procedures. They knew all about reaching out to friends and supporters, they'd done it so many times. But now Neumann seemed to be throwing in the towel.

"What if we just return the lighting equipment and tell them we'll have to settle that bill later?" Rivkin wonders. "I mean, what would happen? Could they arrest us?"

"No," says Neumann. "But it will just make it all the harder to rent from them next time."

At that, Rivkin falls silent.

"I'll call the board members right away and ask for emergency help," says board chairman Dalton at the end of this troubling, inconclusive Saturday meeting.

"We've been in tough spots before, and we'll climb out of this one too."

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After that meeting, Dalton sends a letter asking for contributions or loans from the actors, directors, designers and production managers who make up the company's artistic ensemble. The emergency hustle pays off -- a couple of people come through with some important loans -- but there are grumblings, especially from the artists.

"I have to say that my initial response was negative," actress Laura Fisher says. "It seems it was sent to the people who are constantly contributing already. That age-old conflict between the people who create and the financial people."

Another company member, a director named Karen Kessler, agrees. "I was surprised that they came to us for money," she says. "We make a commitment to the company all the time in terms of salary money voluntarily returned or in not making any salary at all. But I know how it works. To keep a theater company afloat, you have to do extreme things."

Things were almost easier, she adds, with a much smaller troupe, the Rivendell Theatre Company, that she co-founded and then left before joining Famous Door. "It's weird, because we didn't have money, either. But we learned to put on a show for $10,000, and that gives you a kind of freedom."

Famous Door has outgrown those days, but hasn't escaped the boom- or-bust cycle that plagues much of the theater scene.

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At the end of May, two weeks after the "Two Planks" closing, the artistic ensemble meets in the lobby of the Organic Theater, a tangle of furniture and boxes as Famous Door prepares to relocate its offices. It is moving to the Theatre Building on Belmont, a complex of three theaters and a shared lobby that rents theater space to small- and medium-sized troupes.

The move hasn't exactly helped the group's finances or its sense of precariousness.

Rivkin tells the ensemble, gathered in a circle, that $9,000 in loans from board members (including Rivkin) has rescued the situation -- for now. Then he embarks on an explanation of the theater's ambitious goals for the new season.

"We will be doing `Ghetto' as our first show," he says. "I know we've come off a big, expensive show, but `Ghetto' is important for us. It so fulfills our mission. It has a strong message that could impact people's lives, and it fits into what's going on in Kosovo."

Rivkin's a salesman by day and it shows: As he talks to the group, he is careful not to skip any of the show's marketing points.

Then Rivkin drops a bombshell: "Larry and I got together and worked up a budget, and we think it will come close to $100,000."

The gathering is stunned.

"Growth," managing director Neumann quickly interjects, with that sardonic, self-mocking style of his. "We should look at it as growth."

The budget for the year will mushroom to $500,000 as a result. Instead of retreat, Famous Door is intent on using the "Two Planks" disaster as a springboard for an even greater challenge -- a classic off-Loop theater gamble that might allow the company to go to a higher plane.

Three weeks later, the troupe's board of directors approves the record budget. "We'll either go on," Dalton says wryly, "or go bankrupt."

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Publicly, Rivkin applauds the board's green light. After all, he has been working with director and ensemble member Calvin MacLean to convince everyone of the merits of "Ghetto" and that it fits into the company's overall objectives. But privately, he has begun to reassess his own role in a company to which he has already given 12 years of his life. It's becoming clearer that growth might mean different things for him personally and for Famous Door.

"The key to longevity is having a strategy for handling growth," Halperin says. "(But) you have to be prepared for growth. You need artistic and business expertise; you have to have funding depth, not just one angel; you have to have an artistic mission that will see you through years, not just an idea for one really good show."

For Famous Door, the spring, summer and fall of this year are a study in these contrasts, a drama in miniature of the troubles and triumphs characteristic of this enduring Chicago arts movement. They will face this crisis and try to solve it; they will confront major changes in leadership and move on; they will plan and mount the most ambitious, expensive production in their history; and, most of all, they will struggle to keep their dream alive.

THE CAST OF CHARACTERS

Dan Rivkin

Rivkin graduated from Illinois State University in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in theater-acting/directing. After graduation, he began independently producing theater in Chicago. In 1986, he co- founded Famous Door Theatre and was the company's artistic director from 1989 until he resigned this year. In addition, Rivkin has also served on Famous Door's board of directors and currently holds the position of vice chairperson. He has acted in several productions (and received a Joseph Jefferson Citation for his acting work in "Salt of the Earth"). Rivkin has also worked at The Commons, American Blues, Raven, Next, Live Bait, Prop and Steppenwolf.

He is not paid for his work at Famous Door; his full-time job is as an account executive for Johnson Controls corporation, where he sells building automation controls, for fire and security systems.

Rivkin lives in Chicago with his wife, actress Elaine Rivkin (a Famous Door ensemble member), and their daughter, Elise.

Comments: "I grew up in Bloomingdale in the 1960s. I attended Lake Park High School in Roselle where I was mentored by Michael Dice, the drama teacher at Lake Park. In my senior year we won first place in the IHSA State Drama Competition, which won me a scholarship to attend Illinois State University as a theater student. At Illinois State I studied acting and directing and performed in more than 15 productions.

"My aspiration is to see Famous Door continue to grow into one of Chicago's premiere theaters and begin working with students in the Chicago high schools.

"I love the theater's potential for bringing people together in a live forum to share an experience that is created in the moment. It allows for a live interaction, and when it really works, it creates a dialogue within the community."

Karen Kessler

Kessler, 41, received her bachelor of arts degree from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and a master's in fine arts from University of Massachusetts at Amherst, in directing. She has been working as a freelance director in Chicago for past 10 years. She helped found the Rivendell Theatre Ensemble and was an associate artist at Touchstone Theatre. Kessler has been a member of Famous Door for 18 months, and since September has been artistic director, one of the company's only two full-time positions.

Comments: "I want to help the theater continue to grow, do good work, build its audiences and get the kind of exposure this very talented group of people deserves. Personally, I want to continue to direct shows I am interested in with people I am interested in working with.

"I do what I do for the very simple reason that it is where I get to be the most of what I am. When I am directing I feel like I am touching what is best in me and what is best in those with whom I am working. Why I love theater is harder to answer in a simple way. I love telling stories,

"I love the artistic reflection of life that hopefully helps us understand the world, each other and ourselves in a clearer way. And I love the wonderful flow of energy that you get between a live audience and the actors on stage, a flow of energy that makes each performance unique."

Larry Neumann Jr,

Neumann , grew up on the South Side of Chicago and in 1977 graduated from Thornwood High School in South Holland. He graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1981.

For four years, Neumann has been the managing director of Famous Door Theatre, one of the company's only two full-time positions.

Neumann played Geoffrey in the premiere of Sharon Evans' "The Tall Ships" at Live Bait Theatre. At the Steppenwolf Studio space, he played Elston Rupp in Roadworks' production of "Disappeared."

On television, he has appeared on "The Untouchables" as Adolph Hitler, and on "Early Edition," "America's Most Wanted" and PBS' "Roommates." He also played Lenny the Crank in the 1999 film "A Stir of Echoes."

He and his wife, Sandy Borglum (also an actress), live in Rogers Park.

Comments: "I've always been an actor. I played the Good Samaritan in a plaid bathrobe in 2nd grade summer bible school and been stage struck ever since.

"I was always told, `You're a character actor -- you're not going to get work until you're older.' But I've managed to do some wonderful things that have touched people early on. And now that I've just turned 40, people say I'm hitting my peak!

"Why do I do theater? When an audience and actor connect and take a journey together, theater comes close to revealing our souls."

Calvin MacLean

MacLean earned his bachelor's degree in history (1975) and a master's in acting from the University of Michigan (1977). In 1982, he got his master's in fine arts for directing from the University of Massachusetts.

He is now a professor of theater and head of directing at Illinois State University in Bloomington, where he has been since 1991. In 1995, MacLean was also appointed artistic director of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival in Bloomington.

MacLean directs regularly at Famous Door where he has been resident director since 1991 and an ensemble member since 1994. He is married to actress Rebecca MacLean. They have two children, Rachael, 5, and Sam, 2.

Comments: "My aspirations are to make theater that is entertaining and involving, and that expresses something true and worthwhile.

"Why do I do what I do? Because the work is immensely challenging and can be deeply satisfying. Making something `artful' in the theater involves me completely: my heart, my mind, my soul. I think anyone truly involved in the theater is an adventurer, someone searching for something beyond themselves. The most inspiring moments in the theater are like little revelations; one understands something very clearly and deeply for a moment. Adventuring toward those moments is why I do what I do.

"I love the sense of being alive in those moments of revelation, whether the moment is in rehearsal with actors, or in performance with actors and an audience."

Ensemble

- Carson Grace Becker

- Will Casey

- Hanna Dworkin

- Laura T. Fisher

- Marc Grapey

- J. Spencer Greene

- Scott Kennedy

- Karen Kessler

- Calvin MacLean

- Larry Neumann Jr.

- Patrick New

- Roderick Peeples

- Jeff Pines

- Dan Rivkin

- Elaine Rivkin

- Kirsten Sahs

- Mary Samerkyke

- Robert G. Smith

- Kelly Van Kirk

- Rita Vreeland

- Emily Kreilkamp (development manager)

Board of directors

- John Dalton (chair)

- Noble Franson (secretary)

- Ellie-A Telzer (treasurer)

- Dan Rivkin (vice chair)

- Noble Francis

- Marc Grapey

- Adam Helman

- Rich Jacobs

- Joe Killilea

- Sara K. Samet

- Lydia Stux

THE 13 YEARS OF FAMOUS DOOR

1987

Famous Door Theatre, founded by Dan Rivkin and Marc Grapey, stages its first play, "Black and Blue," in a 45-seat converted Uptown laundromat at 1052 W. Buena Ave., next to the L tracks.

1988

"Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs" premieres.

1989

Grapey leaves for Los Angeles.

Dan Rivkin and Elaine Brown, an ensemble member, marry.

Elaine Fisher, Jeff Green and Scott Kennedy join the company.

Famous Door participates in Off-Loop Theater Festival with "The Cenci," the company's only production this year.

1990

"Old Wives Tale" premieres, with Dan Rivkin as the Old Wife.

American premiere of "Salt of the Earth," the first Famous Door play directed by Cal MacLean. (It wins seven Joseph Jefferson Citations, the awards for non-union theaters.)

1992

Company establishes residence in a 99-seat theater at Jane Addams Center.

Famous Door launches "Women at the Door," a competition for female playwrights and directors.

"Conquest of the South Pole"premieres (six Jeff Citations).

"Hellcab Does Christmas"premieres.

1993

World premiere of "Shrapnel in the Heart."

Grapey returns to Chicago.

"Hellcab"gets name change and is mounted as a mainstage production.

1994

Chicago premiere of "Bother"(readings from the complete works of "Winnie the Pooh").

"Hellcab"moves to the Ivanhoe.

Designer Bob Smith, Jeff Still, Cal MacLean, Hanna Dworkin, Patrick New and Will Casey join the company.

1995

"The Shoemakers"was first Famous Door Equity production with first Equity actor, Byrne Piven, as guest artist.

World premiere of "The Dating Game: Uncensored."

Larry Neumann Jr. is hired as managing director.

1996

Chicago premiere of "Hitting for the Cycle: Nine Short Plays About Baseball."

1997

"The Living" premieres. (It wins three Joseph Jefferson Awards, for union theaters.)

Jane Addams Center Hull House refuses to renew Famous Door's lease; the company is suddenly homeless.

1998

World premiere of on"A Mislaid Heaven"(one Joseph Jefferson Award).

American premiere of on"Beautiful Thing"(one Jeff Award), playwright Jonathan Harvey's coming-of-age drama.

Karen Kessler, Carson Becker, Kelly Vankirk and Rita Vreeland join the company.

1999

Company's production of on"Beautiful Thing"opens Off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City.

American premiere of on"Two Planks and a Passion."

Kessler hired as first paid artistic director.

On Oct. 30, on"Ghetto" opens.

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In Tempo:

Monday. ACT 2. A change in leadership

Tuesday. ACT 3. The finances.

Wednesday. ACT 4. Auditions, rehearsals.

Thursday. ACT 5. Opening night.