Theater on the move to Governors State University

Theater on the move to Governors State University

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So here’s good news, and a second thought. Chicago Community Trust has just awarded $50,000 to the Center for Performing Arts at Governors State University to bring in eta Creative Arts, MPAACT and Silk Road Theatre Project. The program is called “One More Night” and
will offer just that: a single encore performance at the Center from each of the featured companies. Eta will go first, with a production in November, followed by MPAACT in January and Silk Road (TBA).

The notion, of course, is to improve access to Chicago’s diverse theatrical culture to audiences in the southern suburbs, which are nearly as far removed from eta (on the Southeast Side) as from Silk Road (in the Loop) and MPAACT (in Lincoln Park).

But as fellow Dueling Critic Jonathan Abarbanel and I will be discussing this coming Friday on Eight-Forty-Eight, the least-well-served part of our listening area is not the South Side, or even the southern suburbs, but the West Side. All kudos to Governors State for creating this program and getting it funded; but wouldn’t it be great if the Trust could find a partner with whom to extend the program on the West Side? Westinghouse High School, for instance–already a transfer house for eta–has a state-of-the-art theater that could probably accommodate other companies as well.

If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed …