Laugh Now, Eat Later
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The theater’s been operating since October, along with a fledgling training center managed by Angela Farruggia of Chemically Imbalanced Comedy. CIC had just lost its performance space at the Prodigal Son on Halsted a year ago when Farruggia saw a notice about Janisch’s project on a bulletin board and signed on to help. The theater is named for the building’s previous incarnation as a methadone clinic; it’s also been a church, a funeral parlor, and an art gallery. Janisch has kept it booked five nights a week with a lineup that includes Cleetus Friedman’s song and comedy solo Cracker, the Company Store’s Verbatim Verboten, and the cockney-on-speed dark comedy Mojo. Janisch is also planning on doing a little stand-up himself, when he’s not running the kitchen at Frankie J’s. The theater, with its antique wooden church seats and parquet floors, rents for $50-$100 for a two-hour performance slot and $15 an hour for rehearsals. “Frank’s not looking to make money off the actors,” Farruggia says. “The restaurant is supposed to subsidize the theater.”
Scott Powers, Michael Phillips’s editor at the Tribune, called about our item last week on the League of Chicago Theatres party in honor of the new critic. Regarding those pesky gifts the league was threatening to shower on Phillips, Powers said: “When we realized this was in the offing we made it very clear to the League of Chicago Theatres that this was not an appropriate gesture. Michael did not accept them.”
