Chicago may have the most active noncommercial theater scene in the country, but it exists in a state of perpetual impermanence. Just try to get your hands on the scripts for any of the Curious Theatre Branch plays that have thrilled you over the last 15 years, or the Theater Oobleck show that knocked you out last month. Every four to six weeks, as off-Loop companies tear apart their sets and prepare to build new ones, another dozen or so original plays vanish into desk drawers and storage boxes across the city.
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Playwright John Pierson started his publishing company, Hope and Nonthings–an outgrowth of his theater company of the same name–to do something about that. Since setting up shop in early 2000, he’s published handsome paperbacks of work by Mickle Maher, Anita Loomis, Dave Awl, and the Neo-Futurists, as well as a collection of his own plays, written under the pen name Ian Pierce; last year Diana Slickman, former managing director for the Neo-Futurists, became his partner. They’ve also published two books by former Screeching Weasel front man Ben Weasel and put out a CD by Pierson’s acoustic pop-punk sextet, Even in Blackouts. So far, it’s the punk stuff that’s sold the best.
“That record came out right before we were starting a tour in Philadelphia,” says Pierson. “We got there, to this hole-in-the-wall venue, and we thought, ‘Oh jeez, another one of these, just us and all the crackheads in the neighborhood.’ But something like 400 people showed up; it sold out. And they sang along with every song–and we’d never met any of them. It was pretty much overnight semifame.”
Maher was initially reluctant, but ultimately agreed to sign on. Once Slickman had secured his consent she pitched the idea to Pierson, who was game. Maher’s book came out last year and so far has spawned productions of his plays in Saint Louis, Austin, and London.
