Raven’s New Roost
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For Menendian, this was opportunity announcing itself, clear as a two-minutes-to-curtain warning. After 15 hard-won years in a former Rogers Park post office, Raven Theatre was about to become homeless. The company—consisting of Menendian; his wife, actress JoAnn Montemurro (who is also the theater’s manager); and five other actors, all with day jobs—had been informed the previous May that the Board of Education would be tearing down their building to put up a new elementary school. The theater had until November 15, 2000, to get out. It had built a following as a non-Equity ensemble producing American classics, and Menendian was convinced its survival depended on finding a new home in or close to the old neighborhood.
They were nomads for two years, mounting a couple shows a season in a variety of rented spaces. Then in ’85 they moved into the old post office at 6931 N. Clark, where it was always cheek by jowl in the lobby, patrons had to walk across the stage to use the restroom, and the toilet could be heard flushing during performances. Still, they managed to figure out their niche, mounting solid, serious, generally safe gems that enjoyed long runs. They made a gutsy decision to eschew subscription sales and preplanned seasons in order to keep the runs open, a strategy Montemurro sums up as “approach it one project at a time and see how it goes.” Their 1998 production of Six Degrees of Separation earned rave reviews and ran for eight months. The final show in that space, A View From the Bridge, ran six months (until its forced closure) and brought home five Jeff awards, including Best Production and, for Menendian, Best Director.
