Great news: Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood has a new performing arts venue. No, it isn’t a revival of the Uptown Theatre, the glorious old Balaban & Katz movie palace I cowrote a book about last year, though I still hope that the Uptown will reopen. But in the meantime, let’s celebrate the opening of TimeLine Theatre’s new home just a few blocks away, at 5035 North Broadway.
TimeLine Theatre has been producing plays since 1997, but it hasn’t had a permanent home of its own until now. For a while, its actors performed in a small space tucked in next to the Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ, where I caught TimeLine’s lively 2011 staging of The Front Page. After years of fundraising, planning, and construction, TimeLine now has a welcoming venue in the heart of Uptown.
I am a bit sad that the project wasn’t able to preserve more of the handsome industrial structure that formerly stood at this spot: the W.C. Reebie and Brother Building, a furniture storage warehouse built in the early 20th century. Here’s a photo I took of it in 2018.
But according to a state document, “long-term water infiltration had substantially reduced the load-bearing capacity of the concrete floors and corroded the ties between the masonry façade and the internal structure.” So it’s understandable that TimeLine constructed what is largely a new building.
The auditorium reminds me of theaters like Writers Theatre in Glencoe, offering flexibility for how shows will be staged. With 250 seats, it can hold a good-size crowd, but it still feels intimate. The building also features some rather cool lobby and bar spaces. I can imagine stopping in here, even on a night when I’m not seeing a play.
For the inaugural show in its new home, TimeLine chose the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 classic An Enemy of the People. My first exposure to this play was the version adapted and directed by Robert Falls at the Goodman Theatre in 2018, which I found startlingly relevant to the 21st century’s current events—and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, raising some of the same controversies about public health that Ibsen had dramatized in this play so long ago.
At TimeLine, Ron OJ Parson is directing Amy Herzog’s adaptation of An Enemy of the People, with an excellent ensemble adding some subtle touches of humor to the dire drama.
I saw a performance one week after the official opening night, and the house was nearly full. Based on the conversations I overheard, some audience members were familiar with Ibsen’s play while others knew little about it.
The real test of any theater building is how it feels to be in the room with the actors and your fellow audience members. On this particular night at TimeLine, I was hanging on every word the actors spoke and keenly sensing the reactions of people sitting around me—nervous laughs at some moments, and a certain shuddering at the follies of human nature.
The experience made me eager to return for TimeLine’s future shows. TimeLine seems to be selling a lot of tickets to this first show at its new venue. For the second time, TimeLine has extended the closing date for An Enemy of the People. It’s now scheduled to run through June 27. For details, see timelinetheatre.com.
(All photos by me, except for Brett Beiner’s photo from the TimeLine production.)