Amidst the joy of moving into a new office space and preparing to take possession of our new theatre, I’ve been reflecting on what we have accomplished while in residence at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie. Acknowledging some of the challenges, I think it’s important to realize what we achieved. After 29 years of producing in that location, I’m a bit nostalgic about the work and proud of what we’ve accomplished. As the longest tenured artistic director in LORT (League of Resident Theatres), I have some perspective, and as myopic as my view may be, the results stand on their own. For those newer to Northlight or those who have been with us for decades, it feels like an appropriate time to recall some of those achievements. 

I remember walking into the North Shore Center for the first time as Artistic Director. I thought to myself, “We need to get back to Evanston.” Of course, I wasn’t involved in the strenuous effort to raise the funds to move into Skokie, so I must have seemed ungrateful for landing in a new home after being itinerant for over a year. And we were lucky to have found a space that we could call home. It stabilized our company and helped us build our audience base. The board breathed a sigh of relief and was delighted to land somewhere permanent. It was affordable, and our rent covered costs like the box office and maintenance, which we could not have afforded on our own. It saved us at a critical time, and thanks to some donors like Paul Finnegan, the board president who hired me, we survived. 

At the time, we only had eight employees. Our bookkeeper was part-time, as was some of the staff. I myself was appearing at Steppenwolf in Playboy of the Western World with Martha Plimpton, and my predecessor was still in his office, so I sat at an intern desk calling agents and other artistic directors to introduce myself.

Sometime that year, I pitched our Managing Director on hiring a full-time associate for him, and suggested Janet Mullet, whom I had worked with at Organic Theatre. It proved to be a fortuitous choice, as Janet rose through the ranks and is still with us today, now as our Managing Director. And the road to progress had begun. I’ll never forget Janet making skulls on the dock for Skull in Connemara, which we would smash into the audience every night. It was all hands on deck in those days, and it came in handy as I would direct Skull again at Baltimore Center Stage. I took the formula for the plaster skulls with me.

The first season that I programmed had two musicals and a play in which I would appear. We jumped from just over 2,000 subscribers to around 8,000. It was astonishing. We couldn’t afford it, but my first season was ambitious and aggressive, and it included a world premiere of a play called The Gamester, which was a farce in rhymed couplets set in the 1700s.  E. Faye Butler played Dinah Washington in Dinah Was, which moved to the Arena Stage after it closed in Skokie. And I directed a play called Visiting Mr. Green, an Off-Broadway commercial hit, featuring Mike Nussbaum and Guy Adkins. It moved to the Royal George after we closed. The musical Side Show, which was a cult hit on Broadway, brought people to Northlight that had never heard of us before.

It was not what Northlight subscribers had been used to, and that was the point. It shook up our brand, and I think we needed to do that. In the ensuing years, we continued to stretch into new work development, most notably with The Last Five Years, which arguably was our most prestigious production to date. It ended up Off-Broadway, then many years later, a film with Anna Kendrick, and last year, finally on Broadway with Nick Jonas. Again, we were out over our skis financially at the time, but it was an investment in our artistic future. Years later, at opening night on Broadway, I was moved to get a shout-out from the stage by Jason Robert Brown, as well as Northlight’s name in the credits of the film.

There are other artistic achievements that didn’t receive as much attention, but which are just as important, maybe more so. We introduced Dominique Morisseau to Chicago theatre with Detroit ‘67 and subsequently Skeleton Crew, before it went on to Broadway. Our production of Eclipsed by Danai Gurira is still one of my favorites, a beautiful production directed by Hallie Gordon. Jason Loewith, who was the artistic director of Evanston’s Next Theatre, told his board, “If BJ is going to do plays like Eclipsed, then there may not be a place for Next any longer.” It was not our intention to overshadow another theatre, only to stretch our current audience and invite new audiences.

Collaboration with our theatrical peers has long been a hallmark of Northlight. Jason Loewith asked me to direct Caryll Churchill’s A Number at Next, and I invited Michael Halberstam from Writers to direct The Gamester. In one season, we did two world premieres in a row, Funnyman with George Wendt and Tim Kazurinsky at the North Shore Center, followed by Charm, which we produced at the Steppenwolf Garage, about a transgender woman who taught etiquette to a class of homeless trans teens. It won two Jeff Awards, for best new work and for Dexter Zollicoffer’s performance as Mama Gloria. 

For a few seasons, we had what we called the City Series, in which we invited companies from Chicago to perform in our space. As part of that series, Sex and the Second City was wildly successful and went on to play in a dozen regional theatres like Woolly Mammoth, Arizona Theatre Company, and the Guthrie, and continues to do so in others. We brought in Midnight Circus, The House Theatre, and The Neo Futurists’ The Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen. Eventually, the costs of the program weren’t sustainable, but for a time, it allowed us to bring our audience fresh, challenging work from smaller theatres that they wouldn’t see otherwise.

There were also box office disappointments, which I call “the experiments.” They may not have sold a lot of tickets, but they fulfilled our mission to promote change of perspective and encourage compassion. Two-time Tony winner Frank Galati was one of Northlight’s founders, and he would say, “Fail again, fail better.” Frank was known for taking extraordinary risks. (He was also an Oscar nominee and a close friend.) And this is the point of Chicago theatre: to risk, to fail, to learn, and to grow. The late Martha Lavey, the long-time Artistic Director of Steppenwolf, referred to the programming of only Broadway and Off-Broadway hits as “McTheatre.” I couldn’t agree with her more. The world premiere of The Outgoing Tide took a risk on a challenging subject, but it remains one of the best sellers in Northlight history. Prayer for the French Republic, co-produced with Theater Wit, was a big risk, and despite some concern about programming it, it is now our most successful show in a decade. 

Laura Schellhardt, now our Literary Manager, teaches undergraduate playwriting at Northwestern. Several years ago, she asked me to mentor one of her students, Selina Fillinger. After a brainstorming session, Selina and I agreed on the topic of a new play: a teen joining ISIS over the internet. After reading the finished script and directing a reading at Northwestern, I decided it was good enough to put in our season. The resulting work, Faceless, ended up a success for us, despite the nearly unheard-of choice of a regional theatre of our size to produce a work by an undergrad student. Our production transferred to The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and it went on to be produced in London. Selina later wrote the Broadway hit POTUS and now writes for the HBO show The Morning Show. Sometimes risks pay off.

Chicago audiences applaud our successes and embrace our experiments. They honed our talents, supported our efforts, and forgave our failures. And at Northlight, we give them those opportunities wholeheartedly.

In one season, we produced the musical Grey Gardens and Martin McDonagh’s bloody play, The Lt. of Inishmore. One was among our top ten sellers for several years, and the other sent some of our more sensitive subscribers scurrying up the aisle. But the boldness of the programming shifted perceptions and brought in audiences that had never come to Skokie before. Nothing made me happier than to see Tracy Letts doubled up in laughter at the sight of dismembered bodies all over the stage. Before he wrote August: Osage County, Tracy appeared at Northlight as an actor alongside Mike Nussbaum in Tuesdays with Morrie. Inishmore also starred Steppenwolf ensemble member Cliff Chamberlin and Kelly O’Sullivan, whose films are now finding great success. 

And speaking of supporting artists before their landmark work, Tony winner David Cromer directed Tarell McCraney and me in Blue/Orange at Northlight, before David’s Our Town made him one of New York’s favorite directors, and before Tarell won an Oscar for Moonlight. Michael Shannon appeared in two plays at Northlight before earning two Oscar nominations. 

It’s important to reinforce artists who have succeeded with our audiences in the past. It’s why John Mahoney, Mike Nussbaum, and George Wendt were so beloved— and though they worked at other theatres as well, our audience considered them their own. Similarly, E. Faye Butler returns to Northlight this season in Pearl’s in the House directed by Kenneth Roberson. Faye has countless credits all over the country, but Northlight audiences know her as Ella Fitzgerald in Ella, and Dinah Washington in Dinah Was. Gifted artists whose performances we trust and love are part of what made regional theatre so successful and lasting. 

I frequently hear people say, “When you move to Evanston, you’ll be able to do so much more.” I’m not sure what they mean by that. More than Eclipsed? More than White Guy on the Bus? More than Nina Simone: Four Women, or Detroit ’67, or The Heart Sellers? 

In a meeting with my artistic team, Georgette Verdin and Laura Schellhardt, Laura said we should have t-shirts made that said, “We already do that.” I would agree. We have stretched our audiences, we have collaborated with other theatres, we have initiated projects, and commissioned new work. We support women directors and playwrights. Lauren Gunderson began her upward journey as one of the country’s most produced playwrights with the Christmas at Pemberley series, which we commissioned. She has been a loyal collaborator, and we have served her work proudly with directors like Georgette, Jessica Thebus, and Marti Lyons.

In my tenure, we have produced more BIPOC plays than my five predecessors combined. We have transferred plays to other theaters here and in other countries. Thanks to our Executive Director Tim Evans, and his relationship with Paul Fahy at the Galway International Arts Festival, we have exported four productions to Galway, Ireland. And all this has happened while we worked in Skokie. 

But now we move to Evanston. Thanks to Tim, Kim, Janet, and a legion of staff, artists, donors, and audiences, we have “a second chance to make a first impression.” And the difference is, we will do it from our own home. We know how to do it, and maybe now many more will notice. Because “we already do that.”