Northlight Theatre, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this season, has one of the more unusual founding stories.
According to BJ Jones, who worked with the company as an actor during its early years, and has served as its artistic director since 1998: “It began in 1974 as the outgrowth of a Masters Thesis project undertaken by Gregory Kandel, then a new graduate of Northwestern University and now the head of his own influential arts management consultant firm. Gregory had given himself the challenge of setting up a LORT company [a resident theater operating under the Equity contract], and he reached out to the well-established actor Mike Nussbaum [now 90, and still working] to serve as its artistic director.”
Originally named the Evanston Theatre Company (it was renamed Northlight in 1984), it set up shop in the auditorium of the then decommissioned Kingsley Elementary School on Green Bay Road.
The company’s inaugural production was Tom Stoppard’s “Jumpers,” a satire about philosophy that starred Nussbaum under the direction of Frank Galati, the company’s third founding member. Within three years the theater’s subscriber base grew to more than 6,000, making it one of the largest not-for-profit theater companies in the Chicago area.
“We did a lot of adventurous work from the start, including many new plays, which remains an important part of our mission,” said Jones. “Michael Maggio took over as artistic director in 1983, and oversaw such productions as the new musical, ‘City on the Make,’ Galati’s stage adaptation of ‘Heart of a Dog’ and ‘Dealing’ (about the Chicago commodities market)’.”
“I have great memories of those early days,” said Nussbaum. “Doing Stoppard’s ‘Jumpers,’ then doing ‘Quartermaine’s Terms,’ directed by BJ, who brought me back from New York, where I was in ‘Glengarry Glen Ross.’ And then there was ‘Someone To Watch Over Me,’ the last show from a long list I directed. Fun plays and fun times.”
Russell Vandenbroucke served as artistic director from 1987-1997, during which time the theater lost its home, produced on a variety of different stages, and almost perished before settling into Skokie’s North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in 1997.
Jones’ decades-long familiarity with Northlight and its audience — and his teaming in 2007 with Chicago veteran Timothy J. Evans as executive director — has greatly strengthened the theater’s overall operation and enhanced audience loyalty. The theater has an annual budget of $3 million and close to 7000 subscribers. And it attracts 60,000 people a year — about one-third from the North Shore, one-third from Evanston and Skokie, and another third from the city, whose residents also are the biggest single ticket buyers.
“BJ has striven to present a wide variety of plays — comedies, musicals, drama, and challenging intellectual plays,” said Nussbaum. “And they are all well directed and acted by artists from the Chicago community.”
The production of new plays has always been of crucial importance to Jones. He has showcased such writers as: Bruce Graham (“The Outgoing Tide,” which starred John Mahoney and Rondi Reed, “Stella and Lou,” with Rhea Perlman and Francis Guinan, and the upcoming “White Guy on the Bus,” also to star Guinan); Craig Wright (“Grace,” which starred Michael Shannon, who later reprised his role on Broadway); and more recently, Irish writer Christian O’Reilly (whose “Chapatti,” directed by Jones, and co-starring Mahoney and Penny Slusher, traveled to the Galway Arts Festival this past summer, where Jones has established solid ties).
Jones also remains hugely proud of the fact that Northlight presented the 2001 world premiere of “The Last Five Years,” Jason Robert Brown’s widely performed two-character musical, soon to be released as a film starring Anna Kendrick.
Northlight’s impressive track record put him in a strong position when he recently sought the rights to actress Amanda Peets’ fine new play, “The Commons of Pensacola” (running through Oct. 19), a riff on a family similar to the Madoffs.
“I’m not sure everyone is aware of just how much new work we’ve done,” said Jones. “But my goal in the coming years is to expand Northlight’s relationship with young playwrights, and to do more commissioning of new work, as we have done with ‘Shining Lives: A Musical,’ based on Melanie Marnich’s play, set to have its world premiere this spring.”
“As a director, BJ knows how to tell a story,” said Philadelphia-based writer Graham. “He also is one of the few artistic directors in America who will call you to explain why he can’t do your play, whether for practical or emotional reasons. And he always is trying to figure out his audience, but never in a pandering way.”
That certainly is reflected by Jones’ ongoing efforts to lure an African American audience to Northlight, with shows ranging from “Gee’s Bend” and “Ella” to “It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues” and “Eclipsed” (about the Liberian civil war). Also clear has been Jones’ commitment to tapping emerging directors — from Jessica Thebus and Dexter Bullard to Devon De Mayo, Robin Witt and Jonathan Barry.
“I’ve done about 15 plays at Northlight through the years,” said actress Linda Kimbrough, who is now starring in Peet’s play. “And I have great memories — working on David Mamet’s ‘The Old Neighborhood,’and meeting Larry Gelbart [of “M*A*S*H” fame] when John Mahoney and I did his play ‘Better Late’ in 2008.”
“It was Mike Nussbaum who set the standard for us all from the start,” Kimbrough said. “And I really take my hat off to BJ, who has met the huge challenge of running a theater today, with finances so precarious, and a whole new way of promoting shows through social media. He also has become a true mentor to young artists.”
During its four decades, Northlight Theatre has mounted more than 160 productions, including some 40 world premieres. And now Jones says: “My dream is to be able to take more risks.”
