In the arena of high-risk investing, few ventures are asperilous and as thoroughly resistant to rational judgment as thetheater. Art (and even entertainment) defies the principles ofanalysis applicable to pork bellies, crude oil and gold. And thefact that anyone other than the certifiably deranged would evenconsider buying stock in such an odds-defying field is a testament tothe formidable powers of that rare breed, the theatrical producer.
A successful producer is invariably a bit schizophrenic; abig-time gambler and wide-eyed dreamer on the one hand, and afull-time pragmatist who can build bridges between the worlds offinance and fantasy on the other. It also doesn't hurt if he'ssomething of a seer - a person with that rare ability to forecast theneeds and tastes of that most unpredictable and fickle group ofconsumers - the audience.
As producer Michael Frazier admitted: "I earn my living in thetheater, and there aren't too many people who do what I do who cansay that."
Frazier, who has an impressive list of Broadway, Off-Broadwayand national touring company hits to his credit (and some formidableflops, as well), has been particularly bullish on Chicago theater forseveral years now - ever since his production of "Nunsense" at theForum Theatre in southwest suburban Summit became a big moneymaker.
"Nunsense" may have been artistically negligible, but itconvinced Frazier that there was a strong potential audience forcommercial theater here. And his dream is to build on that financialbase as a means of subsidizing new, experimental and otherwise lesscommercially viable productions.
On Thursday, Frazier will begin what he hopes will be along-term investment in Chicago as he opens his new Halsted TheatreCentre at 2700 N. Halsted with a production of the mini-musical "OilCity Symphony." The investment is twofold for the moment, and willbe expanded gradually during the next year.
First, there's the theater itself. Just a few months ago it wasa storefront aerobics studio. Unlike several other developers on theNorth Side who have chosen to build expensive new theaters from theground up (with only one, the two-year-old Royal-George, a reality sofar), Frazier opted for renovation. And with a relatively smallinvestment of $150,000, he has turned the space into a flexible360-to-400-seat mainstage theater. An adjacent "black box" space,seating 160 to 180 and designed for smaller productions, also hasbeen created. And plans are under way for a 100-seat cabaret on thebuilding's second floor. A bar and parking facilities are part ofthe project, with a small cafe to open in the future.
"I'm up to my eyeballs in being a landlord," Frazier saidrecently. A meticulously groomed man of 52, whose speech is lacedwith the lilting but gravelly tones of Boston Irish, he seemed ratheramused that he was becoming a developer as well as a producer.
"Suddenly I'm learning about construction - about power problemsand air conditioning. But it's been great; there's a real Mickey(Rooney) and Judy (Garland) attitude on the part of the constructionpeople. I think they're enticed by the idea of working on a theater.
"There is a shortage of 400- to 500-seat houses in this city,"Frazier said. "More and more material is being created for that sizevenue, but very few such places exist here, and those that do (among them, the Apollo and the BriarStreet) are continually booked. I acquired the rights to `Oil City'over a year ago, and only after an extensive but futile six-monthsearch for the right theater did I come to the realization that I hadto create one."
Frazier also believes that non-profit companies must ventureinto theaters of that size if they are to survive. "What I intend todo is to find a balance between the commercial and the non-profit,"he said.
He will begin on the profit front with "Oil City," which hasbeen enjoying a successful Off-Broadway run since its opening inNovember, 1987. (The show received the 1988 Drama Desk Award and theOuter Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical).
Created by Mark Hardwick, Mike Craver, Debra Monk and MaryMurfitt (Hardwick and Monk were part of the team behind "Pump Boysand Dinettes"), the show features a quartet ofsinger-actor-instrumentalists in the roles of four 1960s graduates -talented hicks who reassemble for a high-school reunion honoringtheir first music teacher. The Chicago production will includeMurfitt, a member of the original cast, and will be directed by LarryForde, who also staged the New York production.
The show was recommended to Frazier by his partner, John Sharp,a Chicago-born dancer-choreographer-director who worked as anassistant to Bob Fosse. "John told me to go see this show inGreenwich Village," Frazier recalled. "I never say no, which meansthat much of my time is spent seeing dreadful stuff. But I enjoyedthis one."
"Oil City" is being produced by four investors - different fromthose who are backing the development of the theater complex itself,and from that which will underwrite Frazier's other ventures.Frazier has a core group of about 10 investors who he always turns tofirst. "They range from a New Orleans real estate developer and artspatroness to a Chicago doctor," he said. "The two things they have incommon is that they're all theater lovers, and they all stick by methrough thick and thin."
In addition to his plans for a series of new American plays, tobe staged in the "black box" space, the care and feeding of newmusicals is also a goal high on Frazier's list. "I love beinginvolved in the whole process, and I think there's an audience outthere like me that enjoys seeing in-process works," he said. "I'm nota fan of the workshop process, which presents a show without theessential design elements and doesn't really give the material a fairshake. But I do believe in small-scale productions that test ashow's worth."
One of the properties Frazier would like to remount is "Mail," amusical that proved to be a disaster last year when he produced it onBroadway. A big hit in California, "Mail" could be reworked andgiven a second life, Frazier believes. Among the Chicago talentsFrazier hopes to tap for such projects is William Pullinsi, artisticdirector of the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse.
And there are other shows Frazier is interested in producing,including "Dancing on Air," a musical version of George BernardShaw's "The Devil's Disciple"; "A Happy Lot," by Hugh Martin andMarshall Baer, about a group of former performers who only come outat night and live out their fantasies on the sets of a movie studiolot, and perhaps best of all, a musical based on Billy Wilder's 1954film, "Sabrina." (Frazier already has met with screenwriter SamTaylor to discuss the possibility.)
"I do a lot of poking around in trunks," Frazier said. "And Ioften find things in them."
Despite his theatrical passions, Frazier was not born in atrunk. He grew up in Taunton, Mass., a small industrial town 30miles from Boston. (He now lives in New York but has a secondapartment in Chicago's Dearborn Park neighborhood.)
A political science major at Boston College, he planned to gointo the Foreign Service Corp, but changed his mind after onesemester at Georgetown. After a stint in the Army, he did someteaching, and then began a business career. Business eventually ledhim to the theater.
Frazier worked for the Lipton Tea Co., moved on to the GrayAdvertising Agency and then was hired as head of corporate personnelby Paramount Pictures, splitting his time between New York and LosAngeles. From 1969-74, he was vice president of industrial relationsfor Paramount. And during that period he was first approached towork in the theater, signing on as associate producer for "Dr.Selavy'sMagic Theatre," a whimsical, avant-garde production that had asuccessful Off-Broadway run. Within six months of the opening ofthat show, he raised the money for an all-star Broadway revival of"The Women."
`I gained a reputation for being able to put money together, andonce you show you can do that, everyone is after you. Later, theyeven begin trusting your artistic judgment," he said. Most recently,Jerome Robbins consulted him during the early stages of his currenthit restrospective "Jerome Robbins' Broadway."
Since his first efforts in New York, Frazier has co-producedthe boffo "Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music" on Broadway (his mostprofitable venture to date); Arthur Kopit's "End of the World";"Noel Coward in Two Keys," with Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, andthe disastrous musical "Grind." He presented the American premiereof "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," the national tourof "Steel Magnolias," and the Boston and Chicago productions of"Nunsense."
Frazier has few regrets in terms of his life in the theater, buthe does enjoy telling this story on himself:
"A friend of mine from London sent a young man to see me duringthe run of `Lena Horne.' He came backstage on a particularly crazynight, when Henry Kissinger and Paul Newman were in the audience. Iwas polite to him, but I didn't really take the time to talk to himthe way I should have. The next thing I knew, he was opening `Cats'in New York."
The man, by the way, went on to produce "Les Miserables" and"Phantom of the Opera." His name? Cameron Mackintosh.
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