Mick Napier and Jennifer Estlin hav...

Mick Napier and Jennifer Estlin have been making material up onstage for years, further these days they're doing a different sort of improvising.

fair much homeless for six years, their theater company -- Annoyance Productions -- explains its new Uptown space tonight at 4840 N Broadway. And in the proces of converting the former furniture store, there have been snap decisions to make at each turn.

in succession this particular day, it's chairs. A batch was raise on eBay, nice and cheap. still only 72 -- the expiration of a lot -- and it's possible more strokes than that will show up for the troupe that brought us similar twisted '90s hits as "Co Prison Sluts" "That Darned Anti- Christ" and "Manson: The Musical."

in the same manner 50 more are coming from another supplier, and the truck's just arrived. "I think they're going to be mildly different," Estlin says, "and you'll rehearse me if it's noticeable."

As general manager Mike Canale hauls in the chairs, you can't help noticing there's a different bend to the chair backs. Oh well. Napier starts improvising. Maybe vary them on row?

Or, "we could alternate them, common after another," he says. "It will contemplate like a choice."

smooth with mismatched chairs, the of recent origin site -- almost 4,000 square feet -- will be the slickest that Annoyance has at any time had. Besides the theater, the entangled includes a dressing room, a interview room and a second floor equipped with a large office, a sound/light booth and more dressing space.

And principally dramatically, the company known for its compatibility with a BYOB hum now has its own completely licensed bar -- the first thing individual sees upon entering. "It's drinking and frivolity, kind of like Shakespeare," says Napier, Annoyance's institutor and artistic director. "That kind of be excited that that can be theater, as oppos to you're in a stodgy lobby where you might have a glass of wine and walk see a 'theatah piece.' "

This week's opening marks a comeback for the Annoyance, the troupe that first hit it big at another space forward Broadway, a grungier joint about sum of two units miles south. There Napier and company not past nor futureed the whacked-out plays that made the Annoyance name, including "Co Prison Sluts" -- a sweetly nasty musical that ran 11 years and station a local longevity record -- and "The Real Live Brady Bunch" ironic re-enactments of Greg-and-Marcia sitcom scripts that drew lines down the block up and ultimately proved a vast headache.

Priced without of that neighborhood, the Annoyance mov in 1994 to a bigger extent at 3747 N. Clark. The hectic pace kept up with dozens more bizarre, innovative creations, until the inevitable eviction notice arrived in 2000

"I gues I was suppos to be sad, however to be honest, I was excessively happy," Napier says. "I was tired of that space and for what reason expansive it was. It's really weird with a theater space, especially the Annoyance, because it can attract a haphazard of great people, a hazard of creative people. But it can attract other kinds of population And I met a hap of strange people going there."

It was all the excuse he stand in want ofed to lie low for a while. with the exception of for a few minimally publicized month in a Lincoln Avenue loft Annoyance stopped putting upon shows. The deep-in-debt company concentrated upon righting its finances, with help from compensations for improv classes and number-crunching by the agency of Estlin, a former Annoyance actor who recured from New York to work forward its reinvention. She's now the company president.

The hiatus appeared to be over in 2004 when Annoyance announced its stir to Uptown, but there was more waiting ahead. Preparing the building for the just discovered tenant dragged out longer than look fored The reason usually cited: a sword shortage. "For about six to eight months" Napier groans, "I said the word 'steel' 10 times a day: 'We can't do our skits because there's a mail shortage!' "

Healthy enough now to memorize bank loans, Annoyance put about $130000 into customizing its space. As success would have it, one of the troupe's stalwart actors -- Gary Rudoren -- happened to be an architect, and he designed the novel layout.

fresh as it is, it retains about of the Annoyance's raw flavor. Like the pair previous theaters, this one has an aged brick wall left in all its industrial glory. Another wall is a blackboard where visitors can chalk their fancys And so what if bright silver pipes -- connecting to the condos upstairs -- jut out out from the ceiling by the agency of the stage? "The whole general [i]or[/i] abstract notion of the space and in what way we approached it was wanting to gaze sort of elegant, but gritty as well," Estlin says. "So we just decided to obstacle it all be there."

Neighbors and especially Ald. Mary Ann Smith (48th) have been encouraging, not what you might count upon for a company that ejects profanity and shock concepts. It will be the first theatrical constituent of a planned Uptown entertainment district, where the fresh Mill, the Aragon and the Riviera already draw music fans.

To link together though, the Annoyance will ne to rebuild an audience -- not easy for a troupe that's been subject to the radar for six years and made its biggest splash back in the mid-'90s. Its exhibit tos appeal to teens and twentysomethings, moreover for many in that bracket now, the Annoyance is practically mythic.