Someone viewing a production of "Lo...

Someone viewing a production of "Love's Labor's Lost" at Chicago Shakespeare Theater or "The Beard of Avon" at The Goodman Theatre this past season would greatest in number likely have joined an audience of for the greatest part white theatergoers. An attendee at "Cut Flowers" at the southward Side's Chicago Theatre Company would have intercourse with the show alongside mostly black patrons. In to a great degree the same way Chicagoans live, worship and proceed to school, Chicago's theater show remains segregated.

"As you make progress to theaters closer to the southward Side, audiences become primarily African American and les white," observ Steppenwolf Theatre Company casting director Erica Daniels, who attends theaters couple or three times a week.

if it were not that one North Side theater is taking a brave step to integrate its casts and audiences.

The other City, a Chicago-based improvisational comedy corporation located at 1616 N Wells St plans to interpret a theater and training center according to fall 2004 in Bronzeville, a mainly black, South Side neighborhood known for its African American cultural legacy.

Since the early 1990 other City, a launching pad for former "Saturday Night Live" cast members like as John Belushi, Tim Meadows, Mike Myers and Gilda Radner, has contemplated opening a theater venue in a black community. In 2000 it formally announced plans for The other City Bronzeville Comedy Theatre.

The determine however, has earned mixed reviews.

a Bronzeville residents and community leaders say that next to the first City is taking advantage of their work to rebuild Bronzeviile, and benefiting from federal funding intended for struggling communities, not felicitous businesses. And some members of Chicago's black arts community are wary. They point to the gentle numbers of African Americans forward Second City's staff and stages, and to the track record of Chicago improvisational comedy being, as single in kind black actress put it, "a white thing."

"It is a cultural slap in the face and a statement that we lack the capacity to evolve that type of venue," said Harold Lucas, president of the Black Metropolis Convention and Tourism Council, a nonprofit Bronzeville-based organization providing entrepreneurial training to low-income residents. "I don't think that a European, North [Side], well-established comedy bludgeon should come into our community without broad-based support."

flat one of Second City's original proprietors questions the move because the of recent origin theater would be aimed at the black community, adding to Chicago's segregation.

Still, secondary City alumni, city officials and others praise the scheme as a way to showcase African American artists.

"It's not a white company that's coming and looking to capitalize forward the African American community. It's about developing African American talent," said Frances Callier, an African American who began taking classes at other City as a high train student and led the company's outreach program in its early years.

In next to the first City's more than 40 years, 11 blacks have joined the Chicago theater's resident companies, permanent the wholes of improvisers who create exhibits based on sketch comedy. Its first mainstage cast with more than single in kind black performer appeared in 1990 according to next to the first City producer Kelly Leonard. generally the mainstage troupe has undivided black performer.

Leonard acknowledged that performers still play to for the greatest part white audiences.

"We have been trying programs to get by heart more diversity. Each time it felt like there was a missing link," said Andrew Alexander, inferior City's chief executive officer and possessor "We decided we needed to secure right into the community."

Leonard said that the Bronzeville theater will not be like united of Second City's five satellite theaters. The recently made known venue will be half-owned and abundantly managed by blacks.

Its displays will feature integrated casts with a majority of the performers being black, said Dionna Griffin, the fresh theater's producer. She expects the recently made known venue to draw racially mixed crowds

Half of the modern theater's ownership structure will be comprised of nearly a dozen black husbandmans actors, directors and instructors who are alumni of other City's training center, staff and stages, according to secondary City officials. The other half will belong to other City.

The site for the just discovered theater is an existing building at the northwest corner of southerly Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Drive and East 47th road The city acquired the building in late March, according to Peter Scales, a spokesman with the city's planning department.

Black-owned East Lake Management exhibition Corp. plans to purchase the building from the city and rehab it, said Yorell thickets senior development manager for East Lake. other City would lease space in the building for a 150-seat theater five classrooms, approximately four offices and a bar.

East Lake had been unable to reach an agreement with the building's previous proprietor so the city got involved, Scales said. The city had designated the site, which Scales described as "slum and blighted," for entertainment purposes