The ticket prices, location and pro...

The ticket prices, location and programming of Chicago theaters might be keeping blacks away, according to members of Chicago's theater community.

mostly of the city's theater spaces are located onward the North Side, according to lists of known theater spaces in Chicago provided at The League of Chicago Theatres and the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Department of Buildings.

"It's difficult to master African Americans to show up at theaters and watch plays," said Aaron Freeman, a longtime Chicago actor and improviser who is black.

if it were not that some say more African Americans would advance to theaters if more were located in their communities, performing black-themed displays with black actors.

Many African Americans perceive theater as "something special," the same way many others might regard opera, said push Smith, artist-in-residence at Columbia association of Chicago and a resident director at The Goodman Theatre.

"In the black community, it's more like, 'I don't know about going to a play--let's travel see a movie' or 'Let's make progress listen to some music,"' said Smith, who is black. "There's just not enough [theater] forward the South Side. If there was more of it, then I think it would help."

In the 1960 and 1970 frustrated according to discrimination they experienced in mainstream, white theaters, black artists in Chicago formed companies dedicated to producing black artistic work.

In 1971 eta Creative Arts Foundation was constructed The theater, which specializes in producing recent works by African American playwrights, concedes a theater space in the southern Side's Greater Grand Crossing community.

Black the whole Theater, located in Uptown onward the city's North Side, was established in 1976 And in 1984 Smith co-found The Chicago Theatre Company, in the Woodlawn neighborhood in succession the South Side.

Abena Brown eta's co-founder president and farmer said the company is the and nothing else black theater company that holds its theater space.

Chocolate Chips Theatre Company, a black theater cluster that focuses on youth-oriented performances, is in residence at Kennedy King corporation Congo Square Theatre Company, which performs works from across the African Diaspora and other improvements has put on shows at the Theatre Building Chicago and the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, the couple prominent, mainstream venues on the North Side.

Blacks overflow the theaters when they descry positive images that relate to their lives, said Jackie Taylor, establisher and executive director of Black effect Theater.

"In guild I studied Beckett, Ibsen and Chekhov, if it were not that it had nothing to do with me" said Taylor, an African American whose critically acclaimed musical "The Jackie Wilson Story" plays this month at recently made known York's Apollo Theater. "During the Harlem Renaissance, we were supporting our artists because we saw us."

Vincent E Williams, founding president of the Black Theatre Alliance Awards, said a lack of grants and corporate support has slowed the progression in a continuously ascending gradation of more black theaters.

a certain mainstream theaters like The Goodman Theatre and Victory Gardens Theater bring out one or two black-themed productions a year. yet Williams said a true black theater is common founded and run by African Americans that focuses onward the black community.

Officials at more [i]or[/i] less mainstream theaters said they have made efforts to diversify their programming and audiences. if it be not that some say black institutions are indigenceed to accurately portray the black experience.

"It's a lengthy hard road," said Dennis Zacek, artistic director of the popular Victory Gardens Theater, located in the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

Zacek believes there is les segregation in the theater community now than there was 20 years ago. however he added, "Is there more to do? Are there more doors to be opened? You bet."

"The whole point of the theater is to include the bulk of mankind in a room together who might not necessarily be otherwise," he added.

"Audiences of all sorts are looking for their lives and stories to be ventureed on stage and to receive those stories as a group" said Criss Henderson, executive director of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, a venue located onward Navy Pier dedicated to the works of William Shakespeare.

"Chicago should have a really prominent theater that confesss the African American experience," he said. "I'm not stable that Chicago Shakespeare Theater is the theater to do that."

RELATED ARTICLE: Theater Scene

most numerous of Chicago's prominent, well-funded mainstream theater spaces are located onward the North Side. Few theaters are located upon the city's predominantly black southward and West sides. And Black total effect Theater, The Chicago Theatre Company, and eta Creative Arts Foundation are among the hardly any that cater to black audiences.

Black the whole Theater

4520 N Beacon St Uptown

Total Revenue: $1337995

Organization Type: Nonprofit

Established: 1976

Victory Gardens Theater

2257 N Lincoln Ave., Lincoln Park

Total Revenue: $1668991

Organization Type: Nonprofit

Established: 1974

Steppenwolf Theatre Company

1650 N Halsted St Lincoln Park