Hard Times: The Heidi Chronicles Chronicles
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Last week, CH&P broke off discussions with the Apple Tree Theatre Company in north-suburban Highland Park about a possible joint production of Heidi. Apple Tree artistic director Eileen Boevers, who is a big fan of the play, had postponed planning on the company’s next scheduled production, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, to try and cut a deal with CH&P for a first mounting of the show. Henaghan said CH&P had been thinking of opening Heidi at Apple Tree to determine its commercial potential and then moving the show into the city to a venue on the near north side. But those plans have been stymied at least temporarily, because CH&P have not been able to find a suitable north-side theater willing to book the show at a rental rate the producers can live with. Henaghan makes no secret of the fact she is looking for a weekly rental fee far below the $12,500 that some locations such as the Wellington have requested recently.
Other producers reacted with concern to CH&P’s inability to move forward with Heidi. “I don’t think it’s a good sign for the industry,” says Michael Frazier, who was dismayed by the “only adequate” business done by his own top-notch production of Forbidden Broadway, which ended a four-month run here on New Years Eve. Still Frazier is moving ahead with the U.S. premiere of Unidentified Human Remains or the True Nature of Love, a steamy sex thriller by Canadian playwright Brad Fraser, set to open February 19 at Frazier’s Halsted Theatre Centre. The play was critically acclaimed when it debuted last year in Toronto. If Unidentified Human Remains is successful, Frazier hopes to take the show off-Broadway.
Hubbard Street Bound for Broadway
