Follow Us On Twitter
Most Chicago actors work hard to one day join Actors' Equity, the union of professional actors and stage managers that guarantees safe working conditions, living wages and health insurance. The story of WNEP Theater, one of Chicago's older and most proudly "fringe" companies, is the reverse. Don Hall, founder and long-time executive director of the company, was working as an Equity Actor in town when he was ready to quit theater for good.
"The Equity acting road just wasn't for me," Hall admits, "It made theater become a job. It felt like a job. I didn't want to do theater to make a paycheck." Instead of quitting theater altogether, Hall let his Equity status lapse, and enrolled in the Second City training program to study Improvisation.
It was the revitalization he needed. After graduation, Hall and two friends from the program (Joe Janes and Jeff Hoover) formed what would grow into WNEP Theater - a company that builds on improvisation and sketch techniques to create plays and new theatrical experiences of all kinds.
In the years since its founding WNEP has had downs and ups, and if its determinately fringe position has given it the reputation of a contrarian - the name is an acronym for Works No one Else Produces - you won't hear Hall complaining. "A friend once said that regardless of whether it's funny or dramatic or performance art, there's always the sense in a WNEP show that something is deeply wrong with the world, and we're [...] just trying to figure out what that is."
"It's not easy theater" - Hall's rants are somewhat legendary - "and it's not there just to be entertaining. But, it's going to be funnier than you thought it would be; not nearly as pretentious as you thought it would be, and we expect you to be smarter than us. For your sake and for ours. It's the audience's job to interpret. And you will be entertained."
Examples of this entertainment include some of Hall's favorite shows that WNEP has done. There was the deceptively simple My Grandmother is a Big Fat Whore in Jersey; Post-Mortem, in which Hall and the other cast members would read an obituary from that day's paper and then improvise a 75 minute play about that person's life ("No one ever thought it was improvised" Hall laughs), or 2004's Let There Be Light, which was based on the controversial John Huston Documentary about the psychological effects of war on Soldiers in the 1940s.
But for all the variety and even the confrontational nature of much of the company's work, Hall insists there's only really one guiding principal for the company, "Unless I intend to bore you, your boredom is unacceptable. If the show makes you want to punch me in the face, laugh hysterically, cry, or think about our life: that's fine."
You can learn more about WNEP Theater by visiting their website or becoming a fan on Facebook.
Benno Nelson
You can read more of Theatre In Chicago contributor Benno Nelson's writing at The@er (http://the-at-er.blogspot.com)
Full Storefrontal
Read the other articles in Benno Nelson's "Full Storefrontal" series that focuses on small theatre companies around Chicago on the Full Storefrontal page.