Let’s face it: The world is a greedy place and many people out there just want to make some cold, hard cash. While there’s nothing wrong with that, people rarely do things for the sake of making the world better. But for two theater companies in the Windy City, it’s more than about just making money – it’s about doing good for their communities.

About Face Theatre and Scrap Mettle SOUL are at the opposite ends of the theater spectrum – one is an award-winning gay and lesbian theater company and the other is an amateur community performance group. But no matter how different these two organizations seem on the outside, they both work toward empowering individuals and fostering understanding about their respective communities.

More Than Just Naked People

In 1995, Northwestern alumni Kyle Hall, Speech ’91, and Eric Rosen, Speech ’93, realized there was something wrong with Chicago theater – a lack of intellectually challenging and artistically excellent gay and lesbian productions. So they took it upon themselves to fill the void, and with some initiative, the two gathered start-up money. About Face Theatre was born.

Dedicated to looking at the world through the lens of gays and lesbians, About Face is quickly emerging as a national center for the development of gay and lesbian theater. The company, housed at the Jane Addams Center Hull House, 3212 N. Broadway Ave. in Lakeview, is bringing stimulating and thought-provoking productions to the community.

“We want to do more than just AIDS plays and naked people plays,” Shelley Echerd, About Face’s marketing director, said. “We want to do plays that truly examine and participate in the communities – plays that specifically deal with sexuality and gender.”

About Face runs four to five mainstage productions per season and in the past has staged Neil LaBute’s “Bash: Latterday Plays,” which included a piece about the bashing of a gay man, and Caryl Churchill’s gender-bending farce “Cloud 9.” However, many of the About Face productions are original works from Chicago talent.

“From the very beginning, Eric and Kyle have always been very committed to the idea of developing new works – pushing the envelope, pushing the boundaries of what can be called gay and lesbian work,” Echerd said.

This past season saw the premiere of “Undone,” written by Rosen and based on the work of award-winning Chicago poet Cin Salach. Rosen took Salach’s poems, turned them into rock songs, and created a musical that focused on the unraveling of Salach’s marriage and her first relationship with a woman. A celebration of the difficult journey, “Undone” was about Salach coming to terms with her new identity.

Probably the most well-known facet of About Face Theatre is its youth program that invites Chicago gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered youth to take part in a series of workshops. Now in its fourth year, the youths meet once a week from January to April and learn everything from gay and lesbian history and theater to leadership skills to safe sex. The 14- to 21-year-olds also write about their experiences being gay, and in the end, those writings are transformed into a full play.

“Another thing that’s different about About Face is that a lot of theaters have a youth theater but they’ll run it in their studio for a weekend,” Echerd said. “We run our youth theater as a part of our mainstage season with the same production value and same budget as any other show, and we run it for four or five weeks.”

The Youth Theatre is free for all those who want to participate, and About Face even goes so far as to pay for attendees’ CTA cards. Students who work on the mainstage play also get a stipend, and many work as interns in the About Face offices.

“The main focus of the program is to reach these youth and help them navigate through these difficult, adolescent young-adult years of finding out who they are and what they’re about,” Echerd said. “A lot of these youth get so little support from their parents, teachers and friends, so they really need About Face as a resource. They don’t have to be alone.”

Following their mainstage run, the youth plays are condensed into abridged versions and are toured around to high schools, colleges, youth groups, conferences and teacher panels, ultimately reaching 10,000 Illinois students and teachers a year.

“Homophobia starts early. If we can get out there to educate, entertain and reach these students before they’re a junior or a senior in college when they’ve already formed their homophobia … We’re just hoping to reach these students at an early enough age so that we can make a difference,” Echerd said.

Right now, About Face is running “Xena Live! Episode 2: Xena Lives.” The production, a far cry from the usual About Face deep dramas, took the place of a scheduled play after Sept. 11.

“After 9/11, we realized that people need comedy,” Echerd explained. “We wanted to do something funny, something feel-good, something silly and just plain wacky and crazy.”

The musical is the sequel to 1999’s “Xena Live!” and has the Warrior Princess once again fighting the evils of the world with her sidekick Gabrielle, skilled swordplay and fabulous costumes. The production runs until June 2.

Only seven years old, About Face is growing exponentially and now has a budget of $750,000, thanks to the generosity of corporate sponsors and private foundations. The company’s founders, Rosen and Hall, are also breaking into big-time show business. Rosen just directed the Adam Guettel play “Myths and Hymns” in Philadelphia, while Hall is currently acting on Broadway in Mary Zimmerman’s “Metamorphoses.” Hall has also had a small role on “All My Children,” a full-page photo in the men’s magazine “Details,” and a two-page spread in “The Advocate.”

Although the company is losing its Hull House space because the building is being sold, About Face intends to stick with its mission no matter what its future location.

“We are a resource, we are educators, we are activists, and we’re here to basically do all that we can to support the gay and lesbian and allied communities,” Echerd said.

“60640 – The Most Diverse Zip Code in America”

Unlike watching an About Face production, watching Scrap Mettle SOUL’s “The Whole World Gets Well” is kind of like watching your little sister and her friends act in their third grade musical. The acting isn’t exactly professional quality, the script may not be the best in the world, and the singing isn’t award-winning, but this isn’t supposed to be a Broadway show. Much like with those elementary school performances, the audience is there to support someone it loves – and in the case of Scrap Mettle SOUL, that someone is the entire Edgewater/Uptown community.

Scrap Mettle SOUL is the type of theater production that gets the audience where it counts – the heart. Since 1994, the company has gathered stories from the residents of Edgewater and Uptown and transformed them into plays aimed at uniting the community. The productions celebrate the differences within 60640 (the Edgewater and Uptown zip code), which Scrap Mettle SOUL Founder and Artistic Director Richard Geer calls “the most diverse zip code in America.”

“We take stories of urban life and empower and bring people together, creating a sense of spirit for the community in Uptown and Edgewater,” Geer said.

Since last June, Geer and Scrap Mettle SOUL have been out in the community, gathering stories to create “The Whole World Gets Well.” Some stories collected were from American raconteur and Uptown figure Studs Terkel, who shared snapshots of life with his late wife Ida, and from folklorist Joseph Sobol, who talked about legendary Appalachian storyteller Ray Hicks. The stories of Terkel and Hicks were then mingled with other Uptown/Edgewater stories to create “The Whole World Gets Well.”

As a part of building the community bond, anyone who wants to be a part of a Scrap Mettle SOUL production is accepted.

“I never turn anyone away,” Geer said. “I don’t care if they’re disabled, in wheelchairs, deaf or mentally
ill – if they can make it through rehearsals, then they’re in. Everybody’s welcome – their presence alone is a contribution.”

Because anyone is free to be in the play, the intergenerational 75-member cast of “The Whole World Gets Well” crosses many class and racial lines. Everyone from professional actors to businessmen and women, from 8-year-old kids to the homeless, have roles in the production.

“When people on stage look like people in the room – the same age, race, class – you get the sense that the play really is about you,” Geer said. “The people on stage and the people in the room are basically the same and it becomes less about the actors and more about the community.”

“The Whole World Gets Well” concluded the Scrap Mettle SOUL season of programming called “Moving to Health.” Through youth walks and outreach tours, as well as workshops and drama classes, Scrap Mettle revitalizes the community.

“The process brings together many different people in a celebration of diversity that ends in harmony,” Geer said. “We have a community that has bits and pieces from all over the world.”

Weinberg junior Randi Ervin got involved with the organization because she needed to do research on the Uptown area for a Northwestern class.

“The vibe at Scrap Mettle is really cool. It’s really a close-knit group of people who are really dedicated and into being there,” Ervin said. “Typically these people would never really cross paths. A formerly homeless person would probably never interact with a person who’s living in a condo on the lake. (Scrap Mettle) is beautiful because it’s not that professional and because it’s so welcoming and all-encompassing. It brings the community together by getting people involved in the production itself, and by getting the stories of the community out.”

Scrap Mettle was hit hard following a decrease in donations due to Sept. 11, but the Scrap Mettle spirit remains strong.

“This isn’t the last Scrap Mettle performance,” Geer said of “The Whole World Gets Well.” “We’re all pretty determined now more than ever.”

The heartfelt production may take place in the gym of Margate Park Field House in Uptown, but that merely adds to the ambience of the community theater concept. Audience members sit on rafters for the duration of the play, and loads of people come to see their friends. The din of neighbors talking and the frequent shouts of “Hello” and “Hey there!” before and after the show reveal that Scrap Mettle SOUL is living up to its mission.

With different approaches and different players, About Face and Scrap Mettle SOUL are the Felix and Oscar of the Chicago stage. But, as Echerd said, “There’s room for all kinds of theater.” nyou