From 'Shadow' to Broadway invitations, director David Cromer is at his tipping point

Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/the_theater_loop/2010/05/from-shadow-to-working-on-broadway-director-david-cromer-is-at-h

"If the New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell was looking for a human example of his tipping-point theory, he could do worse than ponder David Cromer.

The Chicago director did honest, steady, truthful work around Chicago for many years. I wrote fondly about many of his shows, including, 10 years ago, his direction of the play “Orson’s Shadow.” I extolled what I’ve long felt was Cromer’s truly remarkably ability to take some hackneyed play, some gummed-up theater, some blocked-up actor and extract the most wrenching kind of human truth from all of the above.

“Orson’s Shadow” made it to New York. But Cromer’s career toddled quietly along. It can be tough for theater directors to catch fire. They usually only do one project at once. And they need time between. Especially when they are Cromer, who doesn’t rush things and who did his work in Chicago. New Yorkers had to get on a plane.

But then the theatrical excellence started to come at such a pace, it tipped.

There were two stunning Chicago productions of plays by William Inge — ”Come Back Little Sheeba” at Shattered Globe Theatre and “Picnic” at Writers’ Theatre. And then there was that “Our Town” in the basement of the Chopin Theatre. Cromer’s production for The Hypocrites (the off-Broadway transfer is still playing) was so extraordinary I’m placing it on my lifetime top-10 Chicago shows, even though I hope I’m yet far from the graveyard myself. But as Cromer so devastatingly revealed in that Wicker Park basement, you never know.

And that was that. You suddenly couldn’t pick up a newspaper without reading a Cromer profile. (The New York Times alone treated him to a pair). Broadway producers, who look to such profiles for what little security they can get, came calling. There was “Brighton Beach Memoirs” last fall — short-lived, but recognizably Cromer. “Picnic” was picked up for Broadway this fall. And earlier this week, the producers of “Yank! A WWII Love Story” announced that Cromer has been handed his first Broadway musical. In terms of potential financial reward, at least, that’s the plumb of the profession.

So it goes in the theater. Either nobody wants you or everybody wants you everywhere at once. Cromer is in the happier, latter position.

He might not be the only recent Chicago director to find Broadway work — Anna D. Shapiro, Gary Griffin and Mary Zimmerman are three other examples. But those directors were already working in bigger Chicago theaters with more institutional support. Even so, none of them got hired to direct three separate Broadway shows within 18 months. Three in 18 months is going some. And I’d venture it will be thus for a while. Cromer is a great American director in his prime. He’s like a younger version of Peter Sellars with shades of Elia Kazan.

Back in Chicagoland, Cromer is directing “A Streetcar Named Desire” at Writers’ Theatre; it opens Thursday night and will be reviewed in Saturday’s Tribune. Then, next month, it’s Kirk Lynn’s “Cherrywood” at the Mary-Arrchie Theatre. Sitting in a Lincoln Square coffee house, he seemed more circumspect and careful but otherwise much the same Cromer.

“Well I’m back home where people know who I am,” he chortled, darkly. “In New York it’s, ‘Look at him! His clothes are wrinkled! He must be talented!’ You know that just three years ago, I was directing ‘Miracle on 34th Street.’ ‘Miracle on 34th Street!’ ”

I suggest that being true to past friends and collaborators must now be getting tricky, given his growing clout.

“I avoided ensembles and institutions,” he says. That’s true. I always thought it was to his detriment, but I was clearly wrong. “My friends and collaborators know that when the time is right, we will do it again. The ideal is that the play comes before favoritism. Maybe not before loyalty though, since I am self-serving enough to only want to hang out with really talented people.”

Cromer starts talking about his plans for “Picnic” and his desire to somehow get the action out into the theater. “Sitting and watching is not our aesthetic” he says. The “our” being the aesthetic of the Chicago theater.

We circle back to Mary-Arrchie. The show, which is supposed to open in early June, had (as of earlier this week) neither a firm cast nor opening date. Heck, Cromer wasn’t even sure how many people would be on that venerable stage above the convenience store on Sheridan Road. But it had his full creative attention.

It struck me that he suddenly has tipped his way into the best of all possible worlds — the creative freedom of Mary-Arrchie, where he can try whatever he wants, followed by the big bucks and big attention of two Broadway shows in the same season, star names and all. Yep, Cromer has tipped.

He didn’t seem impressed with that theory. “I’m just trying to save some money,” he said."