Inside the Servi-Sure titanium factory in Bowmanville sits equipment and work benches and clouds of dust. It currently looks like the working factory it is, not a theater set.
But the factory has served as a dramatic backdrop, courtesy of local theater maker Spencer Huffman.
Last winter, curious audiences arrived at the address to see an unusual staging of the classic Anton Chekhov play “Uncle Vanya,” by his New Theatre Project.
On a recent visit, Huffman, who met me here to talk about his latest project, sidestepped what appears to be a man-sized drill.
“Some days we’d walk in here and there’s a giant piece of an airplane that they’re building or a forklift,” he recalled of the “Uncle Vanya” project. “Our stage management team would strike everything else then replace it at the end of each day.”
Huffman, 30, who was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, is in many ways, an outsider breaking into Chicago’s close-knit theater community. He first made a name for himself staging shows in nontraditional spaces, like the factory. He coached sports, including varsity baseball at the Latin School of Chicago, to make enough money to stage plays and pay actors.
“I was coaching basketball, I was coaching baseball, I was coaching flag football,” Huffman said. “I ran an athletic program at the Orthodox Jewish Community Center.”
Now, for the first time, his company is staging a play in a traditional theater. “The Shape of the Bones,” which Huffman wrote, runs at Theater Wit through March 22.
The fact that Huffman has been able to stage shows and recruit top tier actors proves Chicago’s reputation as a city where you can bootstrap your way to success in theater is still intact — despite credible fears that the arts scene has contracted post COVID-19.
“I didn’t think I was going to pursue theater,” said Huffman. “I realized that I struggled to connect with a lot of theater people. I still do. And think that in college and high school that made me think theater was not an industry I could get into.”
Growing up in Portland, Huffman wasn’t a theater kid — he was an athlete. He played basketball, and loved baseball. A back injury in high school deterred him from continuing the sport in college.
In 2018, after graduating from Kenyon College in Ohio, Huffman moved to Chicago. “I’d never been to Chicago, I didn’t know anyone in the city,” he said. But he had heard about the city’s reputation for being a theater hub from professors and classmates, so he made the trip.
His first place was a windowless apartment in Lake View he found on Airbnb.
To scrape up the rent, he took on gig sports jobs until he could meet more theater people..
Baseball, it turned out, helped get his theater company off the ground. Through a connection of a friend, he secured the Servi-Sure factory free-of-charge for his plays. He used money earned from coaching to pay actors.
“The first production was $3,000 of my own money,” he said. “I made that money back, which was great.”
He admits that not being charged a fee for the venue was a game changer. For the production of “Uncle Vanya,” for example, he cast Larry Grimm, a co-founding ensemble member of A Red Orchid Theatre who’s a well known and respected veteran Chicago actor. He also hired Richard Esteras, a recurring cast member in “The Bear.”
“Spencer’s got a multi-hyphenate,” said Grimm, who played the role of Uncle Vanya in Huffman’s production. “He’s a producer, he’s a director, he’s an actor, and he’s a writer. But watching him seamlessly go between his producer hat and his director hat, was for someone of my age, jaw dropping. Because I remember being his age and hustling just just to play one role, either as an actor or a director.”
Now that the theater work has picked up, Huffman is down to just one coaching gig at the Latin School of Chicago, which he said he still does out of love.
In the days leading up to opening night of his newest project, Huffman was still thinking through the logistics of the new show. With its heavy machinery, the factory brought an element of gritty “coolness,” and he served free boxed wine to the audience before performances.
How to replicate that eccentric feeling in a more traditional theater space?
“I think the first thing is, just the quality. If the thing is really good, it has some cool in it,” said Huffman, who brought on a first time director, Emily Blanquera, to helm the show.
Like Huffman, Blanquera is not a full time theater worker. She spends 9 months of the year working on a farm.
“We have something esthetic in common,” said Blanquera. “I think we have similar sensibilities.”
The show, which Huffman wrote in Hungary in 2022, is about an insular religious community. The charismatic leader believes certain members of the congregation can transcend their physical form and become angels. When a 12-year-old boy is believed to be on this journey, his parents grapple with the ramifications of his perceived anointing.
It is a big swing for the young company. And the production didn’t seem as sharp as its predecessors. But it is still on brand with an impressive cast of actors, many of which, along with director and crew, are frequent collaborators.
“This is the first time, with “The Shape of the Bones” at Wit, where it feels like I’ve chosen a play to do, just like out of nowhere,” said Huffman. “I hope to avoid that in the future. I’d like to continue the mold of fitting projects to people and to the right moment and place.”
