Monday, March 21, 2005

Performance space for transient companies

There's a cooperative here in Chicago called Spareroom, near North Ave and Western, that is offering an opportunity that sounds fantastic for emerging performance companies, writers' series, film societies and the like. The group is basically creating a professional performance space, three rooms total, but which is shared by a whole variety of different artistic organizations, much like a timeshare condo in Disneyworld. The rates are amazing - a mere $50 a month gets you five to ten exclusive hours of the space, meaning every month a group could host a two-hour weekly event and still have time left over. (Or, a theatre company could host a show four or five days in a row per month.) And only $100 a month gets you up to ten hours a week at the space, great for a place looking for rehearsal room. And best of all, you can announce Spareroom to your audience as your permanent performance space, building brand recognition and loyalty, versus the musical chairs of venues most performance groups in Chicago have to contend with. Anyway, I urge you to check it out, if you're a group in need of a space here in the city. (Thanks to Gapersblock for pointing this out.)