Alice to Alice

Lookingglass’ first director, David Schwimmer, tells of how the company began

From The Black Diamond Issue of ArtAntica
Mentioned in this entry: David Schwimmer and Joy Gregory

David Schwimmer is a founding member of the Lookingglass Theatre Company. The following is a speech he gave in New York for the arrival of Lookingglass Alice at the New Vic.

Hi, I’m David Schwimmer, and it’s my pleasure to welcome everyone here tonight and to introduce you to the theatre company that I’ve called my artistic home the last 19 years, The Lookingglass Theatre Company of Chicago.

Lookingglass was started in 1988 by eight Northwestern University students. We were actors and directors who had found a way to work with each other repeatedly while at Northwestern, developing a bold, physical and improvisational rehearsal process with an emphasis on ensemble and applying it to stories that challenged, provoked, thrilled and empowered our audiences; a mission that remains our company’s foundation today.

20 years ago, I was determined to direct Andre Gregory’s adaptation of Alice in Wonderland while a junior in college. This visionary adaptation was both sophisticated and silly, a story for adults and children alike, and demanded that six actors play most, if not all, the characters from both Alice and Through the Lookingglass. Denied a venue on campus, I took all of my Bar Mitzvah savings and produced the play at an off-campus theatre, where it became an overnight success; we got great reviews, our audiences were thrilled and we actually made our money back. We were hooked.

Emboldened by the play’s success, I took the reviews and the box office records and stood before the Dean of the School of Speech, then, David Zarefsky, a terrific and courageous man, and told him he should send me and the cast of Alice to the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland to represent not only Northwestern but the city of Chicago.

I was 20. He asked me how much it would cost, and I produced the budget which came to $10,000 and change. To his credit, and my eternal gratitude, he said if we raised half the money, the University would match it. To make a long story short, we did. And he did. And we brought our production of Alice to Scotland, where we had a fantastic run that Summer. But more importantly, that process changed us: it left us the way we try to leave our audiences: thrilled, moved and empowered. Somewhere along the way, between Chicago and Scotland, we became a theatre company, and we made it official the following year. We called ourselves Lookingglass because of that seminal production, and because of what the lookingglass represents—a window, a portal, for our audiences into other worlds.

Tomorrow, February 13^th, we celebrate our 19^th birthday. Today, incredibly, we’re on the cusp of our 20^th anniversary season, and we’re thrilled – and proud - to be home to a multi-disciplined company of actors, writers, directors, designers and choreographers, that has grown to include 20 ensemble members, 14 artistic associates, and a dozen production affiliates.

Equally exciting, is that after 15 years as an itinerant theater company, producing original theatre in almost every conceivable venue in the city of Chicago, but never having a home—is that I was privileged to direct the inaugaral production in our amazing new home inside the Water Tower Water Works on Michigan Avenue, in the heart of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile shopping district. The project was my, and fellow ensemble member Joy Gregory’s, adaptation of Studs Terkel’s book RACE, a culmination of three years of workshops and writing, created, again, by employing Lookingglass’ signature process with an emphasis on ensemble.

Converting one of Chicago’s most recognizable landmarks into a flexible, state-of-the-art theater facility was a bold, daring endeavor – one we couldn’t have accomplished without the incredible support of the city of Chicago, particularly Mayor Richard M. Daley, who has helped make Chicago, with its 200 plus live theater companies, one of the most vibrant theatre communities in the country. So it’s with great pleasure and gratitude that we find ourselves here, 20 years later, opening a new adaptation of Alice in Wonderland for New York audiences. We hope we will add to the already incredibly vibrant theatre you have in your community.