The Annoyance Theatre's Jennifer Estlin On Kickstarting Their Relocation

By Matt Byrne in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 4, 2013 7:00PM

Chicago's Annoyance Theatre has been a landmark of Chicago's underground sketch and improv comedy world for over 25 years, with alumni like Andy Richter and Amy Sedaris citing the theater's subversive school of though as a major influence on their early development as performers. Earlier this year, it was announced that the Annoyance would be relocating from the Uptown location it has called home since 2006 to a larger facility near the the bustling intersection of Belmont and Clark in Lakeview.

Building what Annoyance founder Mick Napier describes as "the last Annoyance Theatre before I actually die," has proved more expensive and more daunting than first expected. Napier, along with President and Executive Producer of the Annoyance, Jennifer Estlin, took to the crowd funding platform Kickstarter to help them over the final hurdles of relocation. We talked with Estlin about the move, as well as the tremendous outpouring of generosity that greeted the campaign since it's launch and the myriad rewards granted to donors at all levels.

Chicagoist: What was the impetus for the move? An expiring lease, the need for expansion, or a bit of both?

Jennifer Estlin: We actually started looking a couple years before our lease was set to expire, and then had to renew our lease on a year to year basis because it took so long to find a place. The impetus was primarily the desire to have our classes in the same building as the theater.

A number of other factors made it more pressing:  wanting to be in a place without residents living above us, generally wanting more space to expand our programs and theater programming, learning that our building was going to need scaffolding for an extended period, the neighborhood not changing as we had hoped as far as foot traffic and safety were the main ones.

C: What has the response from the Chicago comedy community/the performance community nationwide been like since the Kickstarter campaign's announcement

J.E.: In a word, incredible. The generosity has been overwhelming. We were over halfway to our goal by the sixth day.

C: You have gone above and beyond in the rewards department, offering a slew of impressive and eclectic thank you prizes for donors at every level. It's clear a lot of thought and effort went into organizing these 30+ rewards, was it a challenge wrangling these myriad contributions from members of the Annoyance community?

J.E.: It was challenging—and we had so many more rewards that ended up being disqualified by Kickstarter's regulations. When we decided to do the Kickstarter, we really wanted the rewards to reflect the theater; to be a crazy fun array of many talents and influences.

So many people from The Annoyance were willing to jump in and offer things. We wanted to make it clear that The Annoyance is more than the building, it's the people who create inside the building.

C: With two theaters and on-site rehearsal spaces, not to mention the centralized location, will the expanded space also expand the scope of what's offered up at The Annoyance?

J.E.: Yes—we intend to expand our training and our programming. Some of it will be learn-as-we-go while we find out what demands there are and what people are interested in doing.

Many years ago, in our theater on Broadway near Belmont, we had a downstairs space where we did a couple of experimental shows. We're really excited to have that kind of freedom again to have a secondary performance space that we can play with. As far as the training, we're excited to offer more classes at different times of day, in more topics. We expect our training program to expand quite a bit.

C: Though this isn't the first time The Annoyance has relocated, have there been any challenges you've encountered during the moving process that you haven't run into before?

J.E.: The big and unexpected one was our financing. We just expected that we would be able to secure financing far more easily based on our credit, our strong business history, and positive financial reports. Once that hurdle is all cleared, we feel really positive about this move—the location is so strong, and we have great landlords that are eager for us to succeed. We're sure there will be the usual delays and difficulties, but nothing we can't handle.

C: What sort of timeline can we expect for the theater's opening? Any sort of exciting grand opening plans you've got in the works that you'd care to share?

J.E.: We're hopeful for January, but so many things have to go right that it's hard to say. It's always a giant puzzle to get the licensing, the build-out and the move coordinated.Nothing planned yet for the grand opening—but it'll be a party.