Many people in Rockford love the arts and one art form that is still alive today and stronger than ever is theatre. The city of Rockford has several options like RVC’s Starlight Theatre, Rockford University’s Maddox Theatre, the Nordlof Center, and of course the Coronado Theatre just to name a few.
Rockford now welcomes a new theatre called The West Side Show Room. The owner, Mike Werckle has had plans to open up the new theater for a while now. “We opened up originally in December 2013 in a building on Mulberry Street with our first play being Vampire Lesbians of Sodom,” Mike Werckle commented. “We were there for a year, we did four plays, and it was a terrible space. The landlord didn’t care for it; it had no air conditioning, no ventilation, one terrible bathroom that was inaccessible, and the whole place just smelled so bad.”
In January of 2015, Mike and company started to look for other options when they finally found the space they are in now on North Main Street right next to the Norweigan coffee shop. Back then, they were trying to come to terms with the owner of the space; whether to sign a lease/rent it, or just buy it. The whole process took about a year and a half while they raised money to go through with their architectural plans.
The theatre finally opened up this past September when they hosted the New Play Festival, an event in which it allows playwrights, especially from the Rockford area, to submit their work for a chance to have it be performed on-stage as a staged reading (reading the play in front of an audience).
If you’re wondering what the theater looks like, it is a small Blackbox theatre. It allows the audience and the performers to have a more intimate space which actually allows for an interesting dynamic with how the actors perform. On the topic of space, Mike said, “A large space is very good for musicals where there is a lot of space, a lot of movement and a lot of dancing which allows you to look at the whole body. In a smaller space, you do not have to project your voice so loudly and it also lets the people in the back row look at your face clearly.” Another thing that makes this new theater interesting is the fact that you do not have to BUY a ticket; it’s free, although you are welcome to give a donation to the theatre. The Free ticketing model was something that Mike Werckle encountered from theatres like The Oracle Theatre in Chicago, Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Flux Theatre Ensemble in New York City.
At that time, Mike and his crew were starting to think about an issue of diversity in local theater and how to solve it. It was not a crisis in terms of racial ethnicity, but about attracting a younger, broader audience to the theatre. “We’re not getting Millennials, we’re not getting Gen Xers. We’re also not getting enough people with disabilities, and there’s even people who have never seen theater before other than something in high school. We also have to take into account that maybe people really like theatre but just simply can’t afford to buy a ticket to see a play.” Mike commented.
Mike Werckle explained that for that same exact reason some theaters started the trend of a free ticketing system, or model. “The Oracle Theatre in Chicago was one of the pioneers of this model that is similar to public radio. With public radio, anybody can listen for free, and those who want to support and are financially able to support may choose to do so. Free ticketing at its heart is about removing any obstacles, the whole theatre community and the industry in this country is struggling to get audiences in.”
There is no denying that our entertainment tastes have changed over the years. We went from a time of going out into the community to find entertainment to now staying at home and watching Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Apple TV+, and so on. “We’re not compelled to go out and see actual live work especially on the local/community level where admittedly it is much more difficult to create an experience on a quality level that can compete with any of the other forms. So with the free ticketing model at the theatre, we’re hoping to remove not only the economic barrier but also the economic risk barrier.” Werckle explained that a person might spend $100 or $200 on a concert ticket but won’t spend $15 to go see a play. “The economic risk in that is that with the concert and the music, they’ll definitely know they’ll like it, with a play, they’re not sure what they’re walking into. So we’re hoping that with this free ticketing model, we’re able to bring in a new audience that might not typically go see a theatre production.”
The West Side Show Room just wrapped up their show, Men on Boats, on November 24th. The play consisted of an all-female cast, but Mike Werckle says there are still more productions to come in the future. For more information, you can always check out their website https://www.thewssr.org/. If you have any questions for them or are looking to volunteer or even submit your own play, you can get in contact with Mike Werckle at contact@thewssr.org or you can also send him a message on the theatre’s Facebook page, The West Side Show Room.
