The Uptown Broadway Building, 4703-4715 N. Broadway, completed in 1926. Photo: nmcgowan01 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Jenn Kincaid has spent most of her career bringing old theaters back to life. She studied theater production in school in Canada, moved to Chicago 11 years ago, and in her first job helped her boss restore a theater from top to bottom.
Since then she has worked on restorations including the Piccolo Theatre in Evanston and the Biograph Theater in Lincoln Park. Her role is on the construction side, supervising the work and staying close to general contractors so that a room ends up looking and feeling authentic.
Building their own stage
Her latest project is Kiss Kiss Cabaret, a weekly show she produces with business partner Chris Biddle, who handles the artistic side. When they planned it, Kincaid says, they looked at what the city was missing and found a shortage of venues suited to their style of theater. So they decided to build one.
The show is moving to Uptown, into the Uptown Broadway Building, the 1926 terra cotta landmark on Broadway just north of Lawrence Avenue. Kincaid points out that burlesque has deep roots in Chicago and has seen a revival over the past decade. She thinks cabaret often gets an unfair reputation and wants the show to present it as a serious art form. Her goal for the room is that audiences feel they have stepped into another era.
Borrowed sets
Getting to this point took years of improvising. Before they had a space of their own, the troupe performed on other companies’ sets, at one point staging its show in front of scenery built for “Hamlet.” Having a permanent venue means the production can finally be designed around itself.
Kincaid chose Uptown because she sees it as the next Chicago neighborhood on the rise, and she likes that the venue will sit among the area’s long line of music and entertainment houses, from the Aragon and Riviera to the Green Mill down the block.
Dana Ferraro covers property taxes, small business finance and the economy.
