They Didn't Name Him "Octave" for Nothing

[beamjockey]

I wrote this as a comment on grey_lensman's blog, then realized I should probably duplicate it on my own. It's one of those quests-of-curiosity that's always on the back burner of my mind.

I am interested in knowing more about a musical about the life of Chicago aviation pioneer Octave Chanute. It was produced in Chicago during the earliest years I lived there, around 1978-1983. I remember reading a review in The Reader. I think it was called Chanute! (logically enough).

This is so weird that I wish to have proof that it actually happened.

Let me know if you come across any clues.

I suppose one could look through old Tribs or Sun-Timeses or Readers. Or maybe contact the Jeff Awards (Chicago stage) people. I keep hoping to run into someone who remembers it, so I can pinpoint a date for my fishing expedition.

Comments

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Might it be "Flyer"

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

Some googling turned up: "Chanute The Musical".

The sister Musical to GREASE captures the grandeur, excitement and thrill of flight.
The story of octave Chanute and his family of eight conquer the sky with twenty delightful, touching masterfully crafted songs.
If you enjoyed the fun in GREASE, you will love what came Aftergrease.......CHANUTE... takes the fun even higher....

I don't really think I can add anything to that. Um. At least it confirms the existence of the musical, if not that particular production.

"Flyer" also has Octave Chanute, although he seems to be supporting cast.

Illinois has an "Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum", who might know of the existence of the performance. Worth a try, anyway.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

If shimray is right and there is actually a link between "Chanute" and "Grease," you might want to talk to the Aronsons down Cincy way, who both worked on the original Chicago production of "Grease."

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Three cheers for our man in Edinburgh!

That page sure looks peculiar, though. Unfinished. And the "contact us" gives a phone number of (800)555-1212, which would be an Information number, suggesting that the text of that page is boilerplate.

I'll contact the offered e-mail address, chanute2002@hotmail.com, and see what they can tell me.

Illinois has an "Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum", who might know of the existence of the performance. Worth a try, anyway.

Good guess, but no. In fact grey_lensman is on the board of that museum (if his term's not up), and if the museum had a clue about the musical, he'd already know about it.

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

I think the two secondary pages are completely boilerplate - the page of "our background and philosophy" is completely unrelated, and the postal address is "Our Recreation Company / Any Street / Anytown, US 01234" - which looks about as boilerplate as you get.

(Idly related thought - are there any zipcodes deliberately not assigned, so they can be used as junk, like the (555) phonenumber block?)

Found a cast member

[whl.livejournal.com]

The other comments sum up what seems to be on the web about this; I did find a discussion about the possible existence of this musical in Usenet postings. However, it was between Bill and Cally Soukup (in 2002), so it marks a previous attempt to find the proof, which did not end with any.

But I did find a cast member, after much creative googling:

Brooklyn, the Musical lists a Kevin Anderson in the cast, whose credits in Chicago theater end with Chanute (so it was the first production he felt like listing.

If I was still living in Prospect Heights, I'd spend an evening going through the indexes at a local library, digging for a Tribune review. But that is pretty much out of the question, here in Mississippi.

Looking at the careers of Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, who were responsible for Grease, doesn't seem to back up the contention that Chanute was the follow up to Grease, unless they mean it was the next production of the Kingston Mines Theater.

Alternately, this Northwestern University Press book might have some info:
A Theater of Our Own

Re: Found a cast member

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

The "follow-up to Grease" thing did seem odd, certainly; you'd expect there'd be a few more incidental mentions of it here and there if so.

Re: Found a cast member

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

And seaching for "kevin anderson" "chicago theater" comes up with a resume on Broadway.com. That resume matches up with the one whl found. It mentions that "Anderson is known for playing opposite Julia Roberts in Sleeping with the Enemy, his many Chicago theater credits and his Tony-nominated performance in Death of a Salesman." There's also a goodly list of other TV/Movie credits.

I therefore deduce he must have an agent, and a letter to same might turn up all sorts of details. It's the kind of quirky request that's just likely to get an answer.

Re: Found a cast member

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

And IMDB gives an address for same...

Re: Found a cast member

[whl.livejournal.com]

And, digging in the Tribune archives, I find that the musical might have been premiered more than once in Chicago:

This is a Chicago Tribune article from Feb 23, 1987. The free part reads:
"Tom Boyle is ready to try again with his musical about Octave Chanute, which raises at least two questions.

Boyle is a 43-year-old, self-employed Chicago real-estate broker with an acute, chronic, apparently incurable passion for writing songs and an unshakable admiration for Octave Chanute, a former Chicagoan who could use a champion."

Unfortunately, the rest of it has to be paid for...

Re: Found a cast member

[whl.livejournal.com]

Well, it should have been, but it re-directs to the search page now. I hate sites that aren't laid out to allow "deep linking".

I also found an article in the Sun Times archive, which triggered for a search on Chanute, and seems to have been a profile of Kevin Anderson, published on August 24, 1986, but all we can tell is that he was in "Orphans" at Steppenwolf in early 1985. The Steppenwolf homepage does not reference Chanute, and Steppenwolf is where Mr. Anderson went after he graduated.

The stage credits at the site Kevin found show performances as early as 1984, but no Chanute. He was in the Steppenwolf "Our Town" production, which I think even I heard about at the time.

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

so, i'm slow...but the contact info is chanute2002@hotmail.com

You might check here as well....

[tlunquist.livejournal.com]

http://spicerweb.org/chanute/chan_ind.html

This site has a ton of good Chanute info - I used it far more often than I used the museum's resources when looking for info on our boy Octave (and how sad is that?).

Also, FWIW, U of I Champaign has a really impressive newspaper library, which might be able to help you turn up relevant news articles on the musical much the way grey_lensman used it today to find reports of what Mr. Chanute himself was doing in 18-ninetymumble. Perhaps you could drop by there whilst you are in town for my granulation - just note that I can't go with you (or at least, I can't make plans to go with you), because every time I make explicit plans to go to the newspaper library, somebody dies. I wish I was kidding.