I was the music director at a dinner theater called the 'Pheasant Run Theater' in the suburbs of Chicago, and that was my side gig while I acted.

I did a lot of theater in the South side of Chicago.

My mom was a singer in Chicago and still is a cabaret singer, and she was very theatrical. And my dad's such a character at the dinner table.

Chicago happened slowly, like a migraine. First they were driving through countryside, then, imperceptibly, the occasional town became a low suburban sprawl, and the sprawl became the city.

The smartest thing that an actor can do is embrace the thing that made them famous as opposed to run away from it or deny that it happened. That does a disservice to most actors. To me, it looks like you're ungrateful.

Theater owners have to manage their holdings ... and recognize that the world is changing rapidly in terms of the way people are consuming media. There's a way for them to continue to be an essential part of the mix, but they do risk being made irrelevant if they don't change their ways.