The Understudy, a bookstore and cafe whose owners are "hoping to serve as a resource and hub for Chicago's theater community," will open this summer at 5531 N. Clark St. in the Andersonville area in Chicago, Ill., Block Club Chicago reported.
Owners Adam Todd Crawford and Danny Fender, who consider the business an extension of their careers as theater professionals, are recent graduates of the Theatre School at DePaul University. With the theater industry severely affected by the pandemic, the couple considered what resources were available to stage artists and professionals, then came up with the idea for the Understudy, a cafe and bookstore that will stock titles primarily about theater.
"As students and professionals, this is a resource we wished was out there," said Crawford, an actor. "We want this to be a community resource."
The cafe will serve coffee from West Loop Metric Coffee and tea from Lakeview's The Coffee and Tea Exchange, as well as local baked goods. The bookshop will stock about 3,000 titles, including a guest curation series in which local theater artists select books and plays with their own recommendation cards. Panel discussions, play readings and networking nights are also planned.
"We want to crowd source knowledge from the community," said Fender, a freelance stage manager. "One of our immediate goals with the shop was to find as many ways as possible to highlight the brilliant voices in this city.... It's going to be so exciting to be in Andersonville. We're going to fit in nicely."