‘Octet,’ Raven Theatre’s Musical About 8 Internet-Addicted Adults, Is Headed To The Goodman

LOOP — After a remarkable run at its home base in Edgewater, Raven Theatre is taking its production of “Octet” — its first-ever musical — to the Goodman Theatre this month.

“Octet,” a chamber choir musical written and composed by Dave Malloy, follows eight people in a support group for internet addiction. Lin-Manuel Miranda is directing the film version starring Amanda Seyfried, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Jonathan Groff, currently in post-production.

When Chicago director Keira Fromm first saw the 2019 stage production of “Octet,” she said she found herself “walking out of the theater saying, ‘I’m going to direct a production of this musical at some point.’”

Seven years later, she’s the director for the Raven and Goodman productions.

Fromm pitched the musical to Raven’s former artistic director Sarah Slight three years ago. The two were trying to find the right project to collaborate on for a number of years before landing on “Octet,” Fromm said.

“It doesn’t require an orchestra [or] what we typically think of for the usual requirements of musicals, which makes it just inherently more producible,” Fromm said. “It felt sort of like a nice match. … That began a conversation, which was an almost three-year-long process of getting the rights and then getting it up and running.”

“Octet” ran May 8-June 28 at Raven Theatre, which seats about 110 people, the Raven’s new artistic director Jonathan Berry told Block Club.

The show opens Wednesday on the Goodman’s Owen Stage, 170 N. Dearborn St. — which has about triple the capacity, Berry said. The show runs through Aug. 2; find tickets starting at $39 here.

“One of the things we laugh at is that … when you hear it, it’s a terrible pitch for a musical, because it’s an a cappella musical about internet addiction,” Berry said.

But “what we are finding is that being in a room with those singers who are really actively struggling with a lot of the things that I think the people of the audience are struggling with on a day-to-day basis, and then offering some hope and some connection and some solutions, it has just sort of caught this cultural moment in our society,” he said. “People are really being affected by it, which is, you know, always what we hope great theater is going to do.”

From Candy Crush addictions and life-changing virality to dating app struggles and debates in forums, the characters struggle with myriad online ordeals. But for the duration of the show, which is composed of 12 different a cappella numbers, they put their phones away and listen to each other.

“It’s a very difficult show for these eight actors who are really virtuosic performers. Finding eight people who can pull off the score is no small feat, and these eight people are really extraordinary at it,” Fromm said. “It’s a show really about loneliness and the isolating experience of our internet addictions and how these eight lost people become less lost by the end of the night as a result of bringing their phones down and connecting with one another.”

The intimacy of the show is a major contributor to its success, so the Raven wanted to keep that same feeling despite the larger venue, Berry said.

“We had to really ask ourselves if we’re moving to this larger space, are we going to lose the thing that is frankly like key to the success of this production, right? Which is this direct contact with these individuals and their story,” he said. “The piece itself is so singular and so unique in how it is speaking to our current challenges and our current moment of being so distracted by our digital lives.”

Fortunately, the Owen is a “smartly built” and “flexible” theater, according to Berry, so the Raven was able to recreate its 3/4-thrust stage to fit the new space. The biggest change is the Owen’s balcony, which provides a different vantage point for audiences, he said.

“Even though you walk in [the Owen] and it feels big, I think the performances always feel right there, and that was sort of critical for us to be able to maintain,” Berry said. “We have … more seats now to be able to sort of get people in to experience the art.”

A Raven show usually draws in about 1,500-2,000 audience members across its run; “Octet” reached 4,000, Berry said. Many showtimes also had waitlists, but Raven was usually able to get people in, he said.

“You always make something hopefully out of passion and excitement and love and desire to share it. And you know, there’s a lot of remarkable theater out there that sort of doesn’t catch a wave like this,” he said. “It broke every box-office record that we have in terms of both attendance and ticket sales.”

Moving “Octet” from the Raven to the Goodman was “a big leap” made possible by Slight, who recently joined the Goodman as associate artistic producer. Through her work, she aims to activate Goodman’s Owen Theatre and build bridges with the city’s storefront theater community, Berry said.

“When ‘Octet’ started to do the things that it was doing, it felt like a really remarkable opportunity for for this theater that [Slight] spent three years of her life really growing and building.”

The Raven has remained producer on the show while Goodman is presenting it, which allows the show to remain “economically viable,” Berry said. The Goodman has also been a “really great partner” and took on a “big financial risk to make it happen.”

“It’s been a lot of good work to sort of like see what’s possible,” Berry said. “My true hope is that these artists — who I think … are just remarkable and doing incredibly detailed, incredibly beautiful, specific work that has really made this production what it is — that their work gets seen on a larger stage.

“If Raven can be in service of supporting that at the Goodman, then I think that’s what the job should be.”

More information on “Octet,” including ticket sales, is available on the Goodman website.