National Theater shop - my hopes for Steppenwolf's new space

One of the things I love about the National Theater in London is that it is a multifunctional building, it houses three theaters, multiple food places, exhibition space, an open podium and a wonderful bookshop.

It's the bookshop I want to single out in this post.

With the demise of many brick and mortar bookstores everywhere (yes I'm guilty too, browsing in the stores only to then order the books online because books add too much bulk and weight when traveling by plane) I am completely in love with the bookshop at the National Theater.

It has plays, plays and plays... and biographies, books about plays, playwrights... and then some video's and merchandise to sweeten the deal... it's the kind of shop I can spend hours and hours in, browsing the plays, contemplating spending the extra money on the special editions.

Those who know me know that I have developed the habit of buying the play-books of the plays that I have seen, as a memento more than anything else, but also to, at times, read the play again and wonder about certain interpretations. It's sometimes hard to find the play-books, there are the specialized webshops of course, but nothing beats thumbing through a book before buying it, looking to see if there is a special edition to be found, or choosing between versions... book people will recognize the feeling.

All this as an introduction to something that occurred to me when killing time between plays on my last trip to Chicago.

Until a few years ago, whenever I would see two plays on one day in Chicago, often one of them would be a Steppenwolf production, and I would kill the time between plays at the Borders bookstore on the corner of Halsted and North (love the American habit of including coffee shops in bookstores!). But alas that bookstore disappeared a few years ago, nothing similar has taken it's place.

When I went to see the matinee performance of The Pianist of Willesden Lane (see post here) at the Royal George (across the street from Steppenwolf) with plans to see an evening performance at Steppenwolf I was wandering the area. Not really enough time to go 'home' relax and come back, but too much time to just hang around. It was a weird time to eat something (plenty of good eating places in the area these days), one can only spend so much time browsing the Apple store and Pottery Barn. What the area really needs for theater nuts like me is a decent bookstore!

Steppenwolf at this time has a small (tiny really) bookshop, mostly selling plays and merchandise of present productions... in desperation I ended up at their front door, waiting for them to open the lobby 1,5 hrs before performance to browse that little shop, it killed about 10 minutes...

Now, Steppenwolf is expanding, they recently bought the building next door and were diligently remodeling the place this summer.

I don't know what they are planning with their new space but I sincerely hope that they have planned for a bigger shop, a place for theater nuts like me to hang, spend some time and extra $$ before or after plays, preferably including a simple coffee shop (another missing feature in the area since Borders closed). Imagine the possibilities... you could do book signings of visiting playwrights, have play discussions there workshop style, organize meet and greets or at the very least simply make a few more $$ to fund your excellent theatre.

Just a thought...