Joan Cusack Takes Laugh Track to Windy City

Friday is “tape night” for dozens of situation comedies around the Los Angeles area. The sights on this particular sound stage are no different, except that it is on the West Side of Chicago--not the Westside of Los Angeles.

And that’s just where the star of “The Joan Cusack Show” wants it to be, even if it does make a little history in the process as the first network television sitcom to be taped entirely in Chicago.

Nearly 300 people are being “warmed up” by a comedian while sitting on bleachers overlooking several sets.

About 50 production crew members scurry among the sets, which include mock-ups of a combination kitchen-living room, a bedroom and a lounge with a corresponding hallway.

Soon, the stage is quieted for the first taped scene of the night, in which actor Kyle Chandler walks over to the “kitchen” to prepare some coffee.

“Hey, Joanie, you’re out of coffee filters,” he calls to North Side resident Joan Cusack.

“Use the cupcake paper,” Cusack calls back, the audience tittering at the thought.

“Well,” Chandler says, “I guess we’re going to have very small cups of coffee this morning.”

Director Michael Lembeck stops the scene soon after to give small notes to the actors. After Cusack takes a short stretch to calm herself, Lembeck shoots another take of the scene. Then, satisfied with the progress, he announces production is “moving on” to tape the next scene. The warmup comic triumphantly echoes Lembeck’s words, and the bleachers crowd applauds as if sharing in a victory.

Cusack, who has Oscar nominations for “Working Girl” and “In & Out,” was adamant about getting her new ABC sitcom shot entirely on location here. She said she wouldn’t have made “The Joan Cusack Show,” a romantic ensemble comedy in which she plays a Chicago high school teacher, if it had been shot in Los Angeles because “it would have been really hard on my family.”

Actress’ Family Life ‘a Real Priority’

Several dramatic series have been filmed here, at least in part, from “Chicago Story” in the early 1980s, to “The Untouchables” in the early ‘90s, to “Early Edition,” which wrapped production earlier this year after four seasons on CBS. (Most, like “ER,” shoot some exteriors here and do the principal photography elsewhere.) And nationally syndicated reality shows with Jenny Jones, Jerry Springer and Judge Greg Mathis are situated here. Not to mention Oprah.

But Illinois Film Office director Ron Ver Kuilen says this is the first time a sitcom has ever taped in its entirety anywhere besides New York and Los Angeles. “They haven’t even really gone into Canada yet,” he added of the country Hollywood has moved a lot of its production to because of cheaper costs--a sharp contrast to the cost of producing in Chicago.

“It was a lifestyle choice,” said Cusack. “I guess my goal now is to have a meaningful life.”

Cusack’s definition of a “meaningful life” is living on the North Side with her husband, attorney Richard Burke, and their two young children.

“When I started having kids, I just wanted that structure for them and for me, and just to have my family life be a real priority,” Cusack said days after the Friday taping.

For an actor, having the stability required for a family with small children often means working on a sitcom, which has fairly flexible hours, weekends off and several months of downtime during the spring and summer.

She’s been given an order of 13 episodes by ABC, but a premiere date has not yet been announced.

The series was created by Gwen Macsai, a former National Public Radio essayist who not only was born in Chicago but also was two years ahead of Cusack when both attended Evanston Township High School. Macsai graduated with Cusack’s sister Ann, also an actress.

This is Macsai’s first television-writing experience, and like Cusack, she is glad it is happening in Chicago, because she also has family--a husband and three kids--she didn’t want to uproot.

“Thank God. I’m so grateful for that,” Macsai said. “I mean, if it were in L.A. I don’t know if I could do it.”

It is almost like the show being shot here was fated. Co-star Chandler starred as future-altering hero Gary Hobson on “Early Edition.” Executive producer David Richardson and Lembeck, who is directing several episodes, both have children attending college in Chicago.

Producers haven’t had a problem finding talent for in front of the camera. Richardson said mostly every actor outside the regular cast (which includes Jessica Hecht, Donna Murphy, Wally Langham and Kellie Williams) has come from Chicago’s vast acting pool, which he considers “an untapped source of great talent and unfamiliar faces. So it’s not the same people that you see week after week.”