The world's a stage for Beams

PRINCETON/CHICAGO — She likes holding the hands of theater companies while they learn the ropes in the world of theater.

Betsy Beams, originally from Princeton, works as customer service director for Theater Building Chicago, a rental facility that handles up to six shows a night.

As custom service director for TBC, she does a lot of trouble-shooting, Beams said. She works a Wednesday through Sunday schedule, handling ticket sales, dealing with customers, making show schedules and working with tenants of the TBC, including marketing personnel, executive directors and artistic directors, to name a few. Beams is the only person in her position, though she does have an assistant and an intern.

Through her wide variety of responsibilities, Beams said she meets all kinds of people, often on a daily basis. Realizing some people will never be satisfied and learning how to deal with those people is just part of her job, the Princeton High School graduate said. Basically, her job is to solve problems before they happen, she said.

Beams has enjoyed the theater since she was a little girl growing up in Princeton. She was involved in school plays, Homestead Festival shows and Prairie Arts Center productions.

In college, at Illinois State University, Beams studied theater management and acted in several school productions. After graduation, she moved to Chicago and took an internship in 2003 with TBC. She was promoted to her current position less than a year later.

When asked what she likes best about her job, Beams said she likes working with the different emerging theater companies. She likes helping young theater companies in their first ventures, holding their hands, teaching them, and guiding them as they grow and develop.

“In a way, we are an incubator for small theater companies,” Beams said. “Every big company started as a small theater company at some time.”

Beams has created her own following, handling the behind-the-scene and management details for the various productions performed each year at the TBC. (TBC also develops its own new musicals.) She was recently interviewed and photographed for the “Time Out Chicago” magazine.

Looking at her career, Beams said there’s not much about the theater that she doesn’t like.