LAKEVIEW — The infamous Chateau Hotel is back — except this time, it's onstage.
Sketch comedy group Just the Tip will be debuting a four-episode live sitcom at The Public House Theatre called "Hot Chateau" — signifying the missing "el" in the Chateau's neon sign — and it's inspired by the shuttered, controversial single room occupancy hotel.
Just the Tip decided to do the show after brainstorming a place where four "crazy" people might meet, said Julia Lippert, a member of the group. The group frequently features outlandish recurring characters like "Tammy Tammy No Panty," a promiscuous, traveling Arkansas woman based on a woman who group member Bess Boswell heard about growing up.
And Chateau Hotel seemed like the perfect place where Tammy, a hoarding old woman, a teenage runaway and a seasoned street hustler would meet, Lippert said.
"These characters are looked down upon, but we believe they have worth and that they can be heroes in stories in a sentimental, sitcom kind of way," Lippert said.
At the beginning of the first show, the four women are issued eviction notices after a local alderman makes it his mission to shut down the hotel. The rest of the shows document the group's attempt to save their home as they're visited by characters from the community, like the alderman, a local cop and University of Chicago students studying poverty.
"Hot Chateau" will run Thursdays at 8 p.m. from July 11 through Aug. 1 at The Public House Theatre, 3914 N. Clark St. The episodes will follow an arc, but each show can be seen alone. Admission is $10 and includes a free drink.
In real life, the Chateau Hotel has been a source of controversy for years. Area residents complained about drug dealing, fighting and panhandling outside the building, but housing activists protested its closure, saying that it was one of the last places of accessible housing on the North Side and blaming Ald. James Cappleman (46th) for not pushing to keep the building affordable.
Ultimately, the Chateau was sold to investors who plan on renovating it into market-rate housing. The final residents left last week.
Despite the controversial nature of the real hotel, Lippert insists that "Hot Chateau" is not a political statement on whether or not SROs should exist. The writers said they have never met residents nor been inside the hotel, though they said they've read extensively about it.
And Lippert swears that the alderman character is not based on Cappleman. The character is never named and is based more on the stereotype of an alderman — a "self-serving" guy who is entrenched in Chicago politics, she said.
The show, she said, is just a comedy about "society's misfits."
"They kind of battle against the forces that are trying to take them down," she said. "Whether it's poverty or aldermen or cops, we're trying to maintain this support system, this little family within the hotel."
