If all the world's a stage, then Berwyn has been the understudy, yearning for the chance someday to play a leading role.

In the shadow of neighboring Oak Park, the blue-collar suburb has been rehearsing the part of the glitzy suburb lately, opening a martini bar, building condo developments and even considering the removal of its iconic "Spindle" -- an artistic melange of rusted cars stacked into the sky on a silver spike.

Now, as it raises the curtain on its 100th year, Berwyn says it's ready for the spotlight, casting itself on commercials and billboards last fall as "the center of life in Chicago."

To bolster that claim, Berwyn recently opened its first theater, which officials hope will challenge both the way visitors perceive the city of about 51,000 and the way it perceives itself.

The 16th Street Theater -- a 49-seat playhouse on the city's north side that sits across from a small pizza shop and a Puff N' Stuff convenience store -- bears little resemblance to the bright lights of Chicago's theater district.

But in staking a small claim in the local performing arts scene, officials say the theater could attract younger residents to Berwyn, a historically Eastern European community with a growing Latino population.

"Our goal is to change the image of Berwyn from being a sleepy little ethnic community to an up-and-coming, happening place," said Mayor Michael O'Connor. "Young people want something more than the corner grocery store and the tavern."

While Berwyn has a long way to go before being considered stylish, some longtime residents and business owners hope that gentrification doesn't price people out of the area or disturb the suburb's eccentric character.

"They build and build when they should be helping out the little people who have been here for years," said Gina Tremonte, longtime owner of Gina's Italian Ice on Roosevelt Road.

Kate FitzGerald, co-owner of the popular nightclub FitzGerald's, said she was drawn to the suburb largely because it wasn't a trendy place to live.

"We always liked the un-coolness of Berwyn, the total lack of pretense," FitzGerald said. "It's always been a working-class suburb that never put on a lot of airs."

For their part, theater officials are seeking to challenge the identities of Berwyn residents on stage. In "The Ascension of Carlotta," a fictional young woman who grew up in town struggles with the question of "Am I bigger than Berwyn?" said Ann Filmer, the theater's artistic director.

"Berwyn sometimes gives itself this label like, 'Oh, we're not very cool; we can't get much done; we're just Berwyn,'" Filmer said. "This [play] is about her breaking out of that and realizing that she can accomplish her dreams."

The "un-coolness" of Berwyn has been reinforced by the Chicago entertainer Svengoolie, who repeatedly mocks the suburb as host of a long-running local TV program featuring horror and science-fiction movies.

"Svengoolie would make us sound like we don't count," O'Connor said. "This is a great hard-working community that doesn't deserve to be teased."

The theater, which holds its first production Jan. 25, opens on the heels of a high-profile campaign last summer and fall that included a TV commercial and 60 billboards around Chicago enticing people to move to the suburb "at the center of life in Chicago."

Svengoolie said Berwyn could eventually stake such a claim but said it also should not lose the quirkiness that has been fodder for his comic routine.

"I don't know if they can divorce themselves entirely from some of the eccentricities there," said Richard Koz, who assumes the persona and regularly attends events in Berwyn.

FitzGerald said the suburb's quirky landscape reflects the way many residents feel about themselves.

"People here pride themselves on their goofiness," she said.

Officials are hoping residents also will take pride in the theater and perhaps even take something away from its productions. In "The Ascension of Carlotta," Carlotta "Alice" Kowalski falls in love with a Chicago boy named Romeo who inspires her to dream of life outside of Berwyn.

It's an example of art imitating life.

"There are parallels in the sense that suddenly a theater has come to Berwyn, like Romeo came to Berwyn and opened up doors to different ways of looking at things," said Will Dunne, the play's author.

Even before the curtain goes up, the playhouse already has led some residents to ponder their notion of Berwyn.

"To have a theater company opening here, that's amazing," said Richard Sklenar, a Berwyn resident and executive director of the Theatre Historical Society of America in Elmhurst. "You don't think of Berwyn as being trendy."

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gfsmith@tribune.com