A Book of Verse, a Cup of Joe, and Thou
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Observers view the new additions at Waterstone’s as a major departure from its previously announced sales philosophy. Notes Fred Karr, manager of the Borders Books & Music store in Oak Brook: “I had gotten the impression that all they did was sell books.” Waterstone’s executives insist the changes are the result of a recent market survey in which an overwhelming 84 percent of respondents suggested Waterstone’s should add music. Philip Downer, vice president of Waterstone’s USA, says the inclusion of music makes sense because the bookstore’s parent company, W.H. Smith, runs The Wall, a chain of 170 music stores in the northeastern U.S., and another music-store chain in the United Kingdom. Downer also says Waterstone’s customers have been clamoring for a coffee bar almost since the store opened, and subsequent market research indicated coffee would be a good idea.
Sandra Popik, manager of the Barnes & Noble on Diversey, says the spots touting the chain’s coffee bars are among four or five radio commercials the New York-based chain is currently airing in the Chicago market. She says the coffee bars make money and that customers like them because they make the giant superstores feel “more intimate and not so overwhelming.”
In the not-for-profit theater world, difficult financial circumstances demand pragmatic business practices. So Cloud 42 artistic director Patrick Trettenero is instituting a new shared-risk policy for the run of its latest show. An expanded version of the play about Oscar Wilde that the company premiered in 1989, Living Up to My Blue China opens next Tuesday on the main stage of the new Bailiwick Arts Center. Since the company has a deficit approaching $20,000 and Trettenero says he cannot risk incurring additional losses, everyone involved in the production–actors, designers, Bailiwick, and even the publicist–aren’t being paid up front. Instead they’ll share in a percentage of the weekly box office take after advertising expenses are deducted. Cloud 42’s debt came from two productions–Camille (Deflowered) and Camille (A Tearjerker)–mounted in repertory last winter at the Body Politic space on North Lincoln Avenue. Trettenero says that early next spring he will take a one-year sabbatical from Cloud 42 while he and actress Maripat Donovan tour the U.S. in Late Nite Catechism.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Charles Eshelman.
