City Lit’s Aprill Bows Out
Without the fanfare accorded some of his previous ventures, Arnold Aprill later this month will quietly leave the management ranks of the city’s theater industry. Cofounder and artistic director of City Lit Theater Company since 1979, the 40-year-old Aprill will become director of the newly formed Chicago Arts Education Partnership.
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According to Aprill the Education Partnership, which is backed by Marshall Field’s and a number of large philanthropic organizations, will aim to create closer ties between the city’s arts community and its beleaguered school system. In the process the backers hope to help develop a new and more effective arts curriculum in the schools. Having been actively involved in the Chicago arts community for well over a decade, Aprill not surprisingly is excited about the prospects for making the arts a more vital part of the city’s educational agenda. But a more cynical reporter, one who has seen many such projects come and go, can’t help but wonder if the payoff will compensate for the loss of an accomplished full-time professional from the city’s theater industry.
City Lit’s associate artistic director, Mark Richard, will move up to artistic director on February 1. In his previous work with City Lit Richard has demonstrated a genuine creative spark; his most acclaimed achievement there was a 1991 production called The Hero’s Journey: The Poetry of Raymond Carver, which he both starred in and adapted.
