Midsize Theater Watch: Committee Without a Consensus
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The longer this secret committee of 20 or so philanthropic do-gooders deliberates (all have been sworn to keep quiet about the process), the more it seems to back itself into a corner where no decision is possible. Though the Navy Pier site comes with a lower price tag, it apparently does not appeal to a number of people on the advisory committee who argue that the pier might turn into a wasteland once it reopens, leaving the new theater stranded in the middle of an unsuccessful development. A theater at Cityfront Center could cost more, because the land has to be purchased, but some committee members maintain that Cityfront Center will be well-developed and accessible and therefore the preferable choice. According to one source, a straw vote at the meeting indicated a narrow majority of the committee preferred the Navy Pier site, but a formal vote was not taken when it became apparent there was no strong consensus.
Does it help to have friends in high places? You bet. Ballet afficionados may have noted that Ballet Chicago, the city’s far-from-flush hometown ballet company, has been running an aggressive advertising campaign in the Tribune for its tribute to George Balanchine this weekend at the Civic Opera House. But the ads cost Ballet Chicago much less than they might have. “We paid for the first half of the run, and the newspaper covered the rest,” says a source at the company of the campaign that started before Christmas. Had Ballet Chicago paid for all the space, like most arts organizations advertising in the Tribune, one source familiar with the arrangement estimated the campaign would have cost as much as $100,000. The Tribune’s director of promotions and public relations, Rich Honack, says that in return for the advertising Ballet Chicago is contractually obligated to give a portion of the engagement’s profits to Chicago Tribune Charities. That is, of course, assuming there is a profit. A well-informed source at Ballet Chicago says Joseph Hays, a member of the company’s board of directors and a long-standing executive with the Tribune Company was instrumental in setting up the deal, though Honack denies Hays’s involvement. But the paper’s largesse apparently did not extend so far as finding an advertising department copy checker smart enough to catch a glaring typo in the ad, still running as recently as last Sunday. It prominently notes that the ballet troupe will be “beautifully acconpanied by full orchestra.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Bruce Powell.
