New Dance Troupe Leaps Onto the Scene
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Ballet Theatre of Chicago isn’t the first ballet company De La Nuez has organized. In 1991, when he was with the Cincinnati Ballet, he formed Summer Flight, which tours Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky for eight to ten weeks every summer. De La Nuez describes it as a “small-budget company” with a “wide-ranging” repertoire of traditional and new ballets. He says it succeeded because he thought a lot about what audiences might want to see rather than what the dancers and the company’s artistic director wanted to present.
Gordon Peirce Schmidt, formerly Ballet Chicago’s resident choreographer, believes De La Nuez’s company could fill a void in the local dance scene. Says Schmidt: “All I really know is that Mario sees an opportunity to start something, and taking on the road is a means to an end.” However De La Nuez is still uncertain what will happen when the tour ends on February 26. He doesn’t rule out the possibility that some Ballet Theatre of Chicago dancers may sign contracts to appear in Ballet Chicago’s Coppelia, scheduled for April at the Shubert Theatre. Despite the rumors of Ballet Chicago’s merger with the New York-based Joffrey Ballet, De La Nuez appears to have lost faith in Ballet Chicago’s ability to grow and prosper. “No one has been held accountable at Ballet Chicago,” he says, though he concedes that if he returns from the Hansel and Gretel tour and finds he cannot get enough support to give Ballet Theatre of Chicago a fighting chance, he won’t hesitate to call it quits.
Leavitt and Fox were left with no alternative but to look for replacements. “It’s been tough on the stage manager, but fortunately we have a great stage manager,” says a spokeswoman for the show. (The stage manager traditionally rehearses cast replacements in long-running productions.) In December when Mike Houlihan, an original cast member, left the show to spend more time with his family, Leavitt had to fly in an actor from out of town to replace him. Leavitt then informed Actors’ Equity of Houlihan’s early departure. Though Houlihan says he gave the producers six weeks’ notice, Leavitt insists he broke a contract. If Equity awards Leavitt monetary damages in the matter, Leavitt says, he will donate the money to Season of Concern, the local theater industry’s AIDS fund-raising organization. “We don’t intend to profit from this,” says Leavitt.
