New Wardens at the Royal George
The Royal George Theatre, which has some of the off-Loop theater scene’s finest facilities and one of its most checkered financial histories, is poised to enter a new era under the just-cemented joint ownership of Perkins Theatres and the increasingly prominent and powerful New York-based organization Jujamcyn Theaters. Though he would not specify a purchase price (believed to be in the $1.75-million range), Robert Perkins, head of Perkins Theatres, says he and Jujamcyn will equally share control of the property.
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Jujamcyn, headed by a rising star among New York-based producers named Rocco Landesman, owns five Broadway houses including the Saint James and Walter Kerr theaters. For Jujamcyn, the Royal George represents an opportunity to extend beyond its New York roots. “If our company is going to grow,” says Landesman, “it will have to be in the rest of the country. In my opinion two of the best theater markets are Chicago and Minneapolis.”
Earlier this week Perkins and Jujamcyn formally took control of the entire Royal George complex, at 1641 N. Halsted, from restaurateur and real estate mogul Sue Gin. Last October, after an investor consortium headed by Barry Schain failed in its unlikely bid to acquire the property and transform it into a multiuse facility called Hollywood by the Lake, Gin purchased the complex for what a source claimed was approximately $1.5 million. She bought the Royal George from the First National Bank of Chicago after the bank and its subsidiary, First Chicago Bank of Ravenswood, foreclosed on the theater’s original developer, Royal Faubion.
Though Crewdson sought to put the restructuring in the most positive light possible, a number of sources previously employed by her suggested the latest upheaval was but another indication of Crewdson’s unwillingness–or inability–to maintain a stable administrative staff to run and grow the 14-year-old company. One former staffer said as many as 30 employees have come and gone from the small Pegasus staff over the past four years alone. Several former staffers also maintain that Pegasus has dangerously overextended itself by producing a series of costly musicals in the past few years. Several sources familiar with Pegasus’s finances cited last season’s Jump for Joy in particular as one production that did not help the company’s financial situation, though it did bring Pegasus critical acclaim and considerable national exposure.
