The match seemed perfect: Northlight Theatre needed a permanent home, and National-Louis University wanted a well-regarded Equity company for its 600-seat auditorium.
Or as Rene Roy, director of the university’s theater program, puts it: “They view [Northlight] as an amusement park. They see the whole thing as bringing Great America into Wilmette.”
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Northlight officials didn’t foresee this predicament. National-Louis’s address, after all, is in Evanston, a relatively cosmopolitan community with a supportive attitude toward the arts. But the National-Louis campus actually straddles the Evanston-Wilmette border. Most of the campus, including the theater, falls within Wilmette.
So in January they signed an agreement, held a reception, and distributed press releases. The Tribune ran an article, which caught the eye of Laurie Marston, Wilmette’s director of community development, who immediately sent a letter to university president Orley Herron.
“Wilmette is more of a suburb than Evanston,” says B.J. Jones, an Evanston resident and prominent actor/director who has worked with Northlight on several productions. “Evanston’s a multicultural and diverse city. I can’t imagine people in Evanston reacting with so much hostility to such a proposal.”
“I truly didn’t understand why they were so concerned. Our subscribers are North Shore residents; many of them are senior citizens. These are not the kind of people who urinate on the lawns outside of Wrigley Field. They don’t drive souped-up cars. They obey traffic laws. They won’t litter. But nothing I said had any effect. One guy said, ‘With all the traffic my wife won’t be able to get here with my sushi order,’ you know, from the take-out restaurant. Another neighbor said, ‘Let’s face it, this will really hurt property values.’ That sealed it. Property values are sacred icons in Wilmette.”
“I think village and university officials handled themselves very professionally and courteously,” says Jacobson. “I wish Northlight well. There was never anything against Northlight. One of my neighbors is a former Northlight board member. Many residents here enjoy the theater.”
