Theaters and Hotels: Strange Bedfellows?
With the funding spigot running at a bare trickle at many corporations and philanthropic foundations, arts organizations are thirstier than ever. Recently some local businesses and arts groups have forged promising partnerships that could be a boon for all parties involved. In the theatrical arena alone two hotels with astute general managers have successfully teamed up with theater companies anxious to expose their work to new audiences.
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WFMT taped staged readings of the plays in the hotel’s ballroom in front of 250-person audiences. All of the productions have subsequently aired on the fine-arts radio outlet. Guest Quarters’ out-of-pocket expenses for the tapings have totaled around $160,000. In turn the hotel made plenty of food and beverage sales to the audiences in addition to receiving generous media coverage and regular plugs on WFMT when the tapes aired. “The theater program has given us the kind of exposure we wouldn’t get otherwise, especially in a big city like Chicago,” notes the hotel’s general manager, Tim Benolken, who adds that planning is under way for a third season.
Forum Theatre’s Ruthless Decision
Time really flies at the Forum Theatre, in southwest suburban Summit. A Tribune ad on June 13 for the theater’s current production, the musical Ruthless!, announced the final ten weeks of the show’s run. Then in an ad in the same paper five days later the production was suddenly in its final five weeks of a six-month run. Forum spokeswoman Noreen Heron said that the theater management had decided not to take the financial risk of running the show for an additional five weeks through the dog days of August. She said, “We were able to move some groups we had booked in August back into July, and we felt it made good business sense to shorten the run.” Forum executives had hoped that Ruthless!, a biting musical comedy about an adolescent actress who gladly commits murder to achieve stardom, might transfer to a downtown house after it closed. Robert Perkins, who now co-owns and operates the Royal George Theatre, and producer Michael Leavitt of Fox Theatricals saw the production, but despite preliminary discussions about a transfer, neither has bitten. A separately produced Los Angeles production of the play is in the works, however.
