Earlier this week, I received an email from John Sparks, the former artistic director of Theatre Building Chicago, protesting the recent actions by TBC’s board that included selling the organization’s Belmont Avenue home. Sparks has been associated with TBC since 1984, and served as artistic director from 2000 until August of last year, when he stepped down in solidarity when the board fired longtime executive director Joan Mazzonelli. In a Theatre Building press release announcing his exit, Sparks (who split his time between Chicago and Los Angeles, where he serves as artistic director for the Academy for New Musical Theatre) said “there may be opportunity for a continued relationship with TBC.” It doesn’t sound like that’s the case any longer. With Sparks’s permission, I’m reprinting his statement after the jump.
I’m saddened by the sale of Theatre Building Chicago to a private investment group.
The decision to sell the building was made by a board of directors that last summer had shrunk to only seven members, and at the present time has only five members (on a board that at one time, I believe, had as many as twenty directors). For over three decades, the board supported the primary mission of the building: to nurture the emergence of young and vital theatre talent in Chicago. Now the property is in private hands, sold by a handful of people who want to narrow that mission by using the proceeds of the sale to produce musicals. (Nurturing the creation phase of new musicals was a part of the venerable institution’s mission.)
The Theatre Building Chicago board sold the property in a depressed market for a fraction of what it might bring in a stronger market. Whether or not one agrees with the new direction of the company, it seems clear that if the board had waited they could have realized a much better price and a stronger base for their new plans.
Now the private investment group plans turn the property over to another theatre company. That company is small and has hitherto operated on about 1/5 of the Theatre Building Chicago annual budget. However earnest this new management company may be, it does not have the demonstrated experience to conduct a complex business housed in an aging facility.
If the new company is unable to at least break even, the private investment group will have every reason to sell the property. Any profits will go into private pockets rather than to the cultural wealth of the community. And then we will be asking ourselves, “Who is going to nurture the artists who will create the Steppenwolf’s, the Chicago Shakespeare’s, etc. of tomorrow the way Theatre Building Chicago did in the past?”
Moreover, one of the board members of the new management company is the manager of the private investment group. This seems like a not-so-oblique way for a non-profit to hedge its bets, and to enable the people behind it to profit personally. Certainly this was not the intention of the founders and protectors of Theatre Building Chicago. Ousted by the current board, they are left with nothing except the satisfaction of a job well done (unless you count the accrued gratitude of thousands of theatre artists who started their professional careers there).
American business has lost its soul. One had hoped that American show business had not. Must it be onward and downward?
John Sparks
Artistic Director
The Academy for New Musical Theatre (Los Angeles)
“Who is going to nurture the artists who will create the Steppenwolf’s, the Chicago Shakespeare’s, etc. of tomorrow the way Theatre Building Chicago did in the past?”
Who nurtured the artists that led to sketchfest? When 2nd City became world famous, did the established theater companies take note and seek to work with this new brand of artists, or did they treat that work as not serious enough to have any attention paid? More often than not, it was the latter. Improvisers and sketch writers are still the blacksheep of Chicago’s theater scene.
Chicago is a great theater city and its many storefronts are a testament to what can be accomplished. However, Chicago became the unrivaled home of innovative comedy in America in spite of the theater scene, not because of it.
The 1/5 a budget line is perfectly in step with the belief that this city’s comedians aren’t up to the task of continued growth. They are. Lukaba will do just fine.
This is really sad to hear. I remain very, very suspicious of the motives behind the sale of the building. Regardless of what the Attorney General says, I suspect in a year or so the building will be re-sold and the land converted to condos or a shopping mall. I’ve learned the hard way that anything pertaining to Chicago and real estate developers is an inherently corrupt and double-dealing business.
This is not to speak ill of the Lukaba/Chicago Sketchfest people in any way. But the cynical part of me believes that the private investment group purposely have set this new venture up to fail so they will have an excuse to pocket the profits of turning TBC into condos or a shopping mall in a year or so.
Theatre Building Chicago had a very special mission as I am sure Lukaba has its own mission. I feel very sad that TBC which has struggled through economic times and whose staff as sacrificed their own salaries for the good of the organization is lost. This is a valuable and recognized part of Chicago’s theatre and improv history as TBC hosted all types of theatre. Providing a place for new and struggling companies allowed TBC the role of big brother/sister to many organizations. This is a worthy goal and the staff of TBC has been untiring in their personal commitments to young artists and young companies. This sale is a loss to Chicago for many reasons. This is not one company against another, it is the history of many young companies.
The sale seems rather shady with so few board members involved in the decision making and most of them relatively new to the board. The history of an organization needs to be considered and treasured before such a drastic decision is made.
It is with great sorrow that I watch the wonderful staff of TBC suffer. They held on and kept their heads up through many hard times and I hope that each one of these talented artists will find a new and exciting place to share their talents.
Kris, I can’t believe you printed this. I talked with John and found he couldn’t back up his accusations–especially about the board member. Be careful. There’s a reason journalists are required to check the facts.
I urge the former board members and fantastic management of the Theatre Building to contact the nice people at Lawyers for the Creative Arts in Chicago. This was obviously a scam.
It is legally incumbent upon board members of a 501 (c) 3 not-for-profit organization to act in the best interest of the organization, not for their own personal interests; especially when those two sets of interests are in conflict….this is the law…check it out. This is the law and this was obviously and deviously violated by a crew of scoundrels and it doesn’t sound like a very smart set of scoundrels. Your rights have been violated. Do something.
Martin has it wrong–it’s not about what will replace the Theater Building, it’s about the fact that the Theater Building did not need replacing if it had not been for the actions of a greedy and clueless few. Sketchfest may conveniently ignore the facts of the Building’s history, but that does not change anything at all. Sketchfest is in this position because other people were thrown out on the streets after 25 years of hard work without so much as a thank you.
The Theater Building was my childhood and my parents’ legacy. It is sad (at best) and criminal (at worst) that it went this way.
John Sparks - in the words of stephen sondheim move on - really John, you should have been put out to pasture many years ago.
Carrie, while I appreciate your advice regarding journalistic standards, we’re not endorsing Sparks’s statement. It’s an open letter (TOC’s editor-in-chief also received it, as you apparently did too) from a prominent party expressing opinion about a matter of public interest. That strikes me as newsworthy on its face.
Oh, come on. The transparency of the motives behind this whole thing are about as obvious as were Cheney/Rumsfeld’s eight years ago. How anyone could hear the current board’s version of events and keep a straight face is beyond me. If the shadiness of this entire debacle is not immediately apparent to you, please check your pulse. Just wait to see how quickly the property ends up in commercial development that lines the pockets of at least a few individuals who’ve advocated in favor of these current shenanigans. To think otherwise, one must have an ability to convince oneself of their own mythology that would rival that of the fiercest Tea Baggers. Shame, shame, shame on those who’ve stood by and said nothing.
For the record, I reached out to TBC’s new executive director, Sean Cercone, to ask if he or TBC’s board cared to respond. He replied via e-mail: “I have no comment on Mr. Sparks letter. God bless America, everyone is entitled to their opinion.”
Chris Jones at the Tribune is now reporting (http://bit.ly/bnPn74) that Charles Jesser, the manager of the private investment group, denies being on Lukaba’s board. Jones also quotes Sparks as rescinding that allegation, saying, “I really don’t know…I apologize if my facts were wrong.”
There are actually other potential conflict-of-interest issues on the TBC that have nothing to do with Lukaba (i.e., the fact that the people behind the “private investment group” have never actually been identified, coupled with the fact that there are real estate developers on the board itself. Plus the fact that the president of TBC board writes musicals himself, and many insiders believe he made the changes in large part to help get his own work produced there.
There’s a lot of shady issues surrounding this whole mess, which all began when several longtime TBC board members were forced out about a year ago.
Martin is missing a very important point. Lukaba and TBC found a mutual goal in the development of theatre. Lukaba’s forte is exploring and developing along the sketch comedy genre while TBC welcomed almost any and all groups. If you actually delve into Brian Posen’s history you will see that he has been producing at TBC for over a decade - and not just Sketchfest. MOUSETRAP, NOISES OFF, and GREATER TUNA are just some of the titles he produced. The history of SKETCHFEST is actually a tribute to TBC itself. The whole idea was borne out of the extraordinary events surrounding Brian having rented space at TBC and through other circumstances suddenly finding he needed to fill a few weeks with some type of show, called bunch of the other sketch groups in chicago and produced the first Sketchfest. It was only about 30 groups and ran for about 5-6 weeks. After receiving such positive repsonse, he came to TBC and looked at renting some space again the next year. It has taken many years of meetings and discussions on both sides to see what could be done better to make the whole experience what it has become today. One side didn’t do it alone, they both worked together. This is not an issue of Lukaba muscling TBC out and TBC not respecting sketch comedy in the past. A little research shows that there have been some groups in the past, Lakewood Manor Players and New Batch of Genes to name a few, who rented some weeks themselves to promote and do a show. My only guess is that if a few more groups actually got together and decided to do a couple of weekends of their shows combined, more and more groups would have found TBC a very welcome home. TBC never turned anyone away because of a type of show it wanted to do. Maybe the right time wasn’t available, maybe they couldn’t do it by themselves, who knows. But don’t ever say or think that TBC was not there to help foster and nurture the sketch comedy world.
Oh please, let us not be so naïve. When Joan was ousted so ceremoniously last summer and John fired without being given a chance to say “I might stay”, I said then that “What they want is the Building.” I predicted it would be sold and eventually torn down to make way for some real estate deal. No one that I know connected with the Building is against Lukaba or any other not-for-profit theatre from using the Building. The idea always was that it would stay there to serve the community. That said, now that the brilliant new Executive Director, fresh from Akron along with a decimated theatre and two law suits that are publicly verifiable, has stepped in to save the American musical theatre, we can all relax. If his new “business plan” comes to full fruition he will BE the new center of American musicals. Stop me before I burst a blood vessel from laughing. He and “the board” now have a million dollars to do with what they want…it will not take long for it to go down the black hole of new musical theatre production. It’s almost amusing that he hasn’t figured out that theatre is real estate: if you don’t have a space, the old plank and a passion isn’t going to work. In the meantime, I do hope that Illinois State Treasurer remembers to put the property back on the tax roll, and most of all I hope that Lukaba and Co. have deep pockets. They will need them.
Ruth Higgins
Co-founder, Theatre Building
http://www.cantonrep.com/entertainment/x1621233647/Carousel-Dinner-Theatre-issues-statement-about-closing
http://www.pryorcashman.com/news-265.html
Oh lordy, now that has-been Ruth Higgins is sharing opinions. She who has had nothing to do with the building for years, she who complained about Joan for years - she who has had nothing to do with the arts in chicago in years. Like stated up above Ruth - moveon, let go, no one here much remembers you much less cares about your opinions. Quit trying to share them with us…
IIt is absolutely amazing to me how shallow and misdirected SF’s comment really is.
If that is the mind-set of the so-called theatre ‘creation’ (read, “building”) community in this city at this point in our collective evolution, then you all need a colonic.
Suggesting RH as a ‘has-been’? Are you kidding me?
You too will grow older and (hopefully, for us all) much, much wiser.
It’s the same old “what have you done for me lately” bullshit!
Creativity, Devotion, Obligation… Whatever it is that drives people to be creative, either in doing, or in encouraging others to DO must be nurtured.
This is not about Ruth or Joan or John.
Those of you with no power or interest to ‘remember’… Well, you will not fare well in this world, though some of you will get (financially) rich.
TBC… Sorry to see you go. It is OUR loss.
A long time neighbor, enthusiast and supporter.
P.S.
I am not looking forward to another mid-rise block of boring mind-rot condos to replace a space that once was occupied by people who really were creative and wanted to give something back.