Ballet Chicago: How to Lose Friends and Discourage Funders
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What Smith glossed over is the irksome fact that Ballet Chicago has performed as much at Jacob’s Pillow as it has in its hometown, which is funding a large part of the company’s expensive operation. Ballet Chicago’s money problems may be linked to economic conditions, as Duell said, but then again it may be that local funders aren’t ready to fork more money over to an organization that has already consumed so much while maintaining such a low local performance profile. Also missing in Smith’s piece was any sense of the company’s financial status or whether it has any responsible plan for growth, details that managing director Randall Green has been reluctant to discuss in the past. (He couldn’t be reached for comment.)
The summer movie season is just moving into high gear, and already it can claim one expensive disaster, Hudson Hawk, a big-budget adventure movie starring Bruce Willis. Last weekend the film was pulling in three-day grosses in the piddling $1,700 range at some theaters around town. “It’s a bigger flop than last Christmas’s Bonfire of the Vanities,” lamented one exhibitor. Backdraft and Only the Lonely, both shot in Chicago, were doing better, though neither is likely to wind up a blockbuster. Exhibitors have high hopes for Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner, which opens next weekend.
