Wisdom Bridge Bound for Skokie?

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Apparently this drastically revised plan for the performing arts center was hastily formulated over the last month; on April 20, Skokie rejected a standing proposal for a 1,200-seat theater and gave the Centre East Authority (the quasi-governmental body overseeing development of the performing arts center) until June 1 to come up with a different plan.

Dorothy Litwin has tried to keep the project moving forward for more than eight years as plans have been repeatedly scaled back. She initially had hoped to move into a 2,000-seat state-of-the-art theater that could accommodate a range of events. But as Skokie Officials looked at the cost of building and operating such a facility, Litwin was forced to lower her sights.

Wisdom Bridge’s current operating budget is around $900,000. Ortmann said he had not yet determined what it would cost Wisdom Bridge to lease the Skokie facility and present four plays a year or exactly where he would find all the necessary funding; he said he’s counting on sizable increases in audience. Wisdom Bridge board chairman John Conlon was unavailable to discuss the the theater company’s proposed move.

Rumors of Falls’s plans came on the eve of the Tony Awards telecast from New York, where Falls and Roche Schulfer, the Goodman’s producing director, appeared to accept a special award for outstanding regional theater. Falls is currently in rehearsal for John Logan’s Riverview: A Melodrama With Music, a massive new work about the dark underbelly of life in post-World War II Chicago. The Goodman’s 1991-’92 season has been lackluster thus far, with two poorly received productions staged back-to-back–Twelfth Night, directed by Neil Bartlett, and Steve Tesich’s On the Open Road, directed by Falls. Riverview, perhaps the most expensive show in Goodman’s history (it has a cast of close to 40 and a budget reportedly approaching $750,000), opens June 22.

Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/David Carter.