Art 1999’s DIY Attitude
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“We had some labor problems,” Blackman concedes, “but we got them resolved and got the fair open, though it made for a tense opening….Once I get all my walls and lights back into storage, there are a lot of conversations I need to have and questions I intend to ask.” Frank Libby, business representative for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local 10, predicted a smoother setup next year: “If there were hiccups, it had to do with the new design, new walls, new this and that, and the new [contractor].” In the past year, hoping to control the fair’s escalating production costs, Blackman has changed contractors and acquired his own lights, carpeting, and 12-foot-high booth walls, which has cut down on business for local contractors that previously supplied those materials. Speaking for the record, Navy Pier’s administration acknowledged nothing. “We hadn’t heard there were any difficulties with the unions,” says Marilynn Kelly, a spokesperson for general manager Jon Clay. “Everybody thinks it was a great fair.”
Some local dealers think the fiasco reflects badly on the city. “I think Mayor Daley would be mortified if he heard what people in New York and Europe thought of what goes on out at Navy Pier,” says van Straaten. On Monday, May 10, Blackman met with dealers and apologized profusely for what had happened, reportedly offering partial refunds to those who felt they deserved compensation. But he was unable to give them an ironclad assurance that the same thing wouldn’t happen next year. “Without that assurance,” says Landau, “I won’t be coming back.”
Michael Cullen and Sheila Heneghan are set to resume their partnership as theatrical producers this fall with a production of Alfred Uhry’s Tony Award-winning play The Last Night of Ballyhoo. An open casting call is in progress now, with rehearsals set to begin in mid-September and an opening scheduled for early October at the Mercury Theater, the 300-seat house Cullen owns and operates in Lakeview. If the production pans out, it would mark Cullen and Heneghan’s first commercial production in nearly a decade; with former partner Howard Platt, the pair were responsible for long-running Chicago productions of Pump Boys and Dinettes and Driving Miss Daisy, another Uhry play.
