Block Museum’s Growth Spurt
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The addition will be the work of Dirk Lohan, who designed the new Blue Cross-Blue Shield building on Randolph. Plans call for vastly expanded exhibition space, a 200-seat auditorium, a 40-seat classroom, an art library, a print and drawing study center, and new offices for administrative staff. Final renderings for the addition haven’t been completed, but Mickenberg promises a much more dramatic architectural statement than the nondescript concrete bunker now housing the museum.
Another Jolt for Joffrey?
The new Ford Center for the Performing Arts is scheduled to open here in October, but the fate of its corporate owner and operator, Livent Inc., could turn on the success of a show premiering this weekend in Toronto. Fosse: A Celebration in Song and Dance is the first major production to emerge from Livent since founder, chairman, and chief executive officer Garth Drabinsky was demoted last spring following a $20 million stock purchase by super-agent Michael Ovitz. If Fosse turns out to be a loser, it could force Ovitz to curtail live theater development and look to safer sources of revenue as he tries to turn around a company that’s lost more than $40 million over the past two years.
