Dumped
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Hirsch is credited with handling the school’s finances as it grew from a $250,000-a-year operation in the late 1980s to one with a budget of more than $5 million; last fall the school opened the Chicago Folk Center south of Lincoln and Wilson, raising nearly $8 million to renovate the former Hild Library building and increasing its operating budget by more than a third. Hirsch has returned to her old job as a math teacher at Francis Parker Academy, while her husband and the board recently began interviewing candidates to replace her as financial director. “I certainly wasn’t in the job for the glory,” says Michelle Hirsch. “It was always a labor of love.”
Northlight Theatre’s upcoming production of Side Show, the bittersweet musical about Siamese twins, has experienced a sideshow of its own. In late August, after casting the play, director Victoria Bussert notified Northlight artistic director B.J. Jones that she was quitting. Jones insists he had no warning but does remember Bussert saying at some point, “I think you want to codirect this show.” He says he gave Bussert free rein in casting the production and agreed to most of the designers she wanted but nixed her plan to import a New York choreographer. “It was just going to be cost prohibitive,” explains Jones. Bussert directed several well-received musicals at Pegasus Players in the early 90s and went on to numerous directing assignments in Cleveland, including a production of Side Show. “I was able to realize my vision there,” says Bussert. She describes the situation at Northlight as “really a personal thing, because I had a feeling B.J. and I were seeing things differently.”
Her departure from the Oriental has also fueled speculation that SFX might merge the staffs of the Oriental and the Palace Theatre, which it co-owns with Fox Theatricals. Fox has already taken over group sales for the Oriental, though Fox producer Michael Leavitt says that right now his organization is too busy readying the Palace for its December opening to consider the matter.
