Lonesome Coyote

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »

At a recent meeting of area artists and gallery operators, three different scenarios for ATC ’99 began to take shape. Justine Jentes of Inside Art gallery outlined the options in a recent memo that was faxed to interested parties, soliciting their opinions and participation. One plan would “scale the Coyote way down and focus on what exists in the community.” ATC would no longer solicit applications from artists or coordinate exhibition spaces; people participating in the festival would have to provide their own spaces or find local businesses to host their shows. Another plan would preserve the curated event of previous years, with ATC selecting 50 to 100 artists in addition to those showing at neighborhood galleries and studios, a model that would involve “finding schools, churches, businesses, and cultural institutions like the Polish Museum [of America] and the Ruiz [Belvis] Center to host exhibitors.” Peter Bowers, who designed last year’s schedule, floated a third option: engaging Eventive Design, a local event-marketing company he works for, to manage the festival.

Season’s Greetings

An item in Kup’s Column in last Sunday’s Sun-Times identified Forever Plaid–the squeaky-clean doo-wop revue at the Royal George Theatre Center cabaret–as the longest-running musical in Chicago. But that title has also been claimed by Co-ed Prison Sluts, the raunchy musical spoof that’s been playing at the Annoyance Theatre for more than nine years, racking up close to a thousand performances. According to a spokesperson for Forever Plaid, which opened in October 1994, the Royal George show has more than 1,800 performances under its belt (it’s staged five or more times a week, as opposed to twice a week for Co-ed Prison Sluts). Annoyance managing director Mark Sutton doesn’t care about the technicalities: “We like to use ‘longest-running musical’ in our advertising because it helps sell tickets.” He says he called a Forever Plaid publicist a couple of years ago when he first saw that show claim the title; the publicist ignored his complaints–but asked if his show was looking for a press agent. Sutton declined the offer, and look where it got him.