The late Etel Billig once talked of how she wanted to get money from a private arts organization in Chicago for her Illinois Theatre Center in Park Forest. Her hat in hand, she asked for a grant to help continue her lifelong dream of keeping the dramatic arts alive in the south suburbs.
In the end, all she got was a “don’t bother us” turndown.
She told me the board never considered spending money in the south suburbs and that they were surprised to learn there were arts organizations this side of Madison Street.
“They didn’t know and they didn’t care,” were her words. But Billig was both tough and resilient, and until her death in 2012 she fought for and earned funding for the ITC, and she kept the doors open thanks to some small grants and dedicated patron support.
Her story is not uncommon to those who foster the creative arts in an area of more than 50 gritty enclaves that are wedded not by mutual interests or wealth, but by geography. The affluent homes in Flossmoor and Olympia Fields are not far from two of the poorest towns in the state, Ford Heights and Harvey. From Merionette Park to Crete and from the Illinois-Indiana state line to somewhere west of I-57, the south suburbs encompass a mini-world of race, religion and income. We are a separate and unequal band of towns and villages, economically divided from one another, and it appears as if we need a rising tide of good housing and good jobs to level all our boats.
If the people in a new coalition of cultural groups have anything to say about it, artistic oars are pulling together through the arts, and they want to display their gifts to those who say “don’t bother us.”
For the last four years, the 17-member Southland Arts, Municipalities and Business Alliance has had a mission to connect the rest of the Chicago area to the best cultural attractions this area has to offer. Its goal is to unite our artistic resources with business in an effort to enrich lives. The biggest challenge is to make people aware of the solid state of the arts in the area — from music to drama, painting to sculpture, entertainment to education.
The group’s unofficial motto is: If we perform it, they will come.
The master plan of using the arts to showcase the area has been around a long time and was fashioned in other ways in other times. Over the course of years and for one reason or another, none seemed to last. There always seemed to be a problem of funding, of planning, or of leadership. But this venture, sponsored by both the Chicago Southland Convention & Visitors Bureau and the South Suburban Small Business Association may have the right mix and strong backing.
It began with a July 2013 email from Geoffrey Bates, then the curator of the Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park at Governors State University, to numerous arts groups in the area, urging them to use the SSSBA arts calendar to promote their events. It took about a year before a meeting of the various organizations was held and SAMBA took shape.
The group is composed of banks, symphony orchestras, choral groups, two sculpture parks, drama groups, art galleries, and both Governors State University and Prairie State College — and in the spirit of truth, this scribbler is the Grande Prairie Singers delegate.
SAMBA’s first big event, the “Let Them Eat Jazz” festival earlier this year, celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first commercial recording of jazz music. Using its combined power, SAMBA worked with restaurants and hotels to direct visitors to attend the various events. There are no definitive numbers surrounding the series of concerts, so it is difficult to measure the extent of the benefits. But Jeff Stevenson, the current director of the Manilow Sculpture Park, claims this first attempt was a triumph.
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“We reached our goal of establishing ourselves,” he said. “We got funding and we got help from hotels and restaurants. For a first-time event, I think it was a clear success.”
Next fall, SAMBA will stage a “Made in America” festival, displaying the talents of American artists, writers and composers. The festival, Oct. 6-12, 2018, will take place throughout the south suburbs. The tide can’t rise soon enough.