As Skokie’s North Shore Center for the Performing Arts gets a new executive director, village officials are hoping the curtain will go up on a thriving post-pandemic time for the theater and event venue.
Lynn Cannon previously managed other venues for VenuWorks Inc., the management company which took over the running of the Center last July 1, and she started Feb. 1 as executive director of the Skokie location. She’s looking to raise the number of shows and events offered, find new talent and explore community partnerships, she said, with a view toward the village of Skokie’s goal of lowering the subsidy it has given the village-owned theater in recent years.
“We want to increase the number and variety of shows,” Cannon said. “We want to continue to grow the business.”
Since her arrival less than a month ago, things have been going well, she noted.
“It’s been great. The theaters are running like crazy. Everybody is amazingly competent at their jobs, so it’s been a smooth transition.”
The Center’s booking manager collaborates with VenuWorks’ booking specialists to look for new and up-and-coming artists, she said.
“We research how many tickets were sold for their concerts,” she explained, adding the theater is looking to continue its practice of offering a wide variety of entertainment, from comedy to classical to traditional to new talent.
Joseph Alaimo, the Center’s director of marketing, who served as Interim Executive Director before Cannon arrived, explained the Center has resident companies offering performances, such as Music Theater Works, Music of the Baroque and Northlight Theatre (though Northlight has plans
More Top Picks Generators
in the works to move to its own space in Evanston).In addition, the Center has its feature series, Alaimo explained, which includes one-night or short-run bookings of a wide variety of performers, and it also rents the theater to other productions, local dance or music schools giving recitals and other renters. The village of Skokie has a Performing Arts Center board that approves the bookings, he said.
Those offerings kept the Center’s budget in the black for years before the COVID-19 pandemic, said Ann Tennes, director of marketing and communications for the village of Skokie, adding the Center’s bookings have grown to near pre-pandemic levels.
When the village entered a first-time agreement with VenuWorks last June to do management and programming, “the agreement outlines and incentivizes a specific path to reduce the village’s annual $250,000 subsidy to the Center,” she wrote in an email.
She noted that Center audiences contribute about $1.9 million to the local economy just for dining in area restaurants, and that the village secured a $3.6 million state grant for capital improvements at the Center, which is 30 years old.
Cannon said the Center will be looking for corporate sponsors and partnerships to help bolster the budget. She also wants to continue expanding youth shows for school field trips, which stopped during the pandemic.
Cannon was part of the management team that opened the United Center in Chicago in 1994, according to a village news release. In 2000, she was hired as director of guest relations and entertainment for then-Arlington Park Racecourse, responsible for on-track entertainment and seasonal staff. More recently, she served as executive director for two venues managed by VenuWorks: Grossinger Motors Arena in Bloomington and the Capital Region MU Health Care Amphitheater in Jefferson City, Missouri.
A native of the Chicago area, Cannon said she started her career working at Alpine Valley Music Theater, the Shubert Theatre (now called the CIBC Theatre) and other local venues.
“For me, being back in the Chicago area has been an exciting experience,” she said. “My family is here.”