Earlier this month, the Chicago Park District announced that it had signed an agreement with George Lucas about how things will work when—um, if—he gets permission to build his Lucas Museum of Narrative Art on its lakefront land.
Which is one reason why the Lucas Museum is going to need some friends.
The announcement directed readers to the website, friendsoflucasmuseum.com, for more information. That turned out to be disappointing—there wasn’t any additional material, just a space to fill in your name and e-mail address for “future updates.”
At 280 seats, Theater on the Lake would have accommodated a lot more of us, but it’s awaiting renovations announced by the mayor last November. That’s when Emanuel said proposals would be sought for an ambitious public-private makeover that would turn TOL into a year-round venue and tie into an Army Corps of Engineers antiflooding project (as yet unstarted) that’ll add six acres of landfill to the shore.
How many of them actually applied is a mystery at this point. Although the original deadline came and went in June, no one has been selected, and the Park District isn’t commenting except to say that it’s “evaluating the proposals.” How many proposals? Officials aren’t saying.
