The operators of the Lakeshore Theater, the latest venture to move into the old movie house at 3175 N. Broadway, have booked for a February opening Puppetry of the Penis, an off-Broadway hit featuring two naked Aussies performing various “dick tricks.”
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In 1992 Friedman went to work as managing director at the Northlight Theatre, then based in Evanston. In his early years there he again walked a tightrope, particularly after the theater’s deal to move to a space at National-Louis University in Evanston fell through. “We were nomads for two years after our deal with the college fell apart,” he says. “Just keeping alive while we moved from one stage to another was a major success.”
In 1996 Northlight moved to its current location in Skokie and built a stable pool of subscribers. Last spring Friedman left. “I had a great run at Northlight–I’m really proud of the work I did there,” he says. “But both sides agreed it was time for a change–for me and them.”
Ritter figured he could oversee the day-to-day operations if Friedman could bring in the financial backers. One of the first calls Friedman made was to Craig Golden, a 44-year-old developer who was undergoing his own sort of midlife identity crisis. “I love my business, but I was getting a little restless,” he says. “I wanted to do something a little different. I’m not making this up. The guys in my office were telling me, ‘You gotta get a sports car.’ We were actually looking up sports cars on the Web when Richard called.”
Friedman decided the show was worth the risk after he saw its creator, Simon Morley, on Jay Leno’s show. According to what Morley told Leno, the art of penis puppetry is some sort of Australian thing guys do after hours of drinking. “I don’t know a lot about the origins, but I do know that all of the actors who have ever done the roles are Aussies,” says Friedman. “When I saw Morley on Leno I figured, it’s in the mainstream. I mean, it had played well in Australia, England, Canada, New York, and LA. It should do well here. I wasn’t the only one who thought so–there were other theaters in Chicago looking to get it. But the producer came out here, and he liked our space.”
