Column: Paramount cuts should be a call to BOLD community action

Chicago Tribune

4 days ago

No question the letter sent to Paramount Theatre subscribers on Monday was met with both surprise and disappointment.
After years of momentum, news that the BOLD Series was being cancelled due to a potential significant slash in previously discussed funding from the city of Aurora also resulted in a significant amount of frustration and even anger.
But can these intense emotions morph into a movement to convince newly-elected Mayor John Laesch and the City Council that slashing the budget of downtown Aurora's undisputed economic engine would be both 'short-sighted' and 'bone-headed.'
Those are just a few of the descriptions I've read and heard in person about the administration possibly reducing the Paramount's previously discussed city grant for 2026 from $7 million to around $2.5 million; in essence, cutting down programs from 900 to 700, which has already led to staff layoffs, and would likely mean a reduction in other theater programming and to the Paramount School of the Arts.
Like so many others in the city, Christensen, the city's poet laureate emerita and founding member of Fox Valley Music Foundation. has much invested in the arts in this community. And in her 13-year career with the city itself, first as downtown development director and then as neighborhood redevelopment manager, she's also witnessed the Paramount's significant impact on a once beleaguered downtown.
'Regardless of the time of day or day of the week that I find myself in downtown Aurora, the positive vibe is real,' she wrote, adding that she hears a similar sentiment from 'everyone who visits downtown Aurora, whether they are coming from Batavia, Geneva, St. Charles, Yorkville, Oswego, North Aurora, Naperville, or even the U.K., where my daughter lives.'
'We have seen cycles up and down, but we are clearly on the upswing now,' she insisted. 'I strenuously hope that our elected officials don't cut the ropes, pull the rug out from under us …'
There's no question the mayor – no theater fan by his own admission – is in a tight spot. He's publicly praised the Paramount as an 'important crown jewel' in Aurora but does so while painting a dire – and some have said exaggerated – picture of the municipal budget deficit. And he insists the city is giving the Aurora Civic Center Authority, which oversees the Paramount venues, far too much money, that it needs to do a better job of managing its funding and that its leaders must become more creative, more aggressive in fundraising efforts.
Among suggestions from the city: raise ticket prices for its venues, which include Paramount, Copley and Stolp Island theaters, as well as RiverEdge Park. But Paramount leaders have held on to their belief the arts must be kept as affordable as possible, a philosophy that was referred to in Monday's letter to subscribers.
'Even as we have grown from a $3.5 million organization in 2010 to a $30 million one in 2025, we've remained committed to accessibility – keeping ticket prices affordable and offering 'Pay what You Can' performances,' board members stated in the letter.
The news has produced plenty of debate on social media, with one side insisting the Paramount needs to pay its own way, and others noting that, while budgets need to be adhered to, there are intangibles surrounding some things that go beyond a business ledger.
As was pointed out in a news story by Beacon-News reporter Christian Smith, going by the most recent numbers from the national Arts & Economic Prosperity study – that those attending nonprofit arts or culture events spend more than $38 per person per event in addition to the ticket – ACCA would have generated around $24 million from its 2024 audiences alone.
Along that same idea, 'How much money does Phillips Park generate? We put money into it because parks are good for the community,' not because they turn a profit, noted Aurora Ald. Carl Franco, who told me he's hearing from 'very disturbed, very passionate' residents of his 5th Ward about the Paramount cuts.
But Franco suggests people also go straight to the mayor's office with their opinions, or better yet, show up at City Council meetings and use their three minutes to voice their concerns.
All of which made me think about a grassroots movement I wrote about a few months ago that was centered around another downtown landmark: The old Aurora Hotel, once a grand destination, had fallen into disrepair and was set for demolition in the mid-1990s because the city would not help fund its restoration.
But a few passionate people put together a community blitz, which included writing letters, gathering petitions, speaking to residents and civic groups and producing research showing that historic preservation is more than just saving old buildings – it is an economic engine.
The voice of the people resulted in a victory cheer. After a whole lot of back and forth and with, as one Beacon-News headline proclaimed, the hotel 'a whisper away from the wrecking ball,' the city agreed to the more than half-million-dollar loan to save the building. Today the building is known as North Island Apartments, a fully-occupied affordable senior housing venue that has added much-needed density to downtown Aurora.
'Money spent is money made,' insisted Franco, who also referred to another old adage – making lemons out of lemonade – in response to this week's negative news from the Paramount.
While these cuts are indeed BOLD and could have been made more gradually, the announcement that one of the Paramount's highly-acclaimed programs is being cancelled at the end of this month has gotten everyone's attention.
And hopefully that will push more residents, more officials, more community leaders to become engaged in efforts to restore the full luster to Aurora's crown jewel.
Which brings me to a throw-back thought: Why not form another grassroots movement? Maybe call it 'Friends of the Paramount.' Take all those negative feelings and turn them into advocacy that can be seen and heard. And if you've got some ideas – creative, practical or a combination of the two – feel free to share them with Paramount Senior Marketing Director Hollis at [e-mail]
The mission behind that grassroots effort three decades ago was to 'slow down and look at the big picture.'
As Karen Christensen noted in a second email she sent to the city, 'You might say that Aurora has had a few chances to re-invent itself – in the 1960s, in the 1980s and in the early 2000s. It's not for lack of trying. I would hate to see us make the storied prophesy come true, i.e. 'three strikes and you're out.'