from Susan Van Dusen
I’ve never written a blog entry before, being of an age where computers and cell phones are, for me, akin to the Wright brothers’ first airplanes and indoor plumbing! None-the-less, I’d like to say a few things about Northlight Theatre and its importance to our community.
For me, the Arts, theatre and literature in particular, are as vital as air. Through them I can fly through the universe. They make me laugh, cry, feel immense pride, or show me that I should become more aware. Northlight Theatre does that for me. Their credo is to reflect our community to the world and the world to our community, and they take it very seriously.
Northlight makes me think and feel. Before attending Fire on the Mountain, I wondered, did I want to see a musical about coal miners from the Appalachian Mountains? Not on my must-do list. Still, I went and was mesmerized. The play began. A world was woven, and things I may have remembered from dry pages in history books danced before my eyes. The actors told and sang the story of the miners, their terrible lives, waking in the dark, working in the dank and dangerous mines, breathing in lung-destroying dust. The music, joyous and mournful, celebrated their lives and culture. It was a slap-in-the-face moment for comfortable audience members to see the hardships experienced then, and still today, by these people who eke out their lives so close to the bone. It was important for us to see – and enjoy. Northlight brought that awareness to this community in a wonderfully creative fashion.
The most recent play that cut me to the quick was The Outgoing Tide. Did I want to see a show about a man who would face a future similar to that of my mother, whose final decade with an Alzheimer’s-like disease was terribly painful to her and my family? I did not. Still, I went. The acting, with John Mahoney and Rondi Reed, was superb. The issue of choosing death with dignity rather than weighing down family was like the huge elephant in the room sitting on our faces.
The play galvanized me into action. I decided that everyone I knew should see it. I called friends, buttonholed people at meetings and events telling them they HAD to see the play. This was Northlight reflecting our community to the world. This was Northlight having the guts to present a new play with a very difficult subject. This was Northlight addressing concepts that we need to feel, not just intellectually understand.
The importance of the Arts–and of Northlight Theatre in particular–to this community is emphasized by the fact that the home of Northlight, the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, was created and financed by the Village of Skokie and the State of Illinois. The Village understood that if you put a theatre arts center with free parking in our suburb, and present exceptional entertainment, THEY WILL COME! “They” being people from Skokie, from the City of Chicago and its suburbs, and even from Wisconsin and Indiana. THEY will spend money in our town, helping our restauranteurs, shopkeepers, and Village economy.
Northlight lets us see ourselves, warts and all. Someone has to tell the Truth. We are lucky to have a wonderful institution in our own community that does just that.
Susan Van Dusen has been a teacher, editorial director of WBBM Radio, magazine and newspaper writer. Author of four children’s books, three on the history of Skokie, she is a founder of the cultural initiative “Coming Together in Skokie.” Van Dusen has lived in the Village for 30 years with her husband George, her sons David and Danny, and her grandson Anthony.
