On his knees in a lush park in Arlington Heights, a wavy-haired Hippolytus pounded the ground with his fists and cried out to King Theseus in an anguish first heard 2,500 years ago: “I DID NOT SIN WITH YOUR WIFE!”
Curious passers-by glanced over at the outdoor rehearsal of “Hippolytus,” an ancient Greek play that will be performed as part of a celebration of the Arlington Heights Park District’s 75th anniversary.
The play demonstrates how far the Park District has come from hosting genteel Sunday afternoons when families picnicked around a gazebo and listened to Sousa marches tooted by a local brass band.
Today, the district is involved in the lives of its patrons through activities that extend almost from cradle to grave–from its before- and after-school childcare to its senior citizen classes. Last year, more than 48,000 people signed up for programs that ranged from baton twirling to Web-surfing.
And as the district marks its anniversary, officials point to high satisfaction ratings in a survey of patrons and a balanced, $16 million budget as signs that the district is successful–despite a tax referendum that failed in April.
Arlington Heights “is a very solid, middle-class community, but we do have different tastes. People definitely want more upscale, sophisticated experiences,” said Tom Drake, president of the Arlington Heights Park Board. “We are looking at innovative ways to generate revenue.”
Although a Greek play “is not my cup of tea,” Drake said, “We are going to give it a shot and see how it works.”
There was a time when the only thing the district offered was swim classes, remembers KathrynGraham, a park trustee since 1973.
“We didn’t have golf courses, we didn’t have tennis courts, we didn’t have soccer fields,” when she was first elected to the board, she said.
Since then, the district has built two golf courses, including Nickol Knoll, where a memorial to Walter Payton was installed this spring. The district created Lake Arlington and became a partner in the historical museum and senior center.
Now the district has 58 parks on more than 440 acres, five swimming pools with adjoining neighborhood centers, one indoor pool, a cultural arts center, a tennis club, fitness center, 43 softball diamonds, 17 soccer fields, 58 outdoor tennis courts and 26 outdoor ice skating rinks.
The mission of providing open space and recreation has been part of the Park District’s mission since it was created in 1925 as a way to preserve parks along the rail line through town, parks officials said. And although all those parks were long ago paved over for commuter parking lots, parks officials say they are still committed to providing recreation for residents.
“The best source of new program ideas come from the people themselves,” said Roger Key, director of recreation and facilities. “They will call and ask, `I want to do this.'”
As a taxing body, the district can offer classes and hobbies that are cheaper than private lessons, Drake said. The Arlington Heights Park District is one of the oldest of the 350 park districts in the state, and Illinois carries the distinction of having more independent park districts than any other state, according to the Illinois Association of Park Districts.
The park district system dates to the 1860s when rampant urban growth prompted social concerns that the meadows, greens and forests were being wiped out.
In New York City, officials created Central Park in 1860. Four years later, the first park in Illinois was created when Chicago founded what is now known as Lincoln Park. Park advocates lobbied the Illinois Legislature for more parks, and a landmark 1869 Illinois law created independent taxing bodies dedicated to buying and maintaining park land, according to the park association.
Soon, park districts sprouted up on the West and South Sides of Chicago, and in other Illinois cities, such as Quincy, Peoria, Springfield and Dixon.
Social concerns for the poor on Chicago’s South and West Sides prompted the creation between 1900 and 1910 of a network of small parks, complete with community centers and swimming pools, to serve as the social center of each neighborhood, said Malcom Cairns, an associate professor at Ball State University and author of “The Landscape Architecture Heritage of Illinois.”
These small neighborhood parks served as a national model for new park districts, and it was that model that early Arlington Heights park trustees turned to when they formed the town’s district in 1925.
“Park districts are very independent, political units,” Cairns said. Even today, Arlington Heights park officials “are responding to what they think the people of Arlington Heights need or want. The people who send their tax money to the Park District expect that kind of kind of service.”
The tax funding gives the district freedom to experiment with different projects–like the Greek plays.
To celebrate its birthday on Friday, the district is offering a hot dog lunch, birthday cake, blues music and, later, a banjo concert. On Saturday, admission to all five outdoor pools in the district will be free.
Also Friday, the local theater group Janus Theatre will perform Euripides’ “Hippolytus” in a tiny outdoor amphitheater in North School Park. The district waived the rental fee for the amphitheater in exchange for Janus offering free drama classes to district patrons.
The Greek tragedy is about a young man devoted to chastity who is falsely accused of raping his stepmother.
“I’ve never seen a play like this,” said Itzia Cobarrubias, 21, who watched the outdoor rehearsal with her boyfriend, Vassil Stoev. “I’ve only seen `West Side Story’ at the Drury Lane. But this is pretty good.”
Janus Theatre is a 12-member group that usually performs Shakespeare at the Vail Street Cafe in downtown Arlington Heights. Performing Greek plays is a risk, particularly when most people associate outdoor plays with Shakespearean festivals, said Janus founder Sean Patrick Hargadon.
“Supposedly it’s box office death,” Hargadon said.
But unlike Shakespeare, Greek plays can be performed with a minimum of staging, and they are something completely different, said Steve Scott, associate producer at the Goodman Theater in Chicago.
“It’s going to be a hard sell, but if it’s well acted and well produced, I think people will come,” Scott said.
The Janus performers seem to embrace the challenge of bringing to life what most people think of as musty old plays forced on them by graying English teachers.
“It’s just so raw–there’s no reflection,” said Richard Emling, a member of the play’s male chorus.
“We are going to blow this up in this sleepy town with its well-kept lawns and church bells,” he said. “We want them to feel with us.”
