UNC, HBO fail to cut deal

Following what organizers have described as a successful Carolina Comedy Festival, questions about missed opportunity have come to light. Officials confirmed Monday that Lewis Black's stand-up performance, publicized as a trial run of an upcoming HBO special, initially was conceived as an opportunity to tape Black's special in Chapel Hill. Jonathon Benson, president of the Carolina Union Activities Board, said the plan to tape Saturday's show never came to fruition. Benson, who worked as an intern at "The Daily Show" this summer, said Black approached him in June about taping a special in the campus's newly renovated performing arts space. He put Black in contact with campus officials but did not hear about the outcome of the discussions until the fall, when he learned that HBO's cameras would not be coming to campus. Don Luse, director of the Carolina Union, said the partnership with HBO did not happen because of the company's staffing and timing concerns. "We were trying to make it happen," said Luse, who negotiates contracts with the performers CUAB brings to campus. "It's been an idea that (Black) wanted to make happen, and I did talk with his agent, and we had hoped to pull it off, but it ended up being a timing situation and a dollar situation." HBO opted not to tape in Chapel Hill because it was too expensive to bring in its own employees, he said. "The cost of bringing everybody in and transporting them here as opposed to having their employees working out of a studio or someplace, it became cost prohibitive," Luse said. Emil Kang, the University's executive director for the arts and the person in charge of booking the Carolina Performing Arts Series and other events at Memorial Hall, said he did not know many details of the HBO situation. "I heard about that a while ago," Kang said. "I heard that that was a possibility, but I don't know what happened." Black was unavailable for comment Monday, and HBO's corporate communications office did not return calls late in the afternoon. Luse said that not having the taping was an HBO decision that had nothing to do with the availability of Memorial Hall. "It wasn't the cost of using the facility; it was the cost of moving employees and the equipment." The estimated cost of the weeklong Carolina Comedy Festival, which ran March 21 through Saturday and featured more than a dozen events, was about $40,000. Luse said he did not know how a partnership with HBO would have affected the cost. The festival's second year was a learning experience that underscored CUAB's booking relationship with officials at Memorial Hall, Benson said. "With every event we get partial answers to questions," he said. "I know from this time last year we've already worked out several questions, and I hope that continues, and that the relationship becomes more clear." Contact the A&E Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.