By KEVIN NEVERS

Jerry Maren, who played the Lollipop Kid in the Wizard of Oz, and Karl Slover, who played the First Munchkin Trumpeter, will not be attending this year’s Wizard of Oz Festival, in the wake of a flap between festival organizers and Maren and Slover’s agent, Ralph Zellem.

Karen Spallina, special events director of Lakeshore Festival & Events Inc., says that she is “deeply saddened.” Zellem says that Maren and Slover are “deeply disappointed.” And while Spallina’s account of the dispute differs somewhat in detail from Zellem’s, they agree on one substantive issue: Maren and Slover, regular guests of the festival for years, were routinely invited this spring to be guests again, then were disinvited this summer, when festival organizers and the two Munchkins, represented by Zellem, were unable to reach agreement on the terms of their contract.

For Spallina the story begins after she had started to receive favorable responses from the other Munchkins and to discuss issues like their itinerary and stipend. No confirmation was received either from Maren—who customarily travels to the festival with his wife—or from Slover, she told the Chesterton Tribune, but Spallina was hearing from Zellem, who advised her that he is Maren and Slover’s agent and would be representing them in any negotiations.

Spallina said that festival organizers have a long-time policy, however, of negotiating directly with the Munchkins, not with their agents or promoters, after “a couple of times” in the past when agents “caused an uncomfortable relationship with the organizers of the festival and the Munchkins themselves.” So, Spallina said, she informed Zellem. “We have stayed true to our ideas and have not entertained any conversations with promoters. . . . I like things the old-fashioned way: simple. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”

Meanwhile, Spallina said, festival organizers had contacted Maren and Slover on several occasions but found them to be “hedging and not certain what they wanted to do this year.” Maren did tell her, Spallina said, that he is under contract with Zellem and that Zellem is authorized to conduct all negotiations on his behalf.

Festival organizers continued to pursue Maren and Slover, though, and finally Maren announced his intention to attend. “Jerry said that he’ll come,” Spallina said. “We’re all excited. ‘But you’ll still need to talk to Ralph,’ he tells us. So I did what I don’t do and called the promoter.”

Who began playing “hardball,” Spallina said. The festival has a policy of paying the expenses of the Munchkins’ traveling companions—in Maren’s case, for example, those of his wife—but Slover has typically traveled alone. Zellem, however, wanted festival organizers this year to book him as Slover’s traveling companion, and that demand Spallina rejected. “We don’t have the money for that,” Spallina said. “It’s not in our budget.”

The festival has a policy as well of permitting Munchkins to supplement their stipend by selling memorabilia. “The Munchkins can bring what they want and sell what they want,” Spallina said. “They do give free autographs but they also sell a lot of autographs.” Zellem, however, wanted festival organizers to rent him a booth at which he could sell his own Munchkin souvenirs, Spallina said, and that demand she also rejected. “This is a festival for the Munchkins,” Spallina said. “We want to keep our focus on that.”

At this point, Spallina said, she terminated her negotiations with Zellem. “End of conversation.” By this time in the summer, though, “we were behind schedule,” Spallina said.

“The program was at the printer” and a decision one way or the other had to be made. “So this is it. They were disinvited.” Letters to that effect were sent to Maren and Slover in late July.

“I really deeply regret it,” Spallina said. “They’re an integral part of the festival and it’s a shame they’re not coming. Hopefully they’ll be able to come back next year. That’s what we’d like to see.”

Zellem’s story is not much different, although he told the Tribune—in an e-mail sent in response to written questions—that Spallina and he actually did appear to reach terms in their conversation. “On the phone,” Zellem e-mailed, “I discussed with Karen each and every concern that Slover and Maren had. Eventually, all of the terms on the contract were agreed on, some however with hesitation.”

When Maren and Slover received their contracts, though, two items proved “disturbing.” Slover’s contract, Zellem e-mailed, did not provide for a traveling companion. “This was communicated to Karen and a revised contract was e-mailed and faxed to me. Karl’s amended contract stated that ‘If you would like a travel companion OTHER THAN your promoter/agent, Ralph Zellem, we will provide roundtrip airfare, hotel, and meals for that person.’”

“Karl and Jerry felt that this statement was both unfair, biased, and prejudiced against Karl’s freedom of choice to bring to Chesterton WHOMEVER he wished,” Zellem e-mailed. “After all, the other Munchkins were bringing the travel companion of THEIR choice, either a spouse, friend, or great-granddaughter. Why should Karl not have the same opportunity?”

The other “disturbing” item concerns permission to sell memorabilia and what may simply be a matter of miscommunication. In his e-mail Zellem wrote that Spallina rejected Maren and Slover’s request—not his own—to sell memorabilia and that his clients considered that rejection unfair, given the fact that another Munchkin was “given the approval to sell her autographed Oz memorabilia in a 10 x 10 rented booth. . . . And Karl and Jerry BOTH wanted the opportunity to pay for rented booth space so that they too could merchandise their Oz memorabilia to the attending public.”

“In an e-mail that I received from Karen,” Zellem e-mailed, “she stated that ‘Booth Space: As we discussed, Lakeshore Festival & Events Inc., the Oz Festival Committee, and the Duneland/Chesterton Chamber of Commerce will NOT offer booth space to you to sell Munchkin merchandise. We believe this would be in direct competition with the Munchkins’ ability to sell their merchandise throughout the festival weekend.’ Now then, does this make sense?”

It does make sense if, in her e-mail as quoted by Zellem, “you” refers not to Maren and Slover but to Zellem himself. It is unclear, though, who misinterpreted whom, whether Spallina thought that Zellem wanted permission to sell memorabilia for himself when in fact he wanted it for Maren and Slover, or whether Zellem thought that Spallina was denying permission to Maren and Slover when in fact she was merely denying it to him.

The question, though, is moot. The programs have been printed, the invitations to Maren and Slover rescinded, and now festival organizers can only hope for a happy reunion with the Lollipop Kid and the First Munchkin Trumpeter next year.

Posted 8/20/2004