What’s New

At 25 years old, The Lion King has been seen by more than 110 million people and played every continent but Antarctica. Between global warming and ticket demand, it’s probably just a matter of time. 

The latest U.S. tour to stop in Chicago feels significantly less lavish from earlier versions that blew audiences and critics away with its visually, aurally stunning Hamlet-but-with-lions tale of an African king, Mufasa (Gerald Ramsey), murdered by his evil brother Scar (Peter Hargrave). Mufasa’s cub Simba (Darian Sanders) flees the kingdom, and the journey of Simba from reckless cub to royal king is the nexus of Elton John’s soaring, percussive score (lyrics by Tim Rice).

The Lion KingThrough 1/14: Wed 2 and 7:30 PM, Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 7:30 PM, Sun 1 and 6:30 PM; also Tue 12/20, 12/27, and 1/10 7:30 PM, Fri 11/25 and 12/23 2 and 7:30 PM, Mon 12/26 7:30 PM, Fri 12/30 1 and 6:30 PM, Sun 11/27 1 PM only, Sat 12/24 2 PM only, Sat 1/7 7:30 PM only; Cadillac Palace, 151 W. Randolph, 800-775-2000, broadwayinchicago.com, $55-$195

The production at hand feels far too “Hakuna Matata,” as if the producers calculated that it didn’t matter if the savannah was a few creatures short of a “Circle of Life” because the show would sell regardless. 

John’s magnificent score is ever in the service of The Lion King’s glorious visual aesthetic, famously the costume/puppet creations designed by the show’s original director Julie Taymor (who became the first woman to win the Tony for director of a musical in 1998). But at the Cadillac Palace, the creatures are starting to look a little long in the tooth. The human cast is fine. Those puppets look tired. The iconic wildebeest stampede appears weirdly akin to an early Atari game. The flora inflatables look like they’re close kin with those inflatable men who live on used car lots. Rafiki (Gugwana Dlamini) looks vaguely like a neglected Christmas tree, all manner of bits and bobs sagging from her bulbous costume. 

The cast is competent and energetic and kids are apt to be delighted regardless. They probably won’t even notice how droopy the vultures are. 

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Theatre Above the Law’s sampler platter of four one-acts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries (most of them seldom produced) offers mixed results. The opening piece, A Dollar by Yiddish playwright David Pinski, feels like an extended acting exercise in which archetypes (the Comedian, the Villain, the Ingenue, etc.) fight over the titular object. But things improve quickly with Thornton Wilder’s The Wreck on the 525, an odd and haunting piece about Mr. Hawkins (Nick Barnes), a “family man” who seems to be having big doubts about his life. It’s a cunning taste of Wilder’s ability to find the mysterious in the quotidian (as in Our Town), with a scosh of Cheeverlike dark suburban angst woven in.

A Night of Classic and Unique One ActsThrough 12/18: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 12/5 7:30 PM (industry night); no performances Fri-Sun 11/25-11/27; Jarvis Square Theater, 1439 W. Jarvis, theatreatl.org, $25 (senior/student $20)

Alice Gerstenberg’s Fourteen is a madcap feminist comedy of manners, presented like a sitcom, applause track and all. A society woman (Jamie Redwood) attempts to achieve the perfect number at a dinner party, as represented in the title. As guests drop on and off the RSVP list, her frustration grows, and she also berates her shy daughter (Lena Valenti) about the need to entice the wealthy bachelor Mom’s chosen as her seatmate. (Gerstenberg was a pioneer of the “little theater” movement in Chicago, probably best known for her play Overtones.) Finally, Anton Chekhov’s The Proposal (perhaps most popular of the four) is a silly confection in which a neurotic and hypochondriacal young man attempts to win the hand of the farmer’s daughter next door—only to find that they cannot stop arguing over who owns a slice of meadowland, and whose hunting dog is superior. (Andrew Cawley as the suitor demonstrates excellent physical comedic skills.)

Under Tony Lawry’s direction, the cast generally finds the tonal shifts between the pieces. The Wilder and Chekhov selections are easily the standouts, but for anyone with an interest in theater history, the 90-minute show provides an opportunity to delve into lesser-known works.

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Like much that passes for entertainment during the holiday season, this 2010 musical, based on the 2003 movie, lives on the infinitely thin line between charm and utter stupidity. The characters are all derived from earlier entertainments and holiday advertising—jolly old Santa Claus, his myriad elf slaves, the sweet naif who believes in “the spirit of Christmas,” the sour workaholic/nonbeliever/misanthrope who doesn’t—and the happy endings they find themselves trapped in are no less well-worn and formulaic. The naif redeems, the skeptic learns to love Christmas, the orphan finds his father—and a family.

Elf Through 1/8: Wed 1:30 PM, Thu 1:30 and 8 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 2 and 6 PM; also Thu 11/24 3 PM only, Tue-Wed 12/20-12/21 1:30 and 7 PM, no performance Sat-Sun 12/24-12/25, Wed 12/28 1:30 and 8 PM, Sat 12/31 5 and 8:30 PM, Sun 1/1 2 PM only; Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, 630-530-0111, drurylanetheatre.com, $75-$85

The true miracle is that director/choreographer Lynne Kurdziel Formato and her cast and crew are able to weave a pretty entertaining evening out of this insubstantial stuff. Part of the credit surely must go to book writers Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin and composer Matthew Sklar, who were inspired enough, and respectful enough of the original movie (which is not bad), not to ruin it. Chad Beguelin’s lyrics are even at times pretty witty (“to thine own elf be true”). But most of the credit for creating a holiday show that actually entertains must go to the folks at Drury Lane. The whole production is imbued with a happy, playful spirit that, like a clever TV commercial, makes every familiar trope and cliche feel shiny and new. The pace of the show is live and quick. And whenever things slow down, Formato speeds things up with her inventive choreography. Ben Dow is delightful as the show’s protagonist Buddy the Elf; God bless him for playing a character made famous by Will Ferrell and making it his own.

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It begins festively enough with a giant advent calendar revealing hints of the story to come. Some symbols are cheering, like wreaths and a violin. But others are mysterious—why a giant fish and a wheelbarrow? 

In The Steadfast Tin Soldier, created and directed by Mary Zimmerman (from the story by Hans Christian Andersen), we soon see all of these symbols appear in the plot through the ancient art form of pantomime. The immensely entertaining cast of five players and four very interactive musicians tells a big story (with the help of some astounding puppets from the Chicago Puppet Studio). The tale is fraught with devilish clowns, stern adults, and naughty bullies who try to thwart the imagination of one toddler (played by a giant puppet) during his playtime. More importantly, the action follows his favorite tin soldier, who is earnest, brave, and disabled. The soldier wishes only to be with his true love, a paper ballerina in the nearby dollhouse. 

The Steadfast Tin Soldier Through 1/8: Tue 1:30 and 7 PM, Wed 7 PM, Thu 1:30 and 7 PM, Fri 7 PM, Sat 1:30 and 7 PM, Sun 1 and 6 PM; Fri 11/25 1:30 and 7 PM, Wed 11/30 6:30 PM only, Tue 12/13 7 PM only, Sat 1/7 2 and 7 PM, no performances Thu 11/24, Tue 11/29, 12/6, and 1/3, and Sun 12/25; audio description and touch tour Sun 12/11 1 PM and Fri Jan 6 7 PM, sensory friendly performance Thu Jan 5 1:30 PM; Lookingglass Theatre, 821 N. Michigan, lookingglasstheatre.org, $65-$75

Like any great adventure/romance, the obstacles are many, and highly improbable, making space for hilarity. The cast is seasoned to perfection (standout performance by Adeoye playing the Tin Soldier), and the orchestra adds such a festive mood to the show that you might want to bring along multiple generations to wonder at this charming holiday-inspired gem.

As in most Andersen fairy tales, there is a glum little sliver of realism peeking through the magic, perhaps to prepare children for some of life’s crueler plot twists. This production did not shy away from that, but serves it up on such a pretty platter, going so far as to add a particularly moving musical number at the end, that the audience can find the courage to leave the warm world of candlelight, fairy tales, and orchestra pit for the bluster and freeze of winter, feeling all the stronger for it.

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Helen Shiller insists that the story of Uptown is not unique. After more than 50 years living in the neighborhood, it’s hard to disagree with her. In many ways, the most pressing concerns that Shiller first identified when she moved to the neighborhood in 1972 still haunt the wider city, and America as a whole: conflicts with police, a lack of adequate housing, and a deep-seated disconnect between the desires of working-class people and the politicians who represent them. In many cases, they’ve worsened.

But the story of Uptown is irreducible, and among Chicago neighborhoods, its history stands apart in many ways. Where gentrification crept north along the lake from the Gold Coast through Lincoln Park and Lakeview, Uptown’s lakefront today remains dotted by affordable high-rise apartments: buildings that could have easily become market-rate but didn’t, thanks to community organizing. Elsewhere in the neighborhood, countless institutions and even single apartment buildings testify to many different populations who fought hard to stay in place. 

Their identities are many: poor white families who migrated from abandoned Appalachian coal towns; Native Americans shoved in droves to cities due to federal resettlement legislation; scores of Southeast Asian families, displaced by American militarism in countries like Vietnam and Cambodia; people displaced from shuttered psychiatric clinics. There are countless others. No matter their specific identities, a common thread has united many who have called Uptown home: hardship. 

 Shiller first arrived in the community in 1972, called to move to the city from Racine, Wisconsin, by the Intercommunal Survival Committee (ISC), a cadre of about two dozen young, white organizers working under the guidance of the Black Panther Party (BPP). For the next 15 years, Shiller was a lively, committed community organizer who focused on the basic survival needs of the neighborhood’s most destitute residents. She lost a closely contested run for alderman in 1979. Eight years later, Harold Washington called upon Shiller to run again; she won, helping tip the balance of the City Council in Washington’s favor during his second term. Shiller remained in office for six terms before finally retiring in 2011.

Now, with the release of Daring to Struggle, Daring to Win: Five Decades of Resistance in Chicago’s Uptown Community (the title drawn from Illinois BPP chairman Fred Hampton’s call to action), Shiller looks back on her decades in service to Uptown, Chicago, and beyond. Shiller’s fundamental goal for the 46th Ward was to encourage development without displacing the ward’s low-income residents. Much of that approach has been swept aside under the past 12 years of Alderperson James Cappleman, who was a vehement Shiller critic for years before he took office.  

With Cappleman’s retirement ensuring that the ward will once more change hands, the question remains: will Cappleman’s pro-development approach, typified in the ongoing struggle around Weiss Hospital, endure? Or will progressive challengers reanimate the spirit of community activism that propelled Shiller’s work in Uptown? 

By the time Shiller won her aldermanic campaign in 1987, Chicago’s progressives were increasingly optimistic. After the narrow, bruising, racist vitriol that he faced in his 1983 election, followed by three years of “Council Wars” in which white, machine Democrats blocked much of his legislation, Mayor Harold Washington entered his reelection campaign that year on surer footing, boosted by a court-mandated ward remapping in 1986 that enabled the election of Hispanic progressives such as Jesús “Chuy” García and Luis Gutiérrez.

Following those elections, which drew the deadlocked council into a draw between its dueling factions, Washington called upon Shiller to run for office. Their twin victories in 1987 heralded a new opportunity to advance the issues that mattered to them both. Many of those issues had been what drove Shiller to move to Chicago in the first place.

But the electoral victories of Washington and his allies did not come out of thin air. It took more than a decade’s worth of patient, often violent struggle to create the necessary conditions for these victories, rooted in the Sisyphean challenge of overcoming Chicago’s existing political machinery.

When Shiller first landed in Chicago with the ISC, Uptown was home to an eclectic mix of residents. The neighborhood was a site of deep trauma worsened by unscrupulous landlords who were prone to torch occupied apartments after years of leaving them neglected. Fires raged through the community during the 1970s, with one occurring an average of every three days, leaving residents to sudden, violent dispossession of homes that already threatened their well-being. 

Among the neighborhood’s downtrodden residents, the interrelated consequences of poverty and other kinds of marginalization resulted in poor health outcomes. This reality hit Shiller in the mid-70s. While she was selling copies of the BPP’s newspaper, she happened upon a woman who she’d attended college with in the 1960s. Released from a nursing home for the mentally ill, the woman was wandering the neighborhood streets, lacking any of the critical support she needed.

“There were so many people in Uptown that needed services that were just being completely denied, and they were all mixed up together,” Shiller says. “People treated them all the same way regardless, so that nobody was having their needs met, and everybody was being manipulated by the machine.”

Intercommunal Survival Committee members sell the Black Panther Party newspaper in Uptown in the 1970s. Courtesy Helen Shiller

Progressives launched their first major salvo against the 46th Ward machine in 1975, when José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, who had transformed the Young Lords from a street gang to a political organization, ran for alderman. With much of the Puerto Rican community pushed out of Lincoln Park into Lakeview and Uptown, Jiménez sought to unseat Chris Cohen. Jiménez garnered 27 percent of the vote, with his strongest support in Uptown. Despite the loss, his campaign laid the groundwork for the next few years, as a whirlwind of political activity shook up the City Council.

After winning his sixth election in 1975, Mayor Richard J. Daley passed away in December 1976. His replacement, Michael Bilandic, went on to defeat then-state senator Harold Washington in a 1977 special election. Then, just a year later, the 46th Ward would have its own special election, Shiller’s first, in which she took 35 percent of the vote, losing to ward secretary Ralph Axelrod. Both campaigns drew support from the Heart of Uptown Coalition, a block club coalition that served as the key uniting force in organizing a 12-block radius around Truman College.

Finally, in 1979, Shiller came within a hair of defeating the machine. Building on the 1978 effort, Shiller’s campaign message, “Independent Is Not Enough,” served as a critique of mayoral candidate Jane Byrne, who positioned herself as an outsider despite years of service under Daley. The campaign was marred by brutal opposition: Shiller’s volunteers were beaten up, racist graffiti defaced her campaign ads, and a Molotov cocktail destroyed her campaign office. Despite the violence, Shiller made it to a runoff, and appeared to have victory in hand in the election’s waning moments.

In the closing moments of election night, however, spurious word-of-mouth attacks suggesting that Shiller supported the Palestinian Liberation Organization made their way to Imperial Towers, two high-rise lakefront buildings with significant numbers of elderly Jewish residents. Shiller, whose Jewish ancestors had emigrated to Palestine in the 1920s, saw her victory disappear overnight, undone by powerful machine forces that barely kept her at bay, ultimately losing the runoff by 247 votes. 

“Don’t give me a label and then decide what I think, unless you’re actually able to understand where I’m coming from,” Shiller says, regarding the smear. “It wasn’t like I didn’t expect it, but it was what I always hated about politics.”

The next eight years were politically momentous, both locally and beyond. While Washington’s 1983 election suggested a wave of political progressivism within the city, the wider context looked quite different: with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, federal assistance to cities dwindled drastically, and by the time Washington died in 1987, Chicago had lost $100 million in annual Community Development Block Grant funding. These right-wing forces continued to dominate the larger context for Shiller’s work in office, and following Washington’s death in 1987, the fledgling coalition that put Washington into office would also dissolve amid the ascendancy of another Mayor Daley.

Then-alderman Dorothy Tillman and Helen Shiller file ballot petitions in the 1987 campaign.

Exquisitely paced and intellectually explosive, The Island at Court Theatre is a profoundly moving work of art. From the first moment, this production (directed by Gabrielle Randle-Bent, Court’s associate artistic director) seizes the audience and thrusts them into the world of two political prisoners of apartheid and doesn’t let go, even long after the play (written by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona) has ended. The exceptionally talented Ronald L. Conner and Kai A. Ealy play Winston and John (roles originated in 1973 by Ntshona and Kani), two affable cellmates on Robben Island, the same island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned before apartheid fell. The stage is set starkly in Yeaji Kim’s design; in the center, a giant stone slab implying a scale swings heavily from back to front, soberly reflecting the lack of nuance in law. The tableaux is encircled with amber sparkling sand, evoking images of a magical circle of protection: a sacred space where one’s fundamental humanity might be retained, even amidst the brutality of cruel captors.

The Island Through 12/4: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat-Sun 2 and 7:30 PM; no show Thu 11/24, audio description Sat 12/3 2 PM (touch tour 12:30 PM), open captions Sun 12/4 2 PM, ASL interpretation Sun 12/4 7:30 PM; Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis, 773-753-4472, courttheatre.org, $40.50-$82

Within this circle Winston and John toil in painfully repetitive hard labor, and make plans to perform Antigone for the other prisoners. As complications arise, the bonds of their friendship are tested, and the Antigone performance takes on deeper meaning. The men and the audience are spurred to interrogate difficult questions. Is fighting for justice worth your life? What meaning is there in life without freedom? These are the kinds of questions not easily answered with words, and Randle-Bent deftly leverages silence and humor to illuminate the darkness. The Island is a riveting, philosophically sophisticated play that is a must-see for fans of meaty theater. 

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Over the weekend, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football team played one of their most complete games of the season when they defeated Boston College in South Bend by a final score of 44-0. It is now their 5th straight win after a tough 3-3 start.

Since the 3-3 start, the Irish have been trying to gain the respect back that they deserve. They had a bad start but now they are trying to show that they were just learning things under Marcus Freeman. He has done a great job with this team over the last handful of weeks.

The College Football Playoff committee is showing them respect as they ranked the top 25 teams on Tuesday night. They came in at number 15.

It isn’t a ranking that suggests that they have a chance at a playoff spot but it suggests that a strong finish and a good start in 2023 will go a long way for them. They are only getting better as they get used to the change in the head coach.

Notre Dame is finally getting the respect that they deserve in the CFB Playoff.

Georgia came in at number one. Ohio State and Michigan came in at two and three. TCU rounded out the top four that would make the playoffs with LSU and USC ranked just outside at five and six.

With Georgia and LSU set to play in the SEC Championship game in a few weeks, things will get interesting with them involved. Michigan and Ohio State play each other this weekend in Rivalry Week so one of them is going to drop out as well.

All of these headlines are while College Football is must-see TV. Notre Dame has been a part of these conversations over the last few years but now they have to watch Brian Kelly be a part of it with LSU. It isn’t fun but Notre Dame will get back involved soon enough.

Notre Dame’s big win over Clemson will be seen as the first signature win in the career of Marcus Freeman and it is a big reason for their current 15th overall ranking.

Now, they have their big rivalry game against USC. This is a big test for the Irish and they have a chance to shake everything up ahead of championship week.

If the Irish upset USC, that will pretty much ruin their chances of making the playoff. It is good to see Notre Dame in this position after its bad start to the 2022 season. The future is bright for them.

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It was around 2010 that writer-actor-director Julie Proudfoot was sitting in a Starbucks at the IC station downtown, waiting for the South Shore line to take her home, when she became aware of two young couples sitting at an adjacent table. “And the males were not only saying sexist things to the young women,” Proudfoot recalls, “they were saying pointedly violent things to them. And the girls were laughing. And that was it. That’s when I said, ‘Wow, how have we gotten to this point?’” 

Proudfoot had noted for years that “a rollback of women’s rights that the far right has been working on for decades now was really starting to take its toll.” But this was the tipping point for her. “I knew I had to do something.”

And what she did was found Artemisia, a feminist theater now celebrating its 11th season. Named in honor of Artemisia Gentileschi, the until recently greatly overlooked feminist Baroque-era painter, the theater is “a 100% women led organization . . . committed to creating career-altering opportunities” for women.

The idea had been brewing for years, ever since she and her husband had moved to Chicago from LA in 2006. Tired of LA, the cost of living, and the crazy life, they were hoping for a fresh start in the midwest, but soon after Proudfoot started auditioning for roles, her excitement was dampened.  

Title Ten11/25-12/18: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773-975-8150, artemisiatheatre.org, $25-$44

“I was very surprised by, at that time, the lack of opportunities for women in Chicago. There was so much great theater that was not female focused. The idea of a fully complex leading female character and it being her journey and her world—I was not seeing that.” 

Artemisia was created to remedy that. And over the years, Artemisia has carved out a niche on the theater scene, producing plays and an annual Fall Festival of works on feminist themes.

Proudfoot’s current project is codirecting a play she began writing during the time we all sheltered in place two years ago. The play is called Title Ten, and it is Proudfoot’s take on the state of women’s rights and ways women’s bodies are controlled in America during and post-Roe v. Wade. 

Proudfoot first began thinking about the play that became Title Ten when she was hired in 2016 to research Donald Trump. “I read like 18 books about Donald Trump. So I learned way more than anyone would ever want to know about him. One of the things Trump did was use the right-to-life base as a way to really garner votes and momentum politically.”

Proudfoot continues explaining how once he was elected, he naturally began messing around with Title X to please his right-to-life voters. 

“Title X was started in the 1970s,” Proudfoot explains. “Its purpose really was to help lower-income women and families plan their families and get prenatal care. Title X funding required three things: When a woman went to be examined at a clinic that was funded by Title X and discovered she was pregnant, the clinic first—if she wanted to have the child—referred her for prenatal care. If she wanted to give the child up for adoption, they also had to refer her for legal and free adoptive services. And if she chose to exercise her right to have an abortion, they had to refer her to a clinic that performs a safe, legal abortion. Trump imposed a gag order. If you got Title X funding, you were no longer allowed to tell the woman that she had abortion as a choice.” 

“When I first read about this, I saw red. And I started to think about the way in which women’s rights are constantly on the chopping block. Whether we’re talking about safety in the workplace, equal pay for equal work, or the right to exercise your right to choose. So that’s what got me cooking on Title Ten.” 

Title Ten consists of the stories of eight characters, all women in some way touched by Title X. In the play, which spans two and a half decades, Proudfoot presents “very different women in very different places in their lives, in very different settings and environments who are making a decision or struggling to win an argument.”

“So we have Rachel,” Proudfoot continues, “in the Long Island Clinic, Long Island City Clinic in New York, of course, in ʼ78. We have Norma, who is part of Operation Rescue. [Right-wing activist Randall Terry’s anti-abortion campaign]. So she’s at an abortion clinic in Lafayette, Indiana, in ʼ88 as part of an Operation Rescue protest. “

Proudfoot interrupts herself, “I don’t want to give too much away, but there’s a setting of a gay woman in the early 2000s in Central Park, and we don’t know it at the beginning, but she’s meeting her daughter.

“But the first scene and last scene is anchored by the same character, Rachel, who at 17 in the beginning, is in a clinic in Long Island City to see if she’s pregnant, talking to herself in the room alone, trying to figure out what she’s going to do if she is pregnant. And the same woman comes back to us at the end as a mature woman and talks about the impact of the right to choose on her life.”

Proudfoot references Anna Deavere Smith’s plays (which include Twilight: Los Angeles and Fires in the Mirror, about the 1992 LA riots and the 1991 Crown Heights riot, respectively) as an influence, though unlike Smith, her play is not based on interviews with real people. They are, however, based on Proudfoot’s research—research that led her to read material by and about people at the opposite end of the political spectrum.

One of the characters in Title Ten, for example, is loosely based on a woman who served in Congress from Nebraska and is an active pro-life advocate. “The character is rallying her pro-life crowd,” Proudfoot explains, “but she’s coming at it from the opposite place of a Randall Terry, who came at it violently, almost, and criminally. She’s coming at it with Christian love. And she’s coming at it from, ‘We will rescue these poor women.’ Because the whole trauma story that the right to lifers like to tell is that, ‘Yes, well, you had an abortion, but now you’re traumatized by it, and you are a victim of your own choice.’” 

Proudfoot pauses a moment to reflect. “I thought about that a lot, and I thought about the sincerity of some of these young—especially these young women, who are the pro-life generation, and they really believe that they’re coming from a place of love. When you listen to them, when you watch them being interviewed, when you see how they dress and how they interact with each other, when you saw them weep with joy after Roe was overturned, you begin to understand how this is based on a fable—the idea that you can have a perfect world in which every fetus can be born into a happy, healthy family, right? And that no women will get sick and no women will die and no pregnancy will be complicated. This is a fable. This is a sentimental, ridiculous lie. 

“These young women have become the pro-life generation, and they’re talking about all these babies they’re going to save and all these innocent lives they’re going to save. And these are the same folks that don’t care about day care, childcare tax credits, school lunch programs, any of the things for mothers, any of the things that allow a woman, especially a single parent, a female single parent, or a male single parent for that matter, to raise a child effectively and lovingly and in a safe home.”

Every story Proudfoot tells serves her larger goal of portraying the struggle of being a woman in a world dominated by men, she said.

“The stories don’t all directly deal with abortion rights,” Proudfoot continues. “Some deal with the lack of equality in the workplace, which leads to, often, sexual harassment, sexual violence against women. But the play unifies around an overarching theme of where we are right now, of where we find ourselves in America. As a parent, as a person who loves and knows people, as a concerned citizen, you’re just looking at probably one of the worst, worst periods of my life for women’s rights and trans rights. It’s really shocking and horrifying, and the only way to deal with it is to move through the mess and start challenging and confronting the choices.”

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Pressure can burst pipes. It can fracture bones. It can cause even the coolest of heads to lose their grip on reality. Under extreme circumstances, pressure can also forge diamonds, and one of the city’s brightest hidden gems is east side representative Recoechi.

“Growing up on the east side, you had times where it was bad, you had times where it was good. I’m a product of my environment, but I chose to take the knowledge I got from the streets and do something differently with it,” he explains. “People where I’m from, we know about the robberies, we know about the killings, we know about all these things. Me choosing to express my story through music and inspire people going through it, that’s the most powerful thing. I could have chose to do spiteful things with my music, but I chose to uplift people instead.”

Recoechi was robbed at 15, and describes the experience as a turning point that made him more conscious of his actions and inspired him to find a way to lift himself and others out of that environment. He began writing raps and freestyling in high school but didn’t start making music seriously until he got into college, where he won multiple talent shows with his spoken-word poetry. Growing up in Stony Island Park during the rise of Chief Keef and growth of drill music into a global phenomenon, he says it wasn’t until he really listened to Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole that he realized he could still maintain his street persona while rapping about a positive message.

“I’m saying the things I took from the streets, the lessons that I embody, but I put them on wax in a different way. These are my experiences,” Recoechi says. “I did a poem one time and I saw the reactions of people just hearing my story. That’s when it really clicked for me. I used to rap about that drill shit, but then I switched it up and made it more personal.”

Listen to Recoechi’s music, and you’ll hear an assertive voice spitting stories of the streets with the utmost confidence, over grimy, bass-knocking production reminiscent of the east coast’s Griselda crew. Pay attention to his lyrics, and you’ll find that he touches on topics of spirituality, physical health and wellness, and self-mastery. 

Even without a full-length project under his belt, he’s managed to earn cosigns and production credits from the likes of C-Sick, Thelonious Martin, and Renzell, all of whom rank among the city’s most respected producers. Recoechi plans to soon unveil his debut project Flavaz, which he says will be a versatile display of his ability to create different songs for different moods. The album will be executively produced by Renzell Wav.

“It’s my first project ever, so this represents me coming out of growing into my sound, period. Renzell is a musical genius, and he played a strong role in developing my recording process,” he says. “Flavaz is me giving different types of flavors. That’s something me and him would say a lot when we was cooking up in the studio, ‘that shit flavorful,’ which turned into its own thing. It’s also a reference to me always being on my lil smoothie shit because I stay with a different flavor. That’s a real strong part of me because I wanna promote healthy eating.”

Music isn’t the only thing Recoechi is developing. He also helps run Eastside Collective (ESC), which C-Sick started last year as a clothing brand. After hearing Recoechi’s music for the first time, C-Sick got in touch with him, calling him a “breath of fresh air.” They developed a personal relationship, and after seeing Recoe’s dedication to his craft and discussing ways they can give back to the east side, C-Sick gave him the reins to run the organization on a more grassroots level.

“We work in collaboration with other people in the field of giving back to the community, like charities and things of that sort. That’s all I want for the east side because a lot of the park districts don’t have the sports like they used to when we were coming up . . . A lot of these baseball programs and basketball got cut down because of the lack of funding. It’s up to us to really give back . . . By linking up with more people that’s doing things in the community, you make it cool for everybody to do the same. This is what we really should be doing with these influences . . . The phrase from ESC is ‘there’s unity in community.’”

Recoechi is helping lead the charge with ESC’s first-ever seminar, inviting high school students with an interest in music production to learn directly from C-Sick and Renzell. At the end of the day, he’s a man who understands that community is bigger than him. In order for us to grow as individuals, we have to take what we learned through our personal trials and teach it back to the next generation so they can avoid the same mistakes and break generational curses. 

“I am a true believer that music is made through something divine. So my key goal with music is to gravitate people towards God, in a sense, or just go within themselves. Believe in the inner child and be as free as you want to be . . . People got this sense of this hardcore rap street guy for me, but it’s like people don’t know that I’m down to earth. I am just so serious about what I believe in. If you ever heard my music, I really spit my truth. Whether I’m singing on the hook or tapping into different grooves and sounds, I’m really tapping into that creative child, so stay connected to the inner child. This is what I try to get people into.”

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“Kartemquin to me is like a giant tree in the middle of the documentary world,” says Amir George. “I want to just keep watering that tree and help it grow and expand.”

It’s a gray Chicago day when George—a local filmmaker and programmer who was recently appointed the new artistic director of Kartemquin Films—makes this verdurous proclamation at the offices of the storied nonprofit documentary film organization. Inside, however, is aflush with color, from the array of movie posters decorating the walls of the stairwell to the enviable assemblage of memorabilia that adorns the workplace. 

In the washroom, for example, there’s this framed quote from Britney Spears: “Sundance is weird. The movies are weird. You actually have to think about them when you watch them.” 

Less humorously but much more impressively, the six Emmy Awards that Kartemquin has won over the years are collected atop a shelf (to say nothing of the four Academy Award nominations their films have garnered), while Camera #1 peers out through French doors from an adjoining office. 

This was the camera used by the early Kartemquin filmmakers to shoot their very first films, like their founding endeavor Home for Life (1967), following two retirees in their first months at an old-age home; and Inquiring Nuns (1968), in which Kartemquin filmmakers Gordon Quinn and Jerry Temaner document two nuns who they conscript to go around Chicago asking people if they’re happy, à la Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch’s Chronicle of a Summer. 

Upon hearing George’s remark, Quinn points to a robust topiary dominating the interview tableau. 

“My parents sent us some plants for this building [in 1971],” he tells us, “and this is a remnant of that plant. It’s the same tree that’s been watered all these years.” 

Quinn founded Kartemquin in 1966 along with fellow University of Chicago graduates Stan Karter and Jerry Temaner (parts of each of their surnames make up the organization’s name), and until just recently, he served as its longtime artistic director. He has been the most consistently integral figure in its over 50-year history.

“We had this idea about how documentary film, particularly vérité documentary film, could play a role in democracy,” he says, referring to the mode of nonfiction filmmaking distinct for its unaffected and often low-budget qualities. “I think we had some naive ideas about holding a mirror up to society, and if you did that, people would change.”

Though it’s difficult to identify when a piece of art accomplishes that, Kartemquin has inarguably succeeded in the herculean task of reflecting society back on itself with such films as: Trick Bag (1974), in which community members from factory workers to those involved in gangs discuss various forms of oppression; Quinn and Jerry Blumenthal’s The Last Pullman Car (1983), about the closing of the Pullman-Standard Passenger Car Works in Chicago (the last factory in America to manufacture subway and railroad passenger cars) and the long fight by the United Steel Workers Local 1834 to try to prevent it; Steve James, Frederick Marx, and Peter Gilbert’s Hoop Dreams (1994), which centers on two Chicago-based high school students with aspirations of playing pro basketball (Roger Ebert called it “[t]he great American documentary”); and, most recently, films such as Bing Liu’s wildly successful Minding the Gap (2018) and Jiayan “Jenny” Shi’s true-crime adjacent breakout Finding Yingying (2020).

“I was about seven years old when my brother brought home Hoop Dreams,” George, a native Chicagoan, recounts of his earliest experience with the organization. “I was like, what, what is this? You know, you never saw just kids growing up in Chicago and a story about them as a film. That was something that really was inspiring. It’s a memory I haven’t forgotten.” 

A local entity in his own right, George is an accomplished filmmaker and co-curator of Black Radical Imagination, a now-dormant annual touring short film series. He has recently programmed for the Chicago International Film Festival and True/False, a documentary film festival based in Columbia, Missouri. As artistic director he will work closely with executive director Betsy Leonard, who joined Kartemquin in 2021 after 29 years at Heartland Alliance.

“The opportunity to work for Kartemquin—I just saw that as building on the work I’ve been doing throughout the years,” George says. “To be in a more advanced position to serve the overall community in Chicago as well as abroad.”

About the decision to hire George, Quinn explains, “We really wanted someone we felt was going to help transform us into what the next iteration of Kartemquin would be.” He expands on how crucial the ideas of change and progress are to the organization’s success: “We’re over 50 years old. Why did we survive? Because we didn’t keep doing the same thing. We changed enormously over the years, both in our vision and our mission, and how we made our money.”

One thing on everyone’s mind is how Kartemquin can help filmmakers sustain themselves through their practice. For example, “The other thing that there’s a lot of interest in, that we’re looking at now, is what’s the next step for people who come out of Diverse Voices?” says Quinn (who will stay on as a senior advisor, though going part-time at the beginning of the new year), referring to the Diverse Voices in Docs mentorship and development program. Founded in 2013 and organized in collaboration with the Community Film Workshop of Chicago, the program specifically serves documentary filmmakers of color. The evolution of that program (in which George previously participated as a mentor) is but one of the many things that he hopes to continue expanding upon in his new role.

Kartemquin Films1901 W. Wellingtonkartemquin.com

“It’s definitely an ongoing thought process as I learn more about Kartemquin and about the films that we’re currently working on,” says George. “Growth is what I’m interested in. Growth within the community and beyond to the places that Kartemquin hasn’t been yet. Inviting new audiences to experience Kartemquin, building those audiences, and creating spaces for people to have access to films, to have access to learning more about filmmaking, and to becoming better filmmakers.”

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