What’s New

If you didn’t know that Noël Coward was an actor as well as a playwright, you’d figure it out within minutes of seeing any of his plays: how else to account for the nearly limitless opportunities they provide for chewing the scenery? Entering fully into the Cowardly spirit, director Terry McCabe frees his Hay Fever cast to emote, pose, posture, and indicate to their hearts’ content. The result is precisely what Coward envisioned when he subtitled the piece “a comedy of bad manners”: a perfectly-wrought piece of early 20th-century snobbish entertainment.

Hay Fever Through 10/9: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 9/26 and 10/3, 7:30 PM; City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr, 773-293-3682, citylit.org, $34 ($29 seniors, $12 students and military)

Coward plays also pit Cool Kids breezily indifferent to convention against hapless Normies, and Hay Fever is no exception. Stephen Sondheim’s “Weekend in the Country” from A Little Night Music has nothing on the one at chez Bliss, where every member of the artsy family has invited a potential romantic partner without warning to each other or to Clara, the senescent maid riotously embodied by marssie Mencotti. On Ray Toler’s splendidly overstuffed set dripping with interwar tchotchkes, including a stuffed boar’s head with tassels, these nine people change partners and dance at the speed of the Charleston, as befits 1925. Despite the tiny playing space, McCabe manages to supply each member of the cast with room to roam, doors to slam, and couches to pretend to faint on. He also balances the sympathies expertly, so we’re simultaneously under the Cool Kids’ spell and rooting for the Normies to escape with what’s left of their dignity.

The show is silly fluff—nothing more. But consider how woefully short of fun we’ve been, and for how long, and go enjoy!  

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Six years ago, Lifeline Theatre unveiled the world premiere of Christopher M. Walsh’s Miss Holmes—a cunning gender-bent take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s Baker Street polymath that predated the film Enola Holmes by several years (though not the young-adult series of novels by Nancy Springer). Now Katie McLean Hainsworth’s Sherlock and Mandy Walsh’s Dr. Dorothy Watson are back to solve more crimes and stir more shit in the patriarchal colonialist cesspool of Victorian London. 

As in the first outing, Sherlock and Watson are focused on helping wronged women while risking the wrath of Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft (Christopher Hainsworth), who is some sort of fixer for the deep state of the British empire. While Sherlock isn’t imprisoned in a mental institution at her brother’s behest this time, Mycroft still haunts the edges of the story, and sets in motion a couple of key plot developments.

Miss Holmes Returns Through 10/16: Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2:30 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM; open captioning Sat 9/17, 2:30 PM and Fri 10/7, 7:30 PM; touch tour and audio description Sun 10/2, 2:30 PM (tour begins 1 PM); Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood, 773-761-4477, ext. 703, lifelinetheatre.com, $45 ($35 seniors and active/retired military with ID, $15 students with ID)

At the heart of the story, though, is the burgeoning women’s rights movement in England, embodied in the push to overturn the Contagious Diseases Act, which empowered the government to detain and examine any woman accused of prostitution. Were men who frequented sex workers similarly detained? Surely you jest. Did people use the act to wreak vengeance on those women they deemed enemies? Yes—and that also provides a key plot point in Walsh’s somewhat convoluted narrative.

Josephine Butler (Julie Partyka), the head of the Ladies’ National Association, which leads the campaign to repeal the law, seeks out Sherlock’s assistance when one of her nurses, Priya Singh (Vinithra Raj), is suspected of killing Daniel Burke (Tommy Malouf). Burke is a conservative behind-the-scenes man of power and a money launderer (think Steve Bannon) who opposes the repeal of the act while also apparently availing himself of sex workers. Since Priya is Indian, it’s even less likely that she’ll get a fair shake from the deeply racist establishment if she comes forward than a white woman would. 

Sherlock and Watson have already examined the crime scene, thanks to long-suffering Scotland Yard Inspector Lestrade (Linsey Falls), whose soft spot for Sherlock leads him to cut a few official corners from time to time. Sherlock has concluded it was an act of self-defense, and gets her “knitting circle” of women (her version of the Baker Street Irregulars) out looking after the on-the-run Priya, while the Mycroft-devised noose (or what his sister calls “the great grinding machine”) of extralegal state power around Sherlock, Watson, and Lestrade grows tighter. The bookish tutor, Mr. Worthington (Malouf), who is alleged by Priya’s pal, Olive (Hilary Williams), to have had a thing for Priya, also seems awfully sweet on Sherlock—which confounds the aloof detective (who is also mistrustful of men for good reason). 

The story feels a little overly expositional at times, especially in the first act (by contrast, the revelations in the second act come on at a rat-a-tat pace in Elise Kauzlaric’s staging), but the chemistry between Hainsworth’s Sherlock and Walsh’s Watson, as in the first outing, remains delightful—particularly as the latter tries to explain to her usually perspicacious pal that the men who are seeking her attention may actually be attracted to her for more than her investigative insights. Hainsworth’s habit of nervously flicking her index finger against her corseted midsection suggests not just a constantly roving mind, but also a woman who is, in her own way, trying to tap into her tightly wound emotional core.

Not all the climactic moments felt organically connected at the performance I attended, but I suspect that the rhythms will become more assured over the run. As it is, Miss Holmes Returns offers a blend of fan-service Sherlockiana with a healthy dose of sisterhood.

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In partnership with the University of Illinois Chicago’s Disability Cultural Center, Babes With Blades’s interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s darkest plays is exciting and subversive. From overt to subtle, disturbing to laughable, the production empowers a cast of female and nonbinary actors, some with disabilities seen and unseen, to portray the breadth of human experience in a way that’s visceral, violent, and most importantly, honest. Under the direction of Richard Costes, a deaf artist of color and disability advocate, the performance exudes open arms that are felt down to the diversity of audience members comfortable attending live theater that’s intentional in its accommodations and inclusion. At two and a half hours, the two-act is long but engaging, with open captioning a plus for all audience members, given the density of Shakespeare’s prose, and action-packed fight sequences a palate cleanser between soliloquies. 

Richard III Through 10/15: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; open captioning all performances 10/15, sensory friendly Sun 9/11-9/17, ASL Sat 9/24, audio description and touch tour Sat 10/1, ASL/audio description/touch tour/talkback Sun 10/9, livestreaming Sat 9/10 and Fri-Sat 9/23-9/24; Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway, babeswithblades.org; $20-$35

Instead of presenting an ableist story at face value, BWBTC centers two actors with lived disability experiences as foils—Richard III (Aszkara Gilchrist) and Queen Elizabeth (Lauren Paige). While it’s easy to label who is good and evil here, these actors bring depth and gray areas, and the fact that they have disabilities is centered without making their subsequent choices feel like foregone conclusions. Gilchrist is positively Machiavellian while articulating, “I can smile and murder whilst I smile.” Her performance ranges from chilling to quite funny, well complemented by Paige’s passion and fury. Both actors’ canes ultimately exude more power than the swords that surround them, deliberately opening new, emotional entry points into a long-told story. Additional standouts: Pat Roache as a raging Queen Margaret and Kayla Marie Klammer, finding winning physical comedy among the tragedy as Lovell.

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The tangled recent history of Victory Gardens Theater became even more complicated this week with the mass dismissal of the remaining staff members in the wake of an attempt to unionize. It’s the latest development in a series of moves that has thrown the survival of the venerable Tony Award-winning regional theater—long a beacon for new work through various iterations of its playwrights ensemble—into sharp question.

The newest chapter in the long history of disputes between Victory Gardens’s artistic staff and the board (a longer article on this history and the lessons it holds for nonprofit arts organizations is in the works) began in June when the board placed then-artistic director Ken-Matt Martin, who was named to the post in March 2021, on administrative leave. Martin’s hiring itself came in the wake of the controversial appointment of Erica Daniels to the new role of executive artistic director in May 2020 to replace outgoing artistic director Chay Yew. Martin became the first Black artistic director in Victory Gardens history, and one of only a few at a major regional theater in the country.

Daniels had previously been executive director at VG. The then-playwrights ensemble resigned en masse, in part to protest what they saw as the board failing to provide promised input from the artists into the selection process of Yew’s successor. Daniels departed from Victory Gardens, and then-board president Steven Miller stepped down from that leadership position, though he remained on the board. (At the time of Martin’s appointment, he was listed as an emeritus board member.) 

Victory Gardens had been running under Martin with Roxanna Conner as acting managing director and Charles E. Harris II as board president, but the plan had always been to hire a permanent executive director to work alongside Martin, and the board had begun a search process. The company returned to full productions after the COVID-19 shutdown this past winter with travis tate’s Queen of the Night, followed by Ali Viterbi’s In Every Generationand an astonishing production of Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s cullud wattah. 

The latter was still running when Martin was placed on leave in early June. On June 30, Martin was released from his position at Victory Gardens. In a statement on his website, Martin noted, “I asked twice in the meeting what was the cause and was not given any. Instead, I was offered a minimum amount of severance and was asked to sign an NDA and give up all claims on future lawsuits. After I cited the lack of cause, the board offered more severance, but still with an NDA. I requested the inclusion of language allowing me to make ‘truthful statements’ and was refused. I have received no disciplinary notices, formal or informal warnings, and have had no complaints filed against me or any documented infractions.” Since Martin received no severance, ten artistic directors at theaters around the country (though none from Chicago) announced on August 16 that they were sponsoring a $30,000 commission for him to write an autobiographical play.

The source of the most recent conflict seems to stem from two board decisions. First is the refusal to hire a permanent executive director to replace Conner (who had been director of education at VG before assuming the acting managing director position), though Marissa Lynn Ford, associate managing director at the Goodman, was a top choice for Martin and the staff. The other point of dispute was the board’s decision to purchase the property adjacent to Victory Gardens’s home at the historic Biograph Theater, despite what staff members have described as ongoing maintenance and infrastructure problems in the existing venue, including plumbing problems and roof leaks.

Conner stepped down at the end of July. The cohort of artists who made up the Victory Gardens playwrights ensemble and resident directors (including cullud wattah director Lili-Anne Brown) had earlier resigned on July 6 in protest of Martin’s firing via Medium post. Dickerson-Despenza pulled the rights for the remaining performances of cullud wattah (which had been slated to run through July 17) that same week. 

In response to the artists’ statement and a Reader request for an interview at that time, Harris sent the following on July 14: “The Victory Gardens Theater board is grappling with the theater’s future, as are many other non-profit theaters in this time. We are committed to acting in the theater’s best interests in all matters. We regret the playwrights ensemble’s resignation, and the withdrawal of production rights to cullud wattah by its playwright, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, requiring cancellation of the remainder of its run. We have heard the staff and others’ perspectives. We are a 48-year-old theater company with a rich history of bold and diverse productions. Collectively, our board members have more than 100 years of experience with Victory Gardens, and we know well the delicate balance of managing the artistic well-being of the theater with our fiduciary responsibility. We believe wholeheartedly in the powerful work of Victory Gardens Theater and are committed to finding a way to enable it to continue. We have placed an interim director at Victory Gardens to stabilize the organization while the board considers its path forward. We have no further statement at this time, while we consider ways to fulfill the theater’s mission.” 

In the statement, Harris also disputed the staff and artistic associates’ view of the purchase of the property as fiscally unsound: “The real estate transaction mentioned by the playwrights’ ensemble appears to be misunderstood. The transaction concerns the ownership of the theater property and will have no adverse impact on the financial stability of the theater or its artistic direction. In fact, this minor investment preserves the fabric of the Biograph theater, gets us out from under a challenging co-owner situation and ultimately, saves money in the long run.” The board hasn’t provided further public details on what the plans are for the new addition.

The Victory Gardens Eight: the remaining staff members at the theater were dismissed from their jobs September 7.

With the dismissal of Martin and the departure of Conner, that left a staff of nine (now eight) full-time employees. (Prior to the pandemic, the theater had operated with a full-time staff of around 22 employees.) And earlier this month, those employees, along with the part-time staff of eight, signaled their intent to unionize via the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). (A statement of solidarity that the staff had placed on the Victory Gardens website after Martin’s dismissal was removed by the board; a petition asking for the removal and replacement of the board by July 18 and asking artists to refuse to work at the theater unless that happened was also posted on change.org.)

On September 7, the remaining staff members were each called individually into a meeting with Robert M. Hingsbergen, the newly named “chief executive” of Victory Gardens, and handed letters informing them that they had been let go. Staff members shared the content of the letter with me. It reads in part: “Victory Gardens Theater (‘Victory Gardens’ or ‘VGT’) terminates your employment effective September 7, 2022. The termination is part of a general reduction in workforce due to the lack of business and operational needs, and a change in VGT’s business model such that your current position has been eliminated.” 

Reached for comment, Bo Frazier, the marketing manager at Victory Gardens (speaking on behalf of the entire staff) says they and the rest of the staff view VGT’s actions as part of “a union-busting tactic, given that the staff was pursuing wall-to-wall unionization through IATSE.” According to Frazier, nobody on the remaining staff had received any disciplinary warnings prior to their dismissal. When asked about Hingsbergen’s role at VG, they noted, “He signed the letter as chief executive, and I’ve never heard the title, ever. They hired an interim managing director from CR3, which is a transition management consulting firm. He did a report on the financial and operational standings. And at the end of that 30 days, we were told that this person, who we know as Bob, is coming on. We were never given his official title. We assumed that he was again another interim managing director.” 

Frazier notes that the staff members were emailed at midnight the night before requesting that they all come individually the next day for meetings. “[Hingsbergen] delivered this letter to me personally at the meeting,” Frazier says, and adds, “They gave no specifics [about the reasons for the firing]. All he did was read-quote from the letter. I did ask him what the board was going to do with the theater and I said, ‘Are they going to close the theater?’ And Bob said, ‘It’s unsure, but it’s looking very likely.ʼ” According to Frazier, Hingsbergen did not ask anyone to sign NDAs.

Frazier adds, “This whole thing is avoidable because we have a transition board assembled of 11 people who were willing to step in and take over. And now this board would rather see the theater shutter than see it go on under different management.” They also noted that the company had received “major six-figure grants” prior to the dismissal of Martin. “We were not in bad financial standing.” Frazier notes that the proposed slate of board members from the staff “came alongside a total of six figures in personal donations as well.”

Reached for comment, Martin sent the following statement: “I have always believed in putting people before institutions. My focus remains on caring for the staff and artists impacted by these decisions. The theatre community is already rallying to find these brilliant humans new jobs and engaging in mutual aid to support their transition. That is the only thing that matters.” 

Attempts to reach Harris for clarification on the current situation were unsuccessful. There is a GoFundMe for the fired VG staffers. Under the “Upcoming Events” section of the Victory Gardens website, there’s only the following: “No events to show.”

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Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

It’s sad when a talented band’s closest brush with fame is almost finishing a soundtrack for a movie that never existed, ending up with nothing but demos where one of the guitars is out of tune. To make matters worse, they’d recorded under a new name that almost nobody knew. The history of recorded music is littered with such “almosts,” but the Kelderons’ near miss feels especially sad because they did manage to release a single that’s beloved more than 50 years later. Buckle in for the curious tale of how it all went wrong for this Chicago soul band—and how modern audiences finally got introduced to their music.

Brothers Darrow and Ronnie Kennedy grew up in the Rockwell Gardens public housing project in East Garfield Park with their friends Leroy Pointer and Ted Patton, and while in high school at Crane Tech, the four of them formed the Kelderons. Other Crane alumni included Eldee Young (of Young-Holt Unlimited and the Ramsey Lewis Trio) and the Ideals, and members of the Pharaohs (a soul-jazz band that contributed musicians to Earth, Wind & Fire) attended Crane Junior College, which shared the building on Jackson at Oakley.

The odd word “Kelderons” supposedly arose from a combination of letters in their last names, though it’s not clear where that “L” came from. The group would sing in school hallways and often competed in local talent shows. At Precious Blood Church on Western and Congress (now an alternative high school called Ombudsman Chicago West), they won one such contest over rivals the Modern Men. After the loss, Modern Men members John Banks and Allen Brown wanted to join forces with the Kennedy brothers—so the Kelderons let go of Patton and Pointer. Joined by Banks, Brown, and classmate Bruce Rodgers on guitar, they ramped up their activity and became the most beloved band at Crane.

Their ambition didn’t go unnoticed, and soon after graduation they were introduced to Marcellus Burke, brother of Clarence Burke, patriarch of the family whose children made up the Five Stairsteps (of “O-o-h Child” fame). Marcellus was a police officer but managed musicians on the side (back then, it seemed like everybody did), and he added the Kelderons to a revue he booked. 

The band changed their name to fit the misprint, but that didn’t help their career. After six years of struggle, they dumped Burke, who was still their manager. The Kaldirons also renamed themselves the Solution—and then, regrettably, the Final Solution (whose sinister associations with the Third Reich apparently escaped them). But then they got a lucky break: trumpeter Paul Serrano, who was seeking bands for his fledgling label, got in touch. 

Serrano had played with stars such as Art Farmer, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, and Mongo Santamaría, and beginning in the late 60s, he ran P.S. Studios, which eventually settled at 323 E. 23rd. The studio’s output included albums for the likes of Ramsey Lewis, Ahmad Jamal, the Emotions, and Natalie Cole, and in the early 70s, Serrano launched an offshoot label called P.S. Records. 

Serrano asked the Final Solution to come in and cut some tracks, but the sessions didn’t go particularly well at first. The band turned the corner when songwriter Carl Wolfolk, another Crane graduate, got involved—he happened to be working on demos of his own at P.S. Studios. Wolfolk had cowritten the 1968 smash “Can I Change My Mind” for R&B star Tyrone Davis, as well as material for the Dells and Little Richard.

In the 70s, huge hit soundtracks—especially Super Fly and Shaft—caused a seismic shift as the world embraced the funky music from the films. Chicago responded with The Spook Who Sat by the Door, a satire about the CIA’s only Black agent, shot locally and released in 1973—but Herbie Hancock’s score only made it to the test-pressing phase (and was bootlegged on LP in the mid-2000s). Melvin Van Peebles’s groundbreaking 1971 film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song used a young Earth, Wind & Fire, and 1974’s Three the Hard Way (with Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, and Jim Kelly) featured the Impressions. The very Chicagoan 1978 movie Stony Island had a slamming soundtrack of top-shelf musicians, among them saxophonist Gene Barge and future members of soul-funk band Maxx Traxx.

In the mid-70s, Chuck Colbert Jr. threw his hat into the ring. He’d played bass in hit-making garage-pop group the American Breed (“Bend Me, Shape Me”), and he went on to work as a producer, studio vocalist, and jingle writer, among other things. His father was something of a music-scene Svengali, and he hooked Colbert up with the job of supervising the music for an upcoming Blaxploitation film. Titled Brotherman, the movie didn’t yet have a finished script, but it had a catchy tagline already: “The pusher who became a preacher.” 

Wolfolk acquired the rights to the unfinished Brotherman material from Colbert’s father, but his attempts to shop the tracks around Los Angeles went nowhere. The tapes wound up in a closet, and the story of the Kelderons appeared to have ended.

Fast-forward to the 2000s, when local reissue label the Numero Group label was working to license the Kelderons/Kaldirons single for the 2007 compilation Eccentric Soul: Twinight’s Lunar Rotation. At that point, nobody at the label even knew the members’ names. Chicago soul guru Bob Abrahamian provided a tip—he knew that the group had been managed by Marcellus Burke—and Rob Sevier at Numero was able to contact Burke. Luckily, Burke ran into one of the Kennedy brothers in a grocery store and learned the name of their group at the time, which helped Sevier track them down. 

In his first conversation with Sevier, Darrow Kennedy alluded to an album the Kelderons had recorded, which put Numero on the trail of the Brotherman score. Finding the original tapes was no mean feat, though. Wolfolk had given them to Kennedy for safekeeping (he’d had some trouble with the law), but around 2005, he’d gotten back in touch to retrieve the reels. The Numero crew couldn’t reach Wolfolk by phone or email, so they eventually just showed up at what they hoped was his home in the western suburb of Stone Park. By all but promising a reissue, they were able to walk out with the tapes.

The elusive Brotherman soundtrack saw the light of day in 2008, more than 30 years after it was recorded. Wolfolk and the Kelderons got another chance to get paid what they deserved for their great work—the breezy, harmonious “Gotta Get Through to You,” the catchy and soulful “To See You Again,” the funky, wah-wah-soaked “Theme From Brotherman.” Clearly I’m not the only listener who’s unbothered by the guitar tuning—some of the songs have even been licensed for TV and film. 

Most of the former Kelderons are still gigging in local bands too, which is hardly the norm for Secret History stories—more often, I have to conclude these tales by telling you how someone dropped out of music or died. So we’ll call this a happy ending—and a dang funky one.

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The tangled recent history of Victory Gardens Theater became even more complicated this week with the mass dismissal of the remaining staff members in the wake of an attempt to unionize. It’s the latest development in a series of moves that has thrown the survival of the venerable Tony Award-winning regional theater—long a beacon for new work through various iterations of its playwrights ensemble—into sharp question.

The newest chapter in the long history of disputes between Victory Gardens’s artistic staff and the board (a longer article on this history and the lessons it holds for nonprofit arts organizations is in the works) began in June when the board placed then-artistic director Ken-Matt Martin, who was named to the post in March 2021, on administrative leave. Martin’s hiring itself came in the wake of the controversial appointment of Erica Daniels to the new role of executive artistic director in May 2020 to replace outgoing artistic director Chay Yew. Martin became the first Black artistic director in Victory Gardens history, and one of only a few at a major regional theater in the country.

Daniels had previously been executive director at VG. The then-playwrights ensemble resigned en masse, in part to protest what they saw as the board failing to provide promised input from the artists into the selection process of Yew’s successor. Daniels departed from Victory Gardens, and then-board president Steven Miller stepped down from that leadership position, though he remained on the board. (At the time of Martin’s appointment, he was listed as an emeritus board member.) 

Victory Gardens had been running under Martin with Roxanna Conner as acting managing director and Charles E. Harris II as board president, but the plan had always been to hire a permanent executive director to work alongside Martin, and the board had begun a search process. The company returned to full productions after the COVID-19 shutdown this past winter with travis tate’s Queen of the Night, followed by Ali Viterbi’s In Every Generationand an astonishing production of Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s cullud wattah. 

The latter was still running when Martin was placed on leave in early June. On June 30, Martin was released from his position at Victory Gardens. In a statement on his website, Martin noted, “I asked twice in the meeting what was the cause and was not given any. Instead, I was offered a minimum amount of severance and was asked to sign an NDA and give up all claims on future lawsuits. After I cited the lack of cause, the board offered more severance, but still with an NDA. I requested the inclusion of language allowing me to make ‘truthful statements’ and was refused. I have received no disciplinary notices, formal or informal warnings, and have had no complaints filed against me or any documented infractions.” Since Martin received no severance, ten artistic directors at theaters around the country (though none from Chicago) announced on August 16 that they were sponsoring a $30,000 commission for him to write an autobiographical play.

The source of the most recent conflict seems to stem from two board decisions. First is the refusal to hire a permanent executive director to replace Conner (who had been director of education at VG before assuming the acting managing director position), though Marissa Lynn Ford, associate managing director at the Goodman, was a top choice for Martin and the staff. The other point of dispute was the board’s decision to purchase the property adjacent to Victory Gardens’s home at the historic Biograph Theater, despite what staff members have described as ongoing maintenance and infrastructure problems in the existing venue, including plumbing problems and roof leaks.

Conner stepped down at the end of July. The cohort of artists who made up the Victory Gardens playwrights ensemble and resident directors (including cullud wattah director Lili-Anne Brown) had earlier resigned on July 6 in protest of Martin’s firing via Medium post. Dickerson-Despenza pulled the rights for the remaining performances of cullud wattah (which had been slated to run through July 17) that same week. 

In response to the artists’ statement and a Reader request for an interview at that time, Harris sent the following on July 14: “The Victory Gardens Theater board is grappling with the theater’s future, as are many other non-profit theaters in this time. We are committed to acting in the theater’s best interests in all matters. We regret the playwrights ensemble’s resignation, and the withdrawal of production rights to cullud wattah by its playwright, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, requiring cancellation of the remainder of its run. We have heard the staff and others’ perspectives. We are a 48-year-old theater company with a rich history of bold and diverse productions. Collectively, our board members have more than 100 years of experience with Victory Gardens, and we know well the delicate balance of managing the artistic well-being of the theater with our fiduciary responsibility. We believe wholeheartedly in the powerful work of Victory Gardens Theater and are committed to finding a way to enable it to continue. We have placed an interim director at Victory Gardens to stabilize the organization while the board considers its path forward. We have no further statement at this time, while we consider ways to fulfill the theater’s mission.” 

In the statement, Harris also disputed the staff and artistic associates’ view of the purchase of the property as fiscally unsound: “The real estate transaction mentioned by the playwrights’ ensemble appears to be misunderstood. The transaction concerns the ownership of the theater property and will have no adverse impact on the financial stability of the theater or its artistic direction. In fact, this minor investment preserves the fabric of the Biograph theater, gets us out from under a challenging co-owner situation and ultimately, saves money in the long run.” The board hasn’t provided further public details on what the plans are for the new addition.

The Victory Gardens Eight: the remaining staff members at the theater were dismissed from their jobs September 7.

With the dismissal of Martin and the departure of Conner, that left a staff of nine (now eight) full-time employees. (Prior to the pandemic, the theater had operated with a full-time staff of around 22 employees.) And earlier this month, those employees, along with the part-time staff of eight, signaled their intent to unionize via the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). (A statement of solidarity that the staff had placed on the Victory Gardens website after Martin’s dismissal was removed by the board; a petition asking for the removal and replacement of the board by July 18 and asking artists to refuse to work at the theater unless that happened was also posted on change.org.)

On September 7, the remaining staff members were each called individually into a meeting with Robert M. Hingsbergen, the newly named “chief executive” of Victory Gardens, and handed letters informing them that they had been let go. Staff members shared the content of the letter with me. It reads in part: “Victory Gardens Theater (‘Victory Gardens’ or ‘VGT’) terminates your employment effective September 7, 2022. The termination is part of a general reduction in workforce due to the lack of business and operational needs, and a change in VGT’s business model such that your current position has been eliminated.” 

Reached for comment, Bo Frazier, the marketing manager at Victory Gardens (speaking on behalf of the entire staff) says they and the rest of the staff view VGT’s actions as part of “a union-busting tactic, given that the staff was pursuing wall-to-wall unionization through IATSE.” According to Frazier, nobody on the remaining staff had received any disciplinary warnings prior to their dismissal. When asked about Hingsbergen’s role at VG, they noted, “He signed the letter as chief executive, and I’ve never heard the title, ever. They hired an interim managing director from CR3, which is a transition management consulting firm. He did a report on the financial and operational standings. And at the end of that 30 days, we were told that this person, who we know as Bob, is coming on. We were never given his official title. We assumed that he was again another interim managing director.” 

Frazier notes that the staff members were emailed at midnight the night before requesting that they all come individually the next day for meetings. “[Hingsbergen] delivered this letter to me personally at the meeting,” Frazier says, and adds, “They gave no specifics [about the reasons for the firing]. All he did was read-quote from the letter. I did ask him what the board was going to do with the theater and I said, ‘Are they going to close the theater?’ And Bob said, ‘It’s unsure, but it’s looking very likely.ʼ” According to Frazier, Hingsbergen did not ask anyone to sign NDAs.

Frazier adds, “This whole thing is avoidable because we have a transition board assembled of 11 people who were willing to step in and take over. And now this board would rather see the theater shutter than see it go on under different management.” They also noted that the company had received “major six-figure grants” prior to the dismissal of Martin. “We were not in bad financial standing.” Frazier notes that the proposed slate of board members from the staff “came alongside a total of six figures in personal donations as well.”

Reached for comment, Martin sent the following statement: “I have always believed in putting people before institutions. My focus remains on caring for the staff and artists impacted by these decisions. The theatre community is already rallying to find these brilliant humans new jobs and engaging in mutual aid to support their transition. That is the only thing that matters.” 

Attempts to reach Harris for clarification on the current situation were unsuccessful. There is a GoFundMe for the fired VG staffers. Under the “Upcoming Events” section of the Victory Gardens website, there’s only the following: “No events to show.”

Read More

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

It’s sad when a talented band’s closest brush with fame is almost finishing a soundtrack for a movie that never existed, ending up with nothing but demos where one of the guitars is out of tune. To make matters worse, they’d recorded under a new name that almost nobody knew. The history of recorded music is littered with such “almosts,” but the Kelderons’ near miss feels especially sad because they did manage to release a single that’s beloved more than 50 years later. Buckle in for the curious tale of how it all went wrong for this Chicago soul band—and how modern audiences finally got introduced to their music.

Brothers Darrow and Ronnie Kennedy grew up in the Rockwell Gardens public housing project in East Garfield Park with their friends Leroy Pointer and Ted Patton, and while in high school at Crane Tech, the four of them formed the Kelderons. Other Crane alumni included Eldee Young (of Young-Holt Unlimited and the Ramsey Lewis Trio) and the Ideals, and members of the Pharaohs (a soul-jazz band that contributed musicians to Earth, Wind & Fire) attended Crane Junior College, which shared the building on Jackson at Oakley.

The odd word “Kelderons” supposedly arose from a combination of letters in their last names, though it’s not clear where that “L” came from. The group would sing in school hallways and often competed in local talent shows. At Precious Blood Church on Western and Congress (now an alternative high school called Ombudsman Chicago West), they won one such contest over rivals the Modern Men. After the loss, Modern Men members John Banks and Allen Brown wanted to join forces with the Kennedy brothers—so the Kelderons let go of Patton and Pointer. Joined by Banks, Brown, and classmate Bruce Rodgers on guitar, they ramped up their activity and became the most beloved band at Crane.

Their ambition didn’t go unnoticed, and soon after graduation they were introduced to Marcellus Burke, brother of Clarence Burke, patriarch of the family whose children made up the Five Stairsteps (of “O-o-h Child” fame). Marcellus was a police officer but managed musicians on the side (back then, it seemed like everybody did), and he added the Kelderons to a revue he booked. 

The band changed their name to fit the misprint, but that didn’t help their career. After six years of struggle, they dumped Burke, who was still their manager. The Kaldirons also renamed themselves the Solution—and then, regrettably, the Final Solution (whose sinister associations with the Third Reich apparently escaped them). But then they got a lucky break: trumpeter Paul Serrano, who was seeking bands for his fledgling label, got in touch. 

Serrano had played with stars such as Art Farmer, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, and Mongo Santamaría, and beginning in the late 60s, he ran P.S. Studios, which eventually settled at 323 E. 23rd. The studio’s output included albums for the likes of Ramsey Lewis, Ahmad Jamal, the Emotions, and Natalie Cole, and in the early 70s, Serrano launched an offshoot label called P.S. Records. 

Serrano asked the Final Solution to come in and cut some tracks, but the sessions didn’t go particularly well at first. The band turned the corner when songwriter Carl Wolfolk, another Crane graduate, got involved—he happened to be working on demos of his own at P.S. Studios. Wolfolk had cowritten the 1968 smash “Can I Change My Mind” for R&B star Tyrone Davis, as well as material for the Dells and Little Richard.

In the 70s, huge hit soundtracks—especially Super Fly and Shaft—caused a seismic shift as the world embraced the funky music from the films. Chicago responded with The Spook Who Sat by the Door, a satire about the CIA’s only Black agent, shot locally and released in 1973—but Herbie Hancock’s score only made it to the test-pressing phase (and was bootlegged on LP in the mid-2000s). Melvin Van Peebles’s groundbreaking 1971 film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song used a young Earth, Wind & Fire, and 1974’s Three the Hard Way (with Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, and Jim Kelly) featured the Impressions. The very Chicagoan 1978 movie Stony Island had a slamming soundtrack of top-shelf musicians, among them saxophonist Gene Barge and future members of soul-funk band Maxx Traxx.

In the mid-70s, Chuck Colbert Jr. threw his hat into the ring. He’d played bass in hit-making garage-pop group the American Breed (“Bend Me, Shape Me”), and he went on to work as a producer, studio vocalist, and jingle writer, among other things. His father was something of a music-scene Svengali, and he hooked Colbert up with the job of supervising the music for an upcoming Blaxploitation film. Titled Brotherman, the movie didn’t yet have a finished script, but it had a catchy tagline already: “The pusher who became a preacher.” 

Wolfolk acquired the rights to the unfinished Brotherman material from Colbert’s father, but his attempts to shop the tracks around Los Angeles went nowhere. The tapes wound up in a closet, and the story of the Kelderons appeared to have ended.

Fast-forward to the 2000s, when local reissue label the Numero Group label was working to license the Kelderons/Kaldirons single for the 2007 compilation Eccentric Soul: Twinight’s Lunar Rotation. At that point, nobody at the label even knew the members’ names. Chicago soul guru Bob Abrahamian provided a tip—he knew that the group had been managed by Marcellus Burke—and Rob Sevier at Numero was able to contact Burke. Luckily, Burke ran into one of the Kennedy brothers in a grocery store and learned the name of their group at the time, which helped Sevier track them down. 

In his first conversation with Sevier, Darrow Kennedy alluded to an album the Kelderons had recorded, which put Numero on the trail of the Brotherman score. Finding the original tapes was no mean feat, though. Wolfolk had given them to Kennedy for safekeeping (he’d had some trouble with the law), but around 2005, he’d gotten back in touch to retrieve the reels. The Numero crew couldn’t reach Wolfolk by phone or email, so they eventually just showed up at what they hoped was his home in the western suburb of Stone Park. By all but promising a reissue, they were able to walk out with the tapes.

The elusive Brotherman soundtrack saw the light of day in 2008, more than 30 years after it was recorded. Wolfolk and the Kelderons got another chance to get paid what they deserved for their great work—the breezy, harmonious “Gotta Get Through to You,” the catchy and soulful “To See You Again,” the funky, wah-wah-soaked “Theme From Brotherman.” Clearly I’m not the only listener who’s unbothered by the guitar tuning—some of the songs have even been licensed for TV and film. 

Most of the former Kelderons are still gigging in local bands too, which is hardly the norm for Secret History stories—more often, I have to conclude these tales by telling you how someone dropped out of music or died. So we’ll call this a happy ending—and a dang funky one.

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As the Chicago Bears prepare for the start of the 2022 NFL regular season, they have been no strangers to criticism from the National Media.

For the national media, the Bears are an easy target on paper. Despite flashes from rookie quarterback Justin Fields during the 2021 regular season, his stat line would suggest that he is trending towards being a failed first-round quarterback.

Couple that with the Bears hiring a defensive-minded head coach in Matt Eberflus and stripping the roster of key veteran players such as wide receiver Allen Robinson, defensive end Khalil Mack, along with defensive tackle Akiem Hicks and it shouldn’t be a surprise why national media types have the opinion that they do.

But, here is the beauty about covering sports in 2022, there is this magical machine called Google that national media personalities can use in order to get a better sense of the team they intend to spend a segment on during their respective platform.

With that magical Google machine, the talking points for the national media personalities in regard to the current state of the Bears’ organization can easily be explained away.

Former NFL cornerback Domonique Foxworth has yet to learn of that magical machine. Foxworth has transitioned from his playing career to the podcast industry and has immediately gone viral for an incredibly tone-deaf take on the Bears.

While speaking on the second episode of his podcast, dubbed “The Domonique Foxworth Show”, the former Denver Bronco insisted that Fields demand a trade from the Bears due to the lack of talented players around him and the “messed up” cap space that the team has.

Domonique Foxworth is clearly not doing good research into the Chicago Bears.

For those joining us from the comfort of their own home, let’s go ahead and Google the Chicago Bears projected cap space for 2023.

Assuming that you do not have the same technology intellect that Foxworth has, after your google search you should have seen a helpful link to the fine folks at Spotrac. According to Spotrac, the Bears have an estimated $104,374,702 in cap space entering 2023.

But let’s break it down even further for people like Foxworth that may have trouble comprehending numbers. Is the $104,374,702 projected cap space for 2023 good?

Turning to Spotrac once more, one would find that the Bears currently are projected to have the most available cap space in 2023.

That little experiment should have taken no more than two minutes to complete. As a result of that experiment, “messed up” is not what the Bears’ cap space should be described as.

Better use of “messed up” is the idea that ESPN continues to hire fringe former NFL players that know how to put on a cheap suit and fake smile in order to hide that they don’t know how to cover topics.

But, in Foxworth’s case, you tend to understand why he prefers lack of coverage as he was out of the league only six years after being drafted as a third-round pick in 2005.

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In a return to tradition, the Chicago Bears will have four permanent captains for the 2022 NFL Regular Season and an honorary captain that will be determined the week prior to each game.

For the Bears, the decision to have four permanent captains for the entire season is a welcomed change of pace from how the captain elections were handled under former head coach Matt Nagy.

Instead of opting for the season-long captains, Nagy would rotate the captains each week and it was mostly determined by veteran status or if a Bears player was set to play their former team in the upcoming game.

First-year Bears head coach Matt Eberflu unveiled the 2022 team captains on Wednesday.

Representing the Bears as team captains this season will be quarterback Justin Fields, offensive lineman Cody Whitehair, defensive end Robert Quinn, and linebacker Roquan Smith. For what it’s worth, running back David Montgomery will be the honorary captain for the Bears’ Week 1 game against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.

The Bears 2022 captain selections also prove to debunk rumors surrounding two particular players and their status with the team.

Ever since Eberflus was named as the team’s new head coach by new Bears’ general manager Ryan Poles, there were questions regarding Fields’ status with the Bears. Many perceived the Bears’ lack of significant changes on offense as an indicator that the new regime is looking to move on from Fields. In addition, after running back Khalil Herbert was the rookie recipient of the Bears’ Brian Piccolo award last season, many took that as an opportunity to question Fields’ status as a leader within the locker room.

Fields being named as one of the team captains for the 2022 season should put to rest the misguided rumors that he is not a leader in the locker room. The honor should also put to rest the idea that the new regime is not a believer in the second-year quarterback out of Ohio State. The Bears are now Fields’ team and he has the backing of both the coaching staff and front office. That could not be said last season when the previous coaching staff aimed to derail his development as a quarterback and leader with every turn.

Joining Fields for the coin-toss procedure before each game this season will be veteran defensive end Robert Quinn. Quinn’s selection as one of the 2022 team captains comes a season after he broke the Bears’ single-season sack record with 18.5 sacks.

The season captain tradition has returned to the Chicago Bears locker room for 2022 and sends a clear message regarding the team’s leaders.

Like Herbert, Quinn received honors from the Bears last season as he was the veteran recipient of the Brian Piccolo award. Despite the success and given an offseason where the team ridded themselves of aging veterans such as Khalil Mack and Akiem Hicks, Quinn’s status with the team has been in question.

The expectation was that Quinn would be traded before the 2022 NFL Draft but after a deal never materialized and Quinn proceeded to skip the Bears’ voluntary mini-camps in the offseason, the veteran defensive end reported to training camp and clarified that he is not looking to be traded from the Bears.

Quinn’s status as a 2022 team captain not only confirms the fact that he never was looking for a trade out of Chicago but that the veteran has bought into the philosophies of Eberflus. Eberflus having the buy-in of a veteran such as Quinn is definitely the right endorsement and sends a clear message to the team as the season begins.

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When Santigold emerged in the late 2000s, her hip alterna-pop seemed to waltz out of left field, incorporating elements of every genre she could put her hands on: punk, hip-hop, new wave, dub, and whatever else wasn’t nailed down. More than a decade later, it’s clear to see how her genre-smashing music paved the way toward a new generation of eclectic oddballs, including Charli XCX, Grimes, Lizzo, and even Lemonade-era Beyoncé. While Santigold has never broken through to mega-success herself, she keeps putting out fun records. Her most recent, Spirituals, released on her own Little Jerk label, is her first in four years. It’s smoother and more polished than some of her past work, but she’s still got an ear for a hip-shaking hook (most notably on “Shake”) and a sharp eye for how songs are put together. “My Horror” is a lilting, cheerfully up-tempo love song to her own misery and mental distress. “I can’t feel, it’s like / I’m paralyzed” she sings, before a girl-group chorus kicks in—and then she throws in a tinkling broken-music-box section that recalls Syd Barrett’s insular, broken ditties. “Your time is up / You see we coming,” she says in “Ushers of the New World,” over a slow, churning beat that evokes dub and Billie Eilish—as if to let you know she can still look forward and back at the same time. While the album makes no direct reference to gospel, its exhilarating creativity in the face of sadness and hardship justifies the reference to freedom songs in the title. Santigold’s still here and still great.

Santigold’s Spirituals is available through the artist’s website.

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