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Watch Berkowitz w/Maze Jackson, 1570 AM Radio on Lightfoot’s muzzle, BLM, police stand-downs, et al, Cable & WebJeff Berkowitzon August 1, 2020 at 1:21 pm

Public Affairs with Jeff Berkowitz

Watch Berkowitz w/Maze Jackson, 1570 AM Radio on Lightfoot’s muzzle, BLM, police stand-downs, et al, Cable & Web

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Watch Berkowitz w/Maze Jackson, 1570 AM Radio on Lightfoot’s muzzle, BLM, police stand-downs, et al, Cable & WebJeff Berkowitzon August 1, 2020 at 1:21 pm Read More »

Morning Cubs Roundup: Darvish and offense shine, Kimbrel gets torchedMichael Ernston August 1, 2020 at 1:28 pm

Cubs Den

Morning Cubs Roundup: Darvish and offense shine, Kimbrel gets torched

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Morning Cubs Roundup: Darvish and offense shine, Kimbrel gets torchedMichael Ernston August 1, 2020 at 1:28 pm Read More »

I’m gonna be (500 miles — and 500 posts)Margaret H. Laingon August 1, 2020 at 2:00 pm

Margaret Serious

I’m gonna be (500 miles — and 500 posts)

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I’m gonna be (500 miles — and 500 posts)Margaret H. Laingon August 1, 2020 at 2:00 pm Read More »

Happiness is just two scoops awayThe Ultimate Circle Table Kidon August 1, 2020 at 4:12 pm

The Ultimate Circle Table Kid

Happiness is just two scoops away

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Happiness is just two scoops awayThe Ultimate Circle Table Kidon August 1, 2020 at 4:12 pm Read More »

The Coming Biden-Trump Test-Taking Showdownbadjackon August 1, 2020 at 6:18 pm

The Amused Curmudgeon

The Coming Biden-Trump Test-Taking Showdown

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The Coming Biden-Trump Test-Taking Showdownbadjackon August 1, 2020 at 6:18 pm Read More »

Make Your Plate ColorfulSheri McIntoshon August 1, 2020 at 6:47 pm

Spiritual and Physical Wellness

Make Your Plate Colorful

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Make Your Plate ColorfulSheri McIntoshon August 1, 2020 at 6:47 pm Read More »

Prop Thtr gives up its longtime Avondale homeKerry Reidon July 31, 2020 at 6:15 pm

Prop Thtr will probably never produce Stephen Sondheim’s Follies. Yet somehow, the news earlier this month that they will be moving out of their longtime two-venue space in Avondale by October made me envision Carlotta the aging showgirl, crooning “good times and bum times, I’ve seen them all. And, my dear, I’m still here.”

Where “here” will be next for Prop is an open question. But a company that began its life producing in a former strip club (with the pole still onstage) on February 13, 1981–Friday the 13th, no less–knows some things about surviving and adapting to circumstances.

Prop–one of the oldest non-Equity theaters in Chicago–has occupied many addresses over the years. They were in the pregentrification Clybourn corridor in the 1980s, spent time on North Avenue in Wicker Park in the 90s, and have had a couple periods of itinerancy before moving into the double storefront space at 3502-04 North Elston. That building (a combination of a former fastener factory and a shop, Austrian Station, that specialized in Oktoberfest paraphernalia) was originally purchased in early 2003 by Kristen Kunz Vehill, wife of Prop cofounder Scott Vehill, and their friend Jimmy Milano. Milano’s line of work as a bricklayer and Prop’s DIY grassroots aesthetic both led to the name of the corporation that holds title on the building: Brick by Brick.

Over the years, Milano eventually sold his percentage in Brick by Brick to Kunz Vehill and to the family of Stefan Brun, the other Prop cofounder. Prop rented from Brick by Brick and managed the facilities, including rentals and residency arrangements for other companies. (Curious Theatre Branch, cofounded by Brun’s wife, Jenny Magnus, has been producing work, including the long-running Rhino Fest, for many years at Prop.)

So what happened? COVID.

Kunz Vehill, who now owns over 80 percent of the buildings, has seen her self-employment income dry up, and covering the lion’s share of the mortgage was simply not doable as the pandemic has dragged on. “The buildings never made money. I never cared about them making money,” says Kunz Vehill. “At the time the decision [to buy] was made, I felt like real estate was a good investment and it would be nice for Prop to have a permanent home and not be itinerant or moving all the time. It seemed like a sound decision and my whole thing for many years was ‘I don’t care what you guys do, I just want to cover the mortgage and the taxes and the insurance. Just the basic stuff. You guys cover all the rest.'” But with production at a standstill, Prop too has had no revenue coming in, either from their own shows or from the rentals from other companies that helped cover the operating costs.

But even as Prop prepares to leave their longtime address, they are gearing up for some of the most ambitious changes in their history, both structurally and aesthetically.

Their board, now under the leadership of Keith Fort, began embarking on a capital campaign last year, before they knew the company would have to move out. Fort, whose professional background is in managing large events such as the main stage at the Taste of Chicago, says, “You can’t crank up a capital campaign in three months to save this building. It’s just not going to happen, I don’t think. It’s possible we could still see an angel step forward. I have not seen that angel yet and I don’t have one that I can pull out of my hat.” But the fundraising campaign will continue, with different goals in mind than saving the building. It’s the first time Prop has undertaken such a major development initiative.

For current artistic director Olivia Lilley, who took the Prop reins from Brun in 2018 (though Brun remains active with the company), being itinerant for at least the near future, especially in a time when all theaters in Chicago are on hold with productions, feeds into her own preferences for devised and site-specific productions. Devised work, simply put, means productions that feature not the monophonic imprint of one playwright’s voice, but instead bring the voices and ideas of the entire acting ensemble and design team to the table, often by riffing off a variety of existing texts, with a director helping provide a final shape for the show. An example is Lilley’s 2018 production of Neverland, which provided a fresh take on J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

Prior to the COVID shutdown, Lilley was working on Diary of an Erotic Life, a devised piece derived from proto-Expressionist Frank Wedekind’s writings, including his famous “Lulu” plays. Those also formed the basis for the 1929 film Pandora’s Box, starring black-haired siren Louise Brooks and Brun’s grandfather, Austrian actor Fritz Kortner. Lilley has also produced site-specific work in the past, including an adaptation of Faust with the Runaways Lab Theater that played in various living rooms around the city.

“I think that what will likely happen is that Prop will find a long-term rehearsal space because we do develop our shows over longer periods of time,” says Lilley. “The thing that is the most ongoing about our programming is the new play development aspect.” (Prop is also one of the founding members of the National New Play Network, a consortium of companies around the country dedicated to fostering and sharing new work.)

She adds, “I mean, I am very sad. I am mourning. Absolutely. But I’m also excited for all of Prop’s board and staff and all of the eyes that are on the programming, on what we’re producing, on what we’re developing. And then also being able to start to kind of integrate some of the demands from We See You White American Theater and other documents of that nature to really be anti-racist in all aspects of Prop.” Lilley, who is Iranian and Irish, notes, “I am the only person of color on our staff, and I’m also white passing.” Diversifying the board is a goal for Prop, as it is for many other primarily white-led cultural institutions.

As Brun points out in an e-mail, “Much of the history of our work at Prop, even before Olivia, was about increasing the feeling of ownership in the artistic work by performers and designers. The term ‘devising,’ though of more recent origin, combines well with our long-years ‘floating-hierarchy’ approach: allowing individual viewpoints within the work, temporary authority over the process at appointed times. So now it becomes much more important to be available to all of Chicago’s population.”

What that means in practical terms, according to both Brun and Lilley, is that the focus will remain not on physical capital, but human capital. “One of the other main components of Prop’s model is that an actor is paid equal to a designer. Everyone is paid equally. Fifty percent of ticket sales go to the artists,” says Lilley. Brun lists the priorities going forward as “1. Space use to gather safely and rehearse and meet. 2. Show production and promotion costs. 3. Payments for working artists, along the lines being developed by the current staff and board.”

Several years ago, I wrote a chapter about Prop for a book project on Chicago’s “established alternatives”: companies that have been in operation for decades without ever feeling the need to grow into larger institutions with spiffy new facilities. That project never got published, but the picture that emerged from the research I did at the time was of a company that wanted to make space for theater artists and audiences who didn’t necessarily feel like they belonged anywhere else. Some of that openness undoubtedly also came from their long association via Curious with Rhino Fest, which has always provided opportunities for people who don’t have tons of previous experience writing for the stage, but still have interesting voices and aesthetic viewpoints.

Kunz Vehill notes that her long association with Prop “allowed me to feel like a theater kid even though I’m not a theater kid. It absolutely has to do with the fact that Prop has always had many different groups in there at any single time, and was always literally open door. You could wander in and out of the building and sit in the lobby for a few minutes and just talk to people.” Families and families of affinity have also always been a part of the Prop world. The Avondale space has an apartment upstairs that has provided shelter for various Prop-affiliated artists over the years, and walking into the lobby and seeing the kids of Prop and Curious ensemble members and other artists all hanging out together was a common experience.

Kunz Vehill notes that Paula Killen, a former Chicago solo performer now based in Los Angeles, posted a memory about Prop on Facebook in response to the announcement about the impending sale. Killen was in town to perform at Prop with her son, then four years old, in tow. At the same time, Professor Irwin Corey, the stand-up comic and activist whose improvisational work presaged that of comedians such as Lenny Bruce, was staying with the Vehills. (Corey, who died at 102 in 2017, had become friendly with Scott Vehill years earlier.) “So Paula posted about how she’s downstairs creating art and her four-year-old son is upstairs with Professor Irwin Corey. Where else does that happen?” asks Kunz Vehill.

As larger theaters with high fixed costs (including buildings) face down the long-term implications of the COVID catastrophe, it may well be that Prop, with its proven tenacity and adaptability, could provide one model of how to survive and thrive once theaters are producing again.

Brun notes, “Founded In 1981 under a president every bit as bad, if more competent, Prop negotiated the fiscal turn away from the arts at its inception also. While who we are able to serve has expanded and diversified, our approach of making the experiment, the new idea, the gist of the story matter far more than the decorations, the fanciness, the culinary pampering or the big egos–will serve us also quite well into the future. I am actually eager to see those who are now empowered to demand better conditions for artistic workers go further and take over the means of producing their own work like Prop Thtr has done the last forty years.”

Says Lilley, “COVID has allowed us to do a lot more meetings and thinking and processing and we are a very very strong and united force now. Prop has always been very much about the people–the people creating that space and the community. So is Prop a building, or is Prop what happens between people? I think it’s the latter.” v






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Prop Thtr gives up its longtime Avondale homeKerry Reidon July 31, 2020 at 6:15 pm Read More »

Bronzeville Children’s Museum ahead of the COVID-19 curveArionne Nettleson July 31, 2020 at 7:10 pm

This year brought a resurgence of putting Black pride onstage and a national recognition of Juneteenth–and it was also the first in many years that the Bronzeville Children’s Museum did not have its annual celebration.

The museum typically also celebrates Black History Month in February and Kwanzaa in December, complete with a “Kwanzaa king”–a man in regal garb who greets and takes pictures with children to get them excited about the holiday.

“For 22 years, we have been doing Juneteenth because of the importance of it,” says Peggy Montes, who founded the museum with her daughter, Pia. “Very few of the states in the midwest, very few of the states east of the Mississippi ever celebrated Juneteenth. So, to see this upsurge in the celebration of Juneteenth, Pia and I, we said, ‘Well, at last, at last.'”

But in the face of COVID-19, the museum closed its doors in March until further notice: no summer field trips and weekend programs, no “Smart Money Week” program, no Juneteenth event.

Today, four months after Illinois museums closed their doors for safety, there’s no clear end in sight for the pandemic still upending daily life in the U.S. Some museums have reopened, but many that have interactive exhibits and are classified as “high touch”–like children’s museums–have not. These prolonged closings have dealt a hard blow to the nation’s nonprofit museums that are relying on admission, memberships, and philanthropic gifts to survive. About half of museums across the country don’t have the funding to cover operating costs for more than six months, according to an American Alliance of Museums survey.

Luckily, the Bronzeville Children’s Museum is not in that category, and unlike many museum owners, Peggy Montes says she and Pia are not worried about the museum’s immediate future.

“We’ve been OK,” she says. “Even though we don’t have attendance . . . we’ve been able to sustain ourselves.”

Pia Montes vividly remembers visiting children’s museums as a kid while traveling around the country with her mother. But none of them were focused on African American history. Years later, as former Chicago Public Schools teachers, they both decided to change that.

“My mom, she’s my shero,” she says. “She’s the most amazing woman I know. Incredible, just full of knowledge, and just a very important person to the city of Chicago.”

And that’s not an overstatement. Peggy Montes’s long list of accomplishments and service to the cultural scene is extensive. She’s chairman emeritus of the DuSable Museum of African American History, where she worked with museum founder Dr. Margaret Burroughs for decades. She’s also a member of the Illinois Arts Council, one of the founding members of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Leadership Advisory Committee, a member of the Museum of Science and Industry’s Black Creativity program, and is active with the African American Association of Museums.

It was that involvement that led her to bring the idea to Pia to create a museum that would be something different. So in 1998, the two transformed a small storefront in Evergreen Plaza into the Bronzeville Children’s Museum–its name a tribute to the neighborhood that birthed so much Black innovation in business, in the arts, and in culture–with Pia doing all the tours and with the legal help of Peggy’s son, Paul, who is an attorney. Now 22 years later, it is the first and still only African American children’s museum in the country.

“Usually when children, especially kindergarten children, primary-age children, when they visit museums, all they do is they walk around and they look up at the pictures and things, and there’s really nothing for them to become involved with,” Peggy Montes says. “So that’s when we decided that we would have an interactive children’s museum that talked about our history, our culture, and the contributions of our people.”

Geared toward kids ages three to nine, the museum expanded and moved to its current location on 93rd and Stony Island in 2000. There, they can learn about healthy eating and exercise while walking on kid-sized treadmills, see the inventions of African American inventors, be immersed in S.T.E.M., and tour the people and landmarks that make up historic Bronzeville–all without leaving the museum doors.

And the museum’s “Wall of Firsts” features images of more than 75 Black Chicagoans like Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, Harold Washington, Barack Obama, and Ida B. Wells, with a mirror so kids can see themselves among them.

“[With] little children, it is our responsibility to help develop self-esteem,” Peggy Montes says. “Let them know that they are of worth, that they are somebody, and hopefully, establishing that at an early age will motivate them to go on and want to do something with their lives but also to want to help others. That’s the beauty of it.”

Instead of being a place for free play, the museum offers tours on the hour to teach and guide students throughout the exhibits. Each one of the exhibits takes one hour, with two exhibits per visit.

“You come in, it’s set up classroom style, they have to sit down, they have to listen, you know, then you do your arts and crafts and then the last thing is play,” Pia Montes says. “Because when they come and they see the toys, of course they’re going to want to play. So that’s also what makes us totally different.”

It’s that environment–and that difference–that can help visitors maintain safe distancing standards in a sanitized environment when high-touch museums and exhibits can reopen. Many state of Illinois guidelines such as scheduling attendee visits and staggering arrival times are practices the museum already has in place.

Though the space is currently empty, it remains pristine and stocked, ready for the next group of children to walk through its doors. That might be helpful for parents thinking about how to handle the uncertainty of school in the fall. Chicago Public Schools recently released a preliminary plan for reopening schools in which students in grades K-10 would attend school in person two days a week, leaving three days out of the week for at-home instruction.

“We do have interactives, but that’s not the primary goal of why we are here,” Peggy Montes says. “So in preparation for the children coming back to the museum, we don’t really have to do that much. We have to just move around a few chairs and tables, and then they will be able to feel safe and we can protect them in terms of their visit to the museum.”

Peggy and Pia Montes may not know exactly when the Bronzeville Children’s Museum will reopen, but when it does, they will continue with their structured experiences–just with fewer visitors at a time, who are more spread out and wearing face masks. They will not be closing, Peggy Montes stresses, and they will continue to plan for the future, regardless of COVID-19. She says that’s how they’ve always run their business.

“It’s not just for today,” she says. “We sit down and we plan for the future stability of our institution.” v

This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. For more stories about the effect of COVID-19 on museums, please visit the Prairie State Museums Project at PrairieStateMuseumsProject.org.

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Bronzeville Children’s Museum ahead of the COVID-19 curveArionne Nettleson July 31, 2020 at 7:10 pm Read More »

With baseball season at a critical crossroads, all involved — even the Cubs — must do betterSteve Greenbergon August 1, 2020 at 1:07 am

No hugs, no spits, no errors.

No fist bumps or high-fives, either.

Masks on whenever possible, proper distancing in the dugout and so on.

Major League Baseball’s 2020 operations manual provided an extensive list of things players can’t do in a pandemic season, but some things aren’t as straightforward as they appear when recommendations meet reality.

Even the Cubs — an extreme rarity in baseball, still without a positive COVID-19 result among players since intake testing began a month ago — are having a hard time living up to the letter of the law in terms of health-and-safety protocols on the field.

”We definitely probably high-five more than is allowed,” manager David Ross admitted, ”but we’ve got hand sanitizer waiting right afterward. We’re doing the best we can and trying to have fun and win ballgames.”

But is that good enough? MLB commissioner Rob Manfred doesn’t think so. According to an ESPN report, the embattled Manfred told MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark the season could be shut down — as soon as early next week — if the sport doesn’t navigate its way through the critical crossroads it finds itself at right now. And Manfred clearly is putting the onus on the players.

It has been a frightening week in baseball, with 21 members of the Marlins’ organization alone testing positive. Friday brought word that two Cardinals players had tested positive.

Meanwhile, at Wrigley Field and every other big-league park — and on TVs everywhere — there have been plainly visible instances of missteps. Some have involved spitting. Others have involved players sitting or standing shoulder-to-shoulder — without masks — in dugouts. The Cubs have their high-fives.

After right-hander Kyle Hendricks threw a complete-game shutout in the season opener, multiple Cubs — most noticeably Ross — greeted him with hugs.

”It’s a fine line,” first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. ”When the game starts, we’re locked in on trying to win a championship and winning every day and doing it smartly, as well.

”Can we be better? Absolutely. It’s just one of those things where, when you really turn that switch on, you start competing. And when it really counts, your baseball instincts take over.”

Government officials reportedly have expressed concern to MLB about what they’re seeing on TV. That narrative puts players under a harsh spotlight, but it should make Manfred and MLB owners sweat, too.

Did they rush into this unwisely and poorly prepared?

Should MLB have created so-called ”bubbles,” as the NBA, NHL and other leagues have?

Is there real reason to think the 2020 season will reach its intended finish line, World Series and all?

”It’s real easy to listen to all the noise,” Rizzo said. ”But we come in today, we do our job today and we hope that tomorrow . . . the Cardinals are [missing] only two of their guys and not six to eight and it [hasn’t] spread there.

”We just play baseball today, then wake up tomorrow and come and play tomorrow and look up, and hopefully it’s the end of September and we’re getting ready for a playoff run.”

Rizzo tweeted in frustration Thursday in Cincinnati after the Cubs sat through hours of pregame and a 55-minute rain delay at Great American Ballpark before their game against the Reds was postponed. A day later, he called the projected forecast ”probably the worst I’ve seen in Cincinnati playing there.”

MLB announced on the fly that it is instituting seven-inning games for doubleheaders, effective Saturday. A decisive, one-season-only policy on rainouts might be a good idea, too.

”Maybe that’s one they will consider after [Thursday],” Ross said.

Meantime, the players have to keep trying — in some cases, a lot harder — to be safe on and off the field. In the Cubs’ case, they have to keep trying to avoid a first positive test. A lot of pressure comes with that, no doubt.

”I don’t know that I have an objection to pinning things on the players,” Ross said. ”But I have an objection to pinning things on my players, who haven’t done anything. That’s where I’m at with it.”

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With baseball season at a critical crossroads, all involved — even the Cubs — must do betterSteve Greenbergon August 1, 2020 at 1:07 am Read More »