Andy Warhol was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, a voyeur who wanted to be a superstar. Thirty-six years after his death we are still trying to suss him out. Which may be why this year we have not one but two plays about Andy Warhol being produced—one at the Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, the other at Northlight in Skokie. (And in New York, Anthony McCarten’s play, The Collaboration, about Warhol’s relationship with fellow artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, runs through February 11 at Manhattan Theatre Club.)

Andy Warhol’s Tomato tells the story of a young Andrew Warhola, before Manhattan and before he dropped the final “a” in his last name to sound less ethnic. Andy Warhol in Iran features Andy in the 70s—the laconic, white-wigged Studio 54 Warhol, the Andy who survived the 60s, the Andy who shook things up with his Campbell’s Soup cans and Marilyn Monroe portraits. The Warhol who was left after the Factory and the superstars and Valerie Solanas’s assassination attempt. 

For all their differences, the two plays share some striking similarities. Both are two-person plays, and both feature an encounter between Warhol and someone who is very different from Warhol. 

Andy Warhol in IranThrough 2/19: Wed 1 and 7:30 PM, Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2:30 and 8 PM, Sun 2:30 PM; open captions and ASL performance Fri 2/10 8 PM, open captions and audio description/touch tour Sat 2/11 2:30 PM; North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, 847-673-6300, northlight.org, $30-$89 ($15 students pending availability)Andy Warhol’s Tomato2/2-3/5: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; ASL performance Thu 2/23; McAninch Arts Center, College of DuPage, 425 Fawell Boulevard, 630-942-4000, btechicago.com, $42

Andy Warhol’s Tomato embellishes an apocryphal story about Warhol from his art student days at Carnegie Tech. Playwright Vince Melocchi, who grew up in Warhol’s hometown of Pittsburgh, explains, “There’s a bar up the street from where I grew up, originally called Bunovich’s, when Old Man Bunovich owned it. There was a story that went around that a young Andy Warhol used to draw on napkins for Cokes for Old Man Bunovich because he got a kick out of them. Now, this is just a story, right? But it stuck with me.”

Commissioned by the LA-based Pacific Resident Theatre to turn this bit of lore into a play, Melocchi’s script catches Warhol at an interesting moment in his life. It’s Andy before he moves to New York, but already in his short life he has endured a couple of traumatic, life-changing events—the death of his father when he was 13 as well as the illness in the 3rd grade, Sydenham’s chorea (also called St. Vitus’ dance), that kept him confined in bed, listening to the radio and reading movie magazines. 

“This is a fable that conjectures what Warhol was like before he went to New York,” director Steve Scott elaborates. “It is kind of nice to get to know Andy as a kid when he was kind of just a person, a very distinctive person, but just a guy. This is Andy before the persona. But you can see from this play how the persona kind of formulated. There’s a whole scene at the end where Bones is looking at Andy’s sketchbook, and then we see the pictures that [Warhol has been] sketching and see how they became the works that we know later on: Mickey Mouse and the Campbell’s Soup cans.”

The Buffalo Theatre Ensemble production is part of an ongoing celebration of Andy Warhol at the McAninch Arts Center at the College of DuPage that culminates in a major exhibit of Warhol’s work at the Art Center: “Andy Warhol Portfolios: A Life in Pop” (June 3 to September 10). 

Bryan Burke (left) and Alexander Wisnieski onstage in rehearsal for Andy Warhol’s Tomato with Buffalo Theatre Ensemble. Director Steve Scott is seated at the table on the right. Courtesy Rex Howard Photography

The actor who plays young Andy in Andy Warhol’s Tomato, Alexander Wisnieski, is also making appearances at other McAninch Arts Center events as a Warhol impersonator. Wisnieski shares many of Warhol’s features—his Slavic bone structure, his extremely pale skin. In a silver wig he is a dead ringer.  

Wisnieski bubbles over when he talks about playing Andy. “I played Warhol [at COD] for his birthday party. And then there was a donor event. I did a ticket sale event before actually auditioning for the play. I’ll also be in the exhibit in a kids’ room video, which is really exciting. And then I will be there for four days after the exhibit opens.” Wisnieski will also appear as Warhol at a gala benefit on February 18 entitled “A Night at Studio 54: For the Love of Warhol.”

“I didn’t know all that when I cast him,” Scott laughs. “But he did an enormous amount of research to prepare for [his Warhol] gigs. He came in [to the audition] as prepared as I’ve ever seen an actor to play this character.”

When researching Andy Warhol it is hard not to do too much research. There is so much out there. Rob Lindley, who plays Warhol in Northlight’s show, admits to falling into the Warhol hole when preparing for the role.

“I am a research nerd,” Lindley tells me. “I do [a lot of] research for every project I do. I drove myself to Pittsburgh this summer so I could go to the Warhol Museum. Each day I was there I visited his grave site.”

Lindley admits he was motivated to do lots of research because he felt a “bit of pressure” playing Warhol: “There is certainly a challenge playing someone that was so well known. I feel like I’ve always played [fictional] characters. Well, [Warhol’s] a real character, that’s for sure. Whether he was a real person or not, it still remains to be seen. Andy himself said that his greatest work of art was himself and that he was his greatest creation. So there’s a challenge to that.”

The Andy in Andy Warhol in Iran is a very different Warhol than the callow fellow in Andy Warhol’s Tomato. This is the Warhol who once quipped, “Making money is art, and working is art, and good business is the best art.” At this time he raked in the cash doing silkscreen portraits of the very wealthy.  

One of his clients was the Shah of Iran. Andy Warhol in Iran was inspired by Warhol’s trip to Tehran in 1976 to take Polaroids of the Shah’s third wife, Farah, for a commissioned portrait. But the tale playwright Brent Askari tells is wholly fictional. 

“In [Askari’s] play, this young kidnapper tries to kidnap Andy Warhol to bring the world’s attention to what’s going on in Iran and to turn them against the Shah,” director BJ Jones explains.

For Askari, the story is very personal: “My dad is from Iran, he’s Shiite Muslim. And my mom was an Episcopalian New England WASP. So growing up was with those two very distinct cultures, and I didn’t quite fit into either camp. 

“I got a commission from a theater in Western Massachusetts called Barrington Stage Company. They were interested in something historical about Iran. I originally was thinking like, we’re going to do something with the Shah.” 

But when Askari remembered Warhol’s trip to Iran, his plans changed.

“So the original idea was that it was going to be a two-person play with Andy Warhol and the Empress. But that only lasted about a day because I sort of realized as a dramatist that there was no conflict. And so that’s when I had the idea, like, oh, maybe I need somebody that has a completely different point of view, right?”

“In the play we have these two revolutionaries clashing,” Jones tells me. “One an artistic revolutionary and one social justice.”

“So my character is Farhad,” Hamid Dehghani, who plays Warhol’s would-be kidnapper, tells me. “He’s a young educated man who has been to America, who realizes the cruelty of the Shah’s regime. And so he decides to sacrifice and take immediate actions to make changes for his people and his country.”

The irony is the person Farhad decides to kidnap was about as disaffected, apolitical, and emotionally disconnected an American artist as you could find in 1976. 

After he was shot in 1968 Warhol famously said, “Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there—I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life.” But in a way Warhol continued living like he was watching TV for the rest of his life.

“Writing this play, I felt a mixture of pity and sympathy for Andy Warhol,” Askari reflects. “He lived this life of fame and fortune and success. But with all that he achieved, it seemed like he ended his life fairly unhappy.”

Yet he still fascinates. And that’s why his 15 minutes of fame will never run out.

Read More

Mike Shaker’s sausages snap like firecrackers. His brisket melts away like smoked milk chocolate on your tongue. His mac and cheese is a warm, creamy security blanket in the cold, terrifying night.

Put them together on one plate and you’ve assembled the formidable, low and slow powers of Shaker Barbeque, headlining the next Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up—now at Ludlow Liquors in Avondale.

Shaker has decades of fine dining experience behind him (Nellcote, Nico Osteria, Cira). Back in the day, he headed up charcuterie production at the late, great Old Town Social. But when the pandemic struck, he left his post with the Boka Group and returned to the backyard passion he inherited from his late father.

Shaker Barbeque brisket

Armed with a pair of Weber bullet smokers and an infinite supply of post-oak, Shaker launched a guerilla catering and pop-up operation, pushing central-Texas-style barbecue on a greedy, salivating legion of chef pals. Today he has as much work as he can handle, emerging among the city’s tight-knit, collaborative renaissance of itinerant, new-school smokers. The sausages he stuffs with brisket trim and copious amounts of black pepper, achieving that startling snap with a five-hour, cold-hot smoke, interrupted by a skin-stretching ice water shock. I’ve been floored by those ethereal slabs of jiggly, smoked prime beef at previous Foodballs, when he’s jumped in to join the crew.

On January 30 he’s keeping it simple—filling walk-in orders for a single heaping plate of those magical meats, accented with his peppery sauce, plus mac and slaw on the side. Foodball OG Charles Wong of Umamicue is joining this crew, along with future Foodball OG Joe Yim of Knox Ave BBQ.

Look for a bacon fat-washed mezcal Old Fashioned from the gang behind the bar.

Just walk into Ludlow Liquors, 2959 N. California, starting at 5 PM, this Monday, January 30.

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Andy Warhol was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, a voyeur who wanted to be a superstar. Thirty-six years after his death we are still trying to suss him out. Which may be why this year we have not one but two plays about Andy Warhol being produced—one at the Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, the other at Northlight in Skokie. (And in New York, Anthony McCarten’s play, The Collaboration, about Warhol’s relationship with fellow artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, runs through February 11 at Manhattan Theatre Club.)

Andy Warhol’s Tomato tells the story of a young Andrew Warhola, before Manhattan and before he dropped the final “a” in his last name to sound less ethnic. Andy Warhol in Iran features Andy in the 70s—the laconic, white-wigged Studio 54 Warhol, the Andy who survived the 60s, the Andy who shook things up with his Campbell’s Soup cans and Marilyn Monroe portraits. The Warhol who was left after the Factory and the superstars and Valerie Solanas’s assassination attempt. 

For all their differences, the two plays share some striking similarities. Both are two-person plays, and both feature an encounter between Warhol and someone who is very different from Warhol. 

Andy Warhol in IranThrough 2/19: Wed 1 and 7:30 PM, Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2:30 and 8 PM, Sun 2:30 PM; open captions and ASL performance Fri 2/10 8 PM, open captions and audio description/touch tour Sat 2/11 2:30 PM; North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, 847-673-6300, northlight.org, $30-$89 ($15 students pending availability)Andy Warhol’s Tomato2/2-3/5: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; ASL performance Thu 2/23; McAninch Arts Center, College of DuPage, 425 Fawell Boulevard, 630-942-4000, btechicago.com, $42

Andy Warhol’s Tomato embellishes an apocryphal story about Warhol from his art student days at Carnegie Tech. Playwright Vince Melocchi, who grew up in Warhol’s hometown of Pittsburgh, explains, “There’s a bar up the street from where I grew up, originally called Bunovich’s, when Old Man Bunovich owned it. There was a story that went around that a young Andy Warhol used to draw on napkins for Cokes for Old Man Bunovich because he got a kick out of them. Now, this is just a story, right? But it stuck with me.”

Commissioned by the LA-based Pacific Resident Theatre to turn this bit of lore into a play, Melocchi’s script catches Warhol at an interesting moment in his life. It’s Andy before he moves to New York, but already in his short life he has endured a couple of traumatic, life-changing events—the death of his father when he was 13 as well as the illness in the 3rd grade, Sydenham’s chorea (also called St. Vitus’ dance), that kept him confined in bed, listening to the radio and reading movie magazines. 

“This is a fable that conjectures what Warhol was like before he went to New York,” director Steve Scott elaborates. “It is kind of nice to get to know Andy as a kid when he was kind of just a person, a very distinctive person, but just a guy. This is Andy before the persona. But you can see from this play how the persona kind of formulated. There’s a whole scene at the end where Bones is looking at Andy’s sketchbook, and then we see the pictures that [Warhol has been] sketching and see how they became the works that we know later on: Mickey Mouse and the Campbell’s Soup cans.”

The Buffalo Theatre Ensemble production is part of an ongoing celebration of Andy Warhol at the McAninch Arts Center at the College of DuPage that culminates in a major exhibit of Warhol’s work at the Art Center: “Andy Warhol Portfolios: A Life in Pop” (June 3 to September 10). 

Bryan Burke (left) and Alexander Wisnieski onstage in rehearsal for Andy Warhol’s Tomato with Buffalo Theatre Ensemble. Director Steve Scott is seated at the table on the right. Courtesy Rex Howard Photography

The actor who plays young Andy in Andy Warhol’s Tomato, Alexander Wisnieski, is also making appearances at other McAninch Arts Center events as a Warhol impersonator. Wisnieski shares many of Warhol’s features—his Slavic bone structure, his extremely pale skin. In a silver wig he is a dead ringer.  

Wisnieski bubbles over when he talks about playing Andy. “I played Warhol [at COD] for his birthday party. And then there was a donor event. I did a ticket sale event before actually auditioning for the play. I’ll also be in the exhibit in a kids’ room video, which is really exciting. And then I will be there for four days after the exhibit opens.” Wisnieski will also appear as Warhol at a gala benefit on February 18 entitled “A Night at Studio 54: For the Love of Warhol.”

“I didn’t know all that when I cast him,” Scott laughs. “But he did an enormous amount of research to prepare for [his Warhol] gigs. He came in [to the audition] as prepared as I’ve ever seen an actor to play this character.”

When researching Andy Warhol it is hard not to do too much research. There is so much out there. Rob Lindley, who plays Warhol in Northlight’s show, admits to falling into the Warhol hole when preparing for the role.

“I am a research nerd,” Lindley tells me. “I do [a lot of] research for every project I do. I drove myself to Pittsburgh this summer so I could go to the Warhol Museum. Each day I was there I visited his grave site.”

Lindley admits he was motivated to do lots of research because he felt a “bit of pressure” playing Warhol: “There is certainly a challenge playing someone that was so well known. I feel like I’ve always played [fictional] characters. Well, [Warhol’s] a real character, that’s for sure. Whether he was a real person or not, it still remains to be seen. Andy himself said that his greatest work of art was himself and that he was his greatest creation. So there’s a challenge to that.”

The Andy in Andy Warhol in Iran is a very different Warhol than the callow fellow in Andy Warhol’s Tomato. This is the Warhol who once quipped, “Making money is art, and working is art, and good business is the best art.” At this time he raked in the cash doing silkscreen portraits of the very wealthy.  

One of his clients was the Shah of Iran. Andy Warhol in Iran was inspired by Warhol’s trip to Tehran in 1976 to take Polaroids of the Shah’s third wife, Farah, for a commissioned portrait. But the tale playwright Brent Askari tells is wholly fictional. 

“In [Askari’s] play, this young kidnapper tries to kidnap Andy Warhol to bring the world’s attention to what’s going on in Iran and to turn them against the Shah,” director BJ Jones explains.

For Askari, the story is very personal: “My dad is from Iran, he’s Shiite Muslim. And my mom was an Episcopalian New England WASP. So growing up was with those two very distinct cultures, and I didn’t quite fit into either camp. 

“I got a commission from a theater in Western Massachusetts called Barrington Stage Company. They were interested in something historical about Iran. I originally was thinking like, we’re going to do something with the Shah.” 

But when Askari remembered Warhol’s trip to Iran, his plans changed.

“So the original idea was that it was going to be a two-person play with Andy Warhol and the Empress. But that only lasted about a day because I sort of realized as a dramatist that there was no conflict. And so that’s when I had the idea, like, oh, maybe I need somebody that has a completely different point of view, right?”

“In the play we have these two revolutionaries clashing,” Jones tells me. “One an artistic revolutionary and one social justice.”

“So my character is Farhad,” Hamid Dehghani, who plays Warhol’s would-be kidnapper, tells me. “He’s a young educated man who has been to America, who realizes the cruelty of the Shah’s regime. And so he decides to sacrifice and take immediate actions to make changes for his people and his country.”

The irony is the person Farhad decides to kidnap was about as disaffected, apolitical, and emotionally disconnected an American artist as you could find in 1976. 

After he was shot in 1968 Warhol famously said, “Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there—I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life.” But in a way Warhol continued living like he was watching TV for the rest of his life.

“Writing this play, I felt a mixture of pity and sympathy for Andy Warhol,” Askari reflects. “He lived this life of fame and fortune and success. But with all that he achieved, it seemed like he ended his life fairly unhappy.”

Yet he still fascinates. And that’s why his 15 minutes of fame will never run out.

Read More

At the end of September 2020, I wrote a piece for the Reader titled “Black artistic leaders take charge at several Chicago theaters,” which framed the influx of new (and preexisting) Black leadership in Chicago theater against the backdrop of a historic disruption in the industry. That disruption was powered in part by COVID-19 leading to budget cuts and mass layoffs, and in part by intense public criticism of the shortcomings of many predominantly white theater institutions, with a call to action for faster and more concrete gains in racial equity in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement’s impact on the arts sector. 

Many, including myself, tentatively hoped that the tsunami of these external forces would lead to a watershed moment ushering in a golden era of transformative changes that would completely redefine the industry as we know it. 

The cynic in me, however, had doubts. 

The reality has landed somewhere in the middle. While ticket sales might not yet be back to pre-pandemic levels, theater is back in full swing for just about everyone except for the immunocompromised, who are left with the agonizing choice of participating at their own risk or not at all, as COVID precautions such as masking have become less frequent to nonexistent. On the other hand, some of the temporary accommodations for accessibility have led to completely reimagining what theater can look like, with those early humble Zoom performances opening the floodgates toward permanently blurring the line between screen and stage. The heartbreaking number of theaters that have closed temporarily or permanently due to insolvency or mismanagement has also energized discussions about the long-term efficacy of board leadership. 

On the racial equity front, the final tally has yet to be counted. And frankly, if success isn’t obvious, based on historical track records and the continued excellent reporting of my colleagues, I think it’s quite fair to make assumptions. 

My first instinct was to approach this recap through the lens of how many artists have been retained in their positions and how many have moved on, to capture a snapshot of the health of artistic institutions. 

And doubly frankly: it doesn’t matter.

For me, the endless spin cycle of hand-wringing about whether or not fundamentally inequitable organizations can or will change after yet another misstep, scandal, or blindingly white season is beginning to feel like a lens best left in the trash bin like a used KN95. 

“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

So much precious energy from so many talented artists has been wasted on so many recalcitrant and bullheaded organizations. So much ink has been spilled verbally prodding these stubborn oxen uphill. We know in our hearts that many simply will never budge. And that even the one obstinate step they are shamed into taking is just simply not worth the effort. At times, I as a writer have felt low, seemingly writing the same article over and over and over again, calling for a change that never seems to arrive.

I workshopped a few much more graceful ways to say this, but this feels the most authentic: People are fucking tired. I’m fucking tired. We need rest. 

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

When Jerrod Carmichael hosted the Golden Globes recently, his opening monologue was quiet, contemplative, and light on the jokes—a drastic tonal shift from the typical biting zingers of award shows past, leaving quite a few people puzzled. To me, his monologue of fact—simply stating “I’m here because I’m Black”—acknowledged the sham, the repetition, the predictability. He was exhausted.

During the pandemic the organization ArtEquity held a series called BIPOC Surviving Predominantly White Institutions geared toward supporting artists who found themselves exhausted from the neverending struggle for respect. This movement toward healing is not new. It’s been a plank of Black liberation for eternity, from spirituals to recent movements such as #BlackGirlMagic #BlackBoyJoy, Toi Derricotte’s poem “The Telly Cycle” (opening with the line “Joy is an act of resistance”), and Congo Square’s recent work of community healing, What to Send Up When It Goes Down.  

The pandemic forced us to rest. Now it is mandatory that we embrace rest and pull together to heal and care for one another.

In my opinion, the best metric of success for Black artists—and all artists, frankly—is that they continue to find joy, renewal, and creative satisfaction in whatever role they choose, whether that choice is to stay in their position or move on to a new position. My wish for every artist is to find roles that offer them a better-than-living wage, benefits, schedule flexibility, the space to use their authentic voices, collegial support, and careers that allow them to grow or that happily help to launch them toward bigger and brighter futures. 

My wish is that we all luxuriate in the strength of community. Real, nourishing, supportive community.

My original piece highlighted seven leaders: Sana Selemon, the executive director of BoHo Theatre; Kamille Dawkins, the interim artistic director of Strawdog Theatre; Regina Victor, the artistic director of Sideshow Theatre; Donterrio Johnson, the artistic director of PrideArts; Mikael Burke, associate artistic director at About Face Theatre; Anthony LeBlanc, the interim executive producer of The Second City; and Charlique C. Rolle, the executive director of Congo Square Theatre. In an addendum to the article after press, the article also added Arlicia McLain, the artistic director at Halcyon Theatre, and Myesha-Tiara, cofounder and artistic director of Perceptions Theatre.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to gather some updates of joy from a few of this talented cohort of leaders. I want to celebrate their successes with you. 

One exciting update comes from LeBlanc, formerly artistic director of The Second City, who is thriving in his new role. LeBlanc shares, “I am working for Nickelodeon doing talent development and on-set acting coaching. It is a joy to help be a small part of fostering a new generation of comedians. But it does not miss me that every time I come back to Chicago or talk with a BIPOC comedy director that still reaches out for advice . . . that there is still so much work to do to keep improving the community . . . My constant advice is to do what you can to help to leave the community better than you found it. And if we all keep doing that, it will be harder and harder to turn back time.”

Perceptions, which started producing during the pandemic shutdown, is still going strong and rapidly breaking new ground. I checked in with Myesha-Tiara, and she had quite a bit of great news to share. 

Myesha-Tiara reports: “Perceptions Theatre is in its fourth year as a theater company based on the south side of Chicago. This is their second year in person, as their first two years were completely virtual. They have been working hard to live up to their mission to strengthen the accessibility of theater to the African-American/Black communities of South Shore and to be an economic and artistic resource for BIPOC artists and succeeding in doing so.”

Myesha-Tiara notes that the company has received over $40,000 in grants, which enabled them to employ “over 30 actors, 15 directors, and 12 playwrights.”

In 2023 they plan to do even more. This spring they are coproducing with Prop Thtr to bring the rolling world premiere of the play Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation by India Nicole Burton, which focuses on the Black women in the Black Panther Party and will be directed by Myesha-Tiara, to the south side. Panther Women is part of the rolling world premiere program through the National New Play Network; other partner theaters are Cleveland Public Theatre in Ohio and Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis.This summer they will continue with their third annual BIPOC Play Fest that showcases playwrights of color, and will end the season with a workshopped staged reading of a piece yet to be announced that will go up in spring 2024. 

Myesha-Tiara shared a thoughtful and profound meditation for the future, saying, “This year I hope to live more in the present and enjoy each moment with my community instead of only focusing on what the future will bring.”

Over at the consistently excellent Congo Square Theatre, Rolle continues to shine as one of the hardest-working artists in the city. She shared a few impressive highlights of her work since we last spoke, which include being named in Newcity՚s Players 2022: The Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago (along with Congo Square artistic director Ericka Ratcliff); being elected as the newest (and second in its 25-year history) board president of the African American Arts Alliance of Chicago, a role that has been previously occupied by Black Ensemble Theater‘s founder Jackie Taylor; and being selected for the Chicago Urban League’s IMPACT Fellow Class of 2023. Currently Rolle serves as executive producer for Congo’s digital content, with the sketch series Hit ‘Em on the Blackside in season three and the audio series The Clinic in its second season. 

When asked what she might like to share with our readers, Rolle said, “I have been able to stabilize the organization to be in the best financial position it has seen in its entire existence. If there’s anything that I’ve learned, or rather that has been reinforced, amidst COVID, is that community is one of the greatest forms of currency that we have. I can say that I’ve done a lot and accomplished much on my own, but that wouldn’t be completely accurate. It’s the community that strengthens my bones and ignites my passion to continue to push boundaries, fight for equity, and ensure that our collective voices are heard.”

Some of the other artists featured, including Victor, Johnson, and Burke, have moved on from their positions toward new futures. Some, including Dawkins (now the permanent artistic director at Strawdog) and Selemon, remain. Regardless of how long or short their tenures were or will be, all of them remain threads in the tapestry that is Chicago theater and that should not mark the measure of anything more than the passage of time.

Burke’s words from two years ago on the limitations of longevity still ring true: “I don’t think there is one human being at the head of a cultural organization who can be as in touch with his community ten years later as he was when he first started.” 

Longevity of tenure is a crude and outdated measurement of success of an artistic organization, and for the artists themselves. After all, theater isn’t an institution. Theater is people. And even if every single institution crumbles, theater will still exist. Community will still exist. 

I extend my sincerest thanks to everyone in the theater community for sharing their art with me over the years. 

May every artist wander until they find the field of familiars where they can bloom. 

Read More

It’s July 1990, and I am summoned to the corner of Newport and Sheffield over and over again by the lure of my friend Franz’s rooftop parties. But little do I know that just half a block away, Lower Links is beginning a summer of programming that solidifies that corner as a mini-epicenter of performance art in the city. 

Performance luminaries such as Lydia Lunch, Paula Killen, and Brigid Murphy (Milly’s Orchid Show) found a regular home in its friendly confines. At the same time, a tradition began to ferment upstairs at Link’s Hall of supporting small dance companies and indie choreographers that continues today in their space on Western Avenue.

Originally serving as a space for social dances and Daughters of the American Revolution meetings, the building on the corner of Newport and Sheffield housed the Chicago Women’s Health Center (CHWC) and the original Links Hall in the 1970s (the presenting organization dropped the apostrophe in the building’s name at some point). Once Links moved out, Under the Gun Theater took over the space for their original comedy shows. Building out the spare space as a small proscenium stage theater with cabaret seating, some bleacher seats, and a bar, the newly formed spot became host to a bevy of burlesque, belly dance, and variety shows in early 2019 after the Uptown Underground was abruptly shuttered.

Newport Theater956 W. Newport, 773-270-3440. Newport Theater Camp resumes 1/29 with eight-week classes running Wed-Sat. For information on classes and registration, or for performance schedules and reservations, visit newporttheater.com.

Enter Eva la Feva. “I’m a belly dancer and a burlesque performer. Many of us performed regularly at the Uptown Underground, which was a former burlesque drag variety space that’s now become the Baton Lounge.” 

La Feva also runs a popular regular burlesque and variety show at the California Clipper, the Clipper Cabaret. So, when Tight Five Productions looked for someone to take over programming and rebrand the space, la Feva felt like a natural fit. She was a trusted burlesque and cabaret community member and knew how to pull in an audience and promote. She opened the space to her community to bring in their own productions, and started coordinating fringe programming. After the COVID shutdown, she started the Newport Peek-Easy, a weekly burlesque/drag/variety show, to provide regular work to fringe performers. 

“We focus on what I call the fringe arts because currently, our programming has pole dancing, clowning, belly dance, burlesque, and Bollywood dance—things that might have a harder time finding a home within a traditional theater environment because they aren’t continuous runs of productions,” la Feva explains. “[We offer] more one-off or pop-up, cabaret-style productions versus the same single production for a number of weeks.”

She also stresses the importance of the space being very inclusive and open to a variety of productions and different performance communities. “We’ve been really fortunate to partner with Shimmy LaRoux from The Professional Adult on DEIJ issues,” la Feva says. “She was really helpful in helping us to develop our values statement and our commitment to inclusion. We provide discounted space for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ artists who are struggling with affording rent or need help with a first-time project. We try to make sure that we’re bringing in a variety of different voices and perspectives in terms of the productions. We ask our producers to abide by our safety and inclusion policies that we adapted from Burlesque Community Against Unsafe Spaces (BCAUS) and through the help from Shimmy. And we’ve just been reached out to by Chicago Therapy Collective to commit to their Hire Trans Now initiative.”

In addition to featuring a variety of voices, la Feva is committed to creating a more cooperative fringe arts scene and cross-pollinating disciplines and communities through her work at the Newport. All of this grew out of programming that began during the early lockdown period of 2020. “We actually built a virtual venue during the pandemic with this group called QueerCoded,” says la Feva. “Through use of an avatar, you can navigate a digital environment to video chat with other patrons and watch digital performances.”

Interior of the Newport Theater Courtesy Newport Theater

The Newport then invited performers in to create virtual content by launching Newport Studio, a multi-camera live-editing video recording service. La Feva says, “I’d be like, ‘OK, if you need to record, just come here and do it.’ And the thing that was so weird is that when people would come in, they would be like, ‘I forgot my shoes, how could I forget my shoes?’ And I would say, ‘You’re out of practice packing a gig bag and remembering those little things you don’t realize you need.’” 

This also helped build the Newport Theater Camp. When la Feva went looking for someone to collaborate with to help build out the fringe-arts curriculum for the camp, she turned again to her community and found multi-award-winning burlesque performer Bazuka Joe, who had a similar experience during the lockdown.

“It was so hard for everybody. And I can say without any exaggeration, every single performer got depressed, got inspired, uninspired, felt disconnected,” Joe says, adding, “I remember the first day that live performances were happening again, performers were crying because they were so emotional about getting back into the space and seeing their friends performing live and having that energy of an audience back again.”

He continues, “And there were still precautions—where we’re still wearing masks and the dressing areas were setups six feet apart and the air was thick with Lysol. But it was emotional coming back. One, because I think we didn’t realize how much we had missed it until we had it again. And in a reverse way, we didn’t realize how good we had things until we didn’t have it anymore. And I think that really hit home for a lot of people.”

And that was the origin story of the Newport Theater Camp. Says Joe, “We were really feeling that we were disconnected from our community. We had the time and the space to do something, but what that something was, we weren’t sure. And then we thought, ‘Hey, remember three years ago? When we were talking about this camp thing? Yeah, let’s do that!’

“So we thought, let’s bring our best friends who are also performers in, and who we know are good instructors, to do a few classes just to get back in the swing of things. It was as much for the participants as it was for us because we needed to feel connected again.”

But even then, la Feva and Joe knew that they didn’t want it to be just burlesque—so they added clowning first. And then belly dancing. And it grew from there. Today, the Newport Theater Camp offers year-round, eight-week courses and workshops on a variety of fringe disciplines such as sketch comedy, clowning, pole dance, and burlesque.

“The response has been overwhelming—we have sold out almost every class,” Joe notes. “Beyond just the business success, the responses that we had have been like, ‘Thank you SO MUCH for doing this.’”

Once people started taking basic and then intermediate classes, there was a demand for a stage performance series too. “We had a lot of people asking if we were even doing a solo act development series and we were like, ‘Oh, we have some time in between the winter and the spring sessions, so let’s do it,’” la Feva explains. 

“So we have two solo act classes running concurrently now. Eva has one group, and I have another, and our showcase will be on February 5,” Joe says.

The pair continue to foster community in the fringe arts oeuvre. When they don’t offer something, they refer to other instructors and schools. Joe says, “We are all leaning into that collaboration and support.

“One silver lining from the pandemic is that it did level the playing field, like by having no playing field. I think because it was so long, people came back with a ‘live together or die alone’ attitude, like, if we can’t live together, we’re all gonna die alone. So everyone came back with this truly collaborative spirit of being like, ‘Let’s make this happen!’”

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At the end of September 2020, I wrote a piece for the Reader titled “Black artistic leaders take charge at several Chicago theaters,” which framed the influx of new (and preexisting) Black leadership in Chicago theater against the backdrop of a historic disruption in the industry. That disruption was powered in part by COVID-19 leading to budget cuts and mass layoffs, and in part by intense public criticism of the shortcomings of many predominantly white theater institutions, with a call to action for faster and more concrete gains in racial equity in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement’s impact on the arts sector. 

Many, including myself, tentatively hoped that the tsunami of these external forces would lead to a watershed moment ushering in a golden era of transformative changes that would completely redefine the industry as we know it. 

The cynic in me, however, had doubts. 

The reality has landed somewhere in the middle. While ticket sales might not yet be back to pre-pandemic levels, theater is back in full swing for just about everyone except for the immunocompromised, who are left with the agonizing choice of participating at their own risk or not at all, as COVID precautions such as masking have become less frequent to nonexistent. On the other hand, some of the temporary accommodations for accessibility have led to completely reimagining what theater can look like, with those early humble Zoom performances opening the floodgates toward permanently blurring the line between screen and stage. The heartbreaking number of theaters that have closed temporarily or permanently due to insolvency or mismanagement has also energized discussions about the long-term efficacy of board leadership. 

On the racial equity front, the final tally has yet to be counted. And frankly, if success isn’t obvious, based on historical track records and the continued excellent reporting of my colleagues, I think it’s quite fair to make assumptions. 

My first instinct was to approach this recap through the lens of how many artists have been retained in their positions and how many have moved on, to capture a snapshot of the health of artistic institutions. 

And doubly frankly: it doesn’t matter.

For me, the endless spin cycle of hand-wringing about whether or not fundamentally inequitable organizations can or will change after yet another misstep, scandal, or blindingly white season is beginning to feel like a lens best left in the trash bin like a used KN95. 

“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

So much precious energy from so many talented artists has been wasted on so many recalcitrant and bullheaded organizations. So much ink has been spilled verbally prodding these stubborn oxen uphill. We know in our hearts that many simply will never budge. And that even the one obstinate step they are shamed into taking is just simply not worth the effort. At times, I as a writer have felt low, seemingly writing the same article over and over and over again, calling for a change that never seems to arrive.

I workshopped a few much more graceful ways to say this, but this feels the most authentic: People are fucking tired. I’m fucking tired. We need rest. 

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

When Jerrod Carmichael hosted the Golden Globes recently, his opening monologue was quiet, contemplative, and light on the jokes—a drastic tonal shift from the typical biting zingers of award shows past, leaving quite a few people puzzled. To me, his monologue of fact—simply stating “I’m here because I’m Black”—acknowledged the sham, the repetition, the predictability. He was exhausted.

During the pandemic the organization ArtEquity held a series called BIPOC Surviving Predominantly White Institutions geared toward supporting artists who found themselves exhausted from the neverending struggle for respect. This movement toward healing is not new. It’s been a plank of Black liberation for eternity, from spirituals to recent movements such as #BlackGirlMagic #BlackBoyJoy, Toi Derricotte’s poem “The Telly Cycle” (opening with the line “Joy is an act of resistance”), and Congo Square’s recent work of community healing, What to Send Up When It Goes Down.  

The pandemic forced us to rest. Now it is mandatory that we embrace rest and pull together to heal and care for one another.

In my opinion, the best metric of success for Black artists—and all artists, frankly—is that they continue to find joy, renewal, and creative satisfaction in whatever role they choose, whether that choice is to stay in their position or move on to a new position. My wish for every artist is to find roles that offer them a better-than-living wage, benefits, schedule flexibility, the space to use their authentic voices, collegial support, and careers that allow them to grow or that happily help to launch them toward bigger and brighter futures. 

My wish is that we all luxuriate in the strength of community. Real, nourishing, supportive community.

My original piece highlighted seven leaders: Sana Selemon, the executive director of BoHo Theatre; Kamille Dawkins, the interim artistic director of Strawdog Theatre; Regina Victor, the artistic director of Sideshow Theatre; Donterrio Johnson, the artistic director of PrideArts; Mikael Burke, associate artistic director at About Face Theatre; Anthony LeBlanc, the interim executive producer of The Second City; and Charlique C. Rolle, the executive director of Congo Square Theatre. In an addendum to the article after press, the article also added Arlicia McLain, the artistic director at Halcyon Theatre, and Myesha-Tiara, cofounder and artistic director of Perceptions Theatre.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to gather some updates of joy from a few of this talented cohort of leaders. I want to celebrate their successes with you. 

One exciting update comes from LeBlanc, formerly artistic director of The Second City, who is thriving in his new role. LeBlanc shares, “I am working for Nickelodeon doing talent development and on-set acting coaching. It is a joy to help be a small part of fostering a new generation of comedians. But it does not miss me that every time I come back to Chicago or talk with a BIPOC comedy director that still reaches out for advice . . . that there is still so much work to do to keep improving the community . . . My constant advice is to do what you can to help to leave the community better than you found it. And if we all keep doing that, it will be harder and harder to turn back time.”

Perceptions, which started producing during the pandemic shutdown, is still going strong and rapidly breaking new ground. I checked in with Myesha-Tiara, and she had quite a bit of great news to share. 

Myesha-Tiara reports: “Perceptions Theatre is in its fourth year as a theater company based on the south side of Chicago. This is their second year in person, as their first two years were completely virtual. They have been working hard to live up to their mission to strengthen the accessibility of theater to the African-American/Black communities of South Shore and to be an economic and artistic resource for BIPOC artists and succeeding in doing so.”

Myesha-Tiara notes that the company has received over $40,000 in grants, which enabled them to employ “over 30 actors, 15 directors, and 12 playwrights.”

In 2023 they plan to do even more. This spring they are coproducing with Prop Thtr to bring the rolling world premiere of the play Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation by India Nicole Burton, which focuses on the Black women in the Black Panther Party and will be directed by Myesha-Tiara, to the south side. Panther Women is part of the rolling world premiere program through the National New Play Network; other partner theaters are Cleveland Public Theatre in Ohio and Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis.This summer they will continue with their third annual BIPOC Play Fest that showcases playwrights of color, and will end the season with a workshopped staged reading of a piece yet to be announced that will go up in spring 2024. 

Myesha-Tiara shared a thoughtful and profound meditation for the future, saying, “This year I hope to live more in the present and enjoy each moment with my community instead of only focusing on what the future will bring.”

Over at the consistently excellent Congo Square Theatre, Rolle continues to shine as one of the hardest-working artists in the city. She shared a few impressive highlights of her work since we last spoke, which include being named in Newcity՚s Players 2022: The Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago (along with Congo Square artistic director Ericka Ratcliff); being elected as the newest (and second in its 25-year history) board president of the African American Arts Alliance of Chicago, a role that has been previously occupied by Black Ensemble Theater‘s founder Jackie Taylor; and being selected for the Chicago Urban League’s IMPACT Fellow Class of 2023. Currently Rolle serves as executive producer for Congo’s digital content, with the sketch series Hit ‘Em on the Blackside in season three and the audio series The Clinic in its second season. 

When asked what she might like to share with our readers, Rolle said, “I have been able to stabilize the organization to be in the best financial position it has seen in its entire existence. If there’s anything that I’ve learned, or rather that has been reinforced, amidst COVID, is that community is one of the greatest forms of currency that we have. I can say that I’ve done a lot and accomplished much on my own, but that wouldn’t be completely accurate. It’s the community that strengthens my bones and ignites my passion to continue to push boundaries, fight for equity, and ensure that our collective voices are heard.”

Some of the other artists featured, including Victor, Johnson, and Burke, have moved on from their positions toward new futures. Some, including Dawkins (now the permanent artistic director at Strawdog) and Selemon, remain. Regardless of how long or short their tenures were or will be, all of them remain threads in the tapestry that is Chicago theater and that should not mark the measure of anything more than the passage of time.

Burke’s words from two years ago on the limitations of longevity still ring true: “I don’t think there is one human being at the head of a cultural organization who can be as in touch with his community ten years later as he was when he first started.” 

Longevity of tenure is a crude and outdated measurement of success of an artistic organization, and for the artists themselves. After all, theater isn’t an institution. Theater is people. And even if every single institution crumbles, theater will still exist. Community will still exist. 

I extend my sincerest thanks to everyone in the theater community for sharing their art with me over the years. 

May every artist wander until they find the field of familiars where they can bloom. 

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It’s July 1990, and I am summoned to the corner of Newport and Sheffield over and over again by the lure of my friend Franz’s rooftop parties. But little do I know that just half a block away, Lower Links is beginning a summer of programming that solidifies that corner as a mini-epicenter of performance art in the city. 

Performance luminaries such as Lydia Lunch, Paula Killen, and Brigid Murphy (Milly’s Orchid Show) found a regular home in its friendly confines. At the same time, a tradition began to ferment upstairs at Link’s Hall of supporting small dance companies and indie choreographers that continues today in their space on Western Avenue.

Originally serving as a space for social dances and Daughters of the American Revolution meetings, the building on the corner of Newport and Sheffield housed the Chicago Women’s Health Center (CHWC) and the original Links Hall in the 1970s (the presenting organization dropped the apostrophe in the building’s name at some point). Once Links moved out, Under the Gun Theater took over the space for their original comedy shows. Building out the spare space as a small proscenium stage theater with cabaret seating, some bleacher seats, and a bar, the newly formed spot became host to a bevy of burlesque, belly dance, and variety shows in early 2019 after the Uptown Underground was abruptly shuttered.

Newport Theater956 W. Newport, 773-270-3440. Newport Theater Camp resumes 1/29 with eight-week classes running Wed-Sat. For information on classes and registration, or for performance schedules and reservations, visit newporttheater.com.

Enter Eva la Feva. “I’m a belly dancer and a burlesque performer. Many of us performed regularly at the Uptown Underground, which was a former burlesque drag variety space that’s now become the Baton Lounge.” 

La Feva also runs a popular regular burlesque and variety show at the California Clipper, the Clipper Cabaret. So, when Tight Five Productions looked for someone to take over programming and rebrand the space, la Feva felt like a natural fit. She was a trusted burlesque and cabaret community member and knew how to pull in an audience and promote. She opened the space to her community to bring in their own productions, and started coordinating fringe programming. After the COVID shutdown, she started the Newport Peek-Easy, a weekly burlesque/drag/variety show, to provide regular work to fringe performers. 

“We focus on what I call the fringe arts because currently, our programming has pole dancing, clowning, belly dance, burlesque, and Bollywood dance—things that might have a harder time finding a home within a traditional theater environment because they aren’t continuous runs of productions,” la Feva explains. “[We offer] more one-off or pop-up, cabaret-style productions versus the same single production for a number of weeks.”

She also stresses the importance of the space being very inclusive and open to a variety of productions and different performance communities. “We’ve been really fortunate to partner with Shimmy LaRoux from The Professional Adult on DEIJ issues,” la Feva says. “She was really helpful in helping us to develop our values statement and our commitment to inclusion. We provide discounted space for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ artists who are struggling with affording rent or need help with a first-time project. We try to make sure that we’re bringing in a variety of different voices and perspectives in terms of the productions. We ask our producers to abide by our safety and inclusion policies that we adapted from Burlesque Community Against Unsafe Spaces (BCAUS) and through the help from Shimmy. And we’ve just been reached out to by Chicago Therapy Collective to commit to their Hire Trans Now initiative.”

In addition to featuring a variety of voices, la Feva is committed to creating a more cooperative fringe arts scene and cross-pollinating disciplines and communities through her work at the Newport. All of this grew out of programming that began during the early lockdown period of 2020. “We actually built a virtual venue during the pandemic with this group called QueerCoded,” says la Feva. “Through use of an avatar, you can navigate a digital environment to video chat with other patrons and watch digital performances.”

Interior of the Newport Theater Courtesy Newport Theater

The Newport then invited performers in to create virtual content by launching Newport Studio, a multi-camera live-editing video recording service. La Feva says, “I’d be like, ‘OK, if you need to record, just come here and do it.’ And the thing that was so weird is that when people would come in, they would be like, ‘I forgot my shoes, how could I forget my shoes?’ And I would say, ‘You’re out of practice packing a gig bag and remembering those little things you don’t realize you need.’” 

This also helped build the Newport Theater Camp. When la Feva went looking for someone to collaborate with to help build out the fringe-arts curriculum for the camp, she turned again to her community and found multi-award-winning burlesque performer Bazuka Joe, who had a similar experience during the lockdown.

“It was so hard for everybody. And I can say without any exaggeration, every single performer got depressed, got inspired, uninspired, felt disconnected,” Joe says, adding, “I remember the first day that live performances were happening again, performers were crying because they were so emotional about getting back into the space and seeing their friends performing live and having that energy of an audience back again.”

He continues, “And there were still precautions—where we’re still wearing masks and the dressing areas were setups six feet apart and the air was thick with Lysol. But it was emotional coming back. One, because I think we didn’t realize how much we had missed it until we had it again. And in a reverse way, we didn’t realize how good we had things until we didn’t have it anymore. And I think that really hit home for a lot of people.”

And that was the origin story of the Newport Theater Camp. Says Joe, “We were really feeling that we were disconnected from our community. We had the time and the space to do something, but what that something was, we weren’t sure. And then we thought, ‘Hey, remember three years ago? When we were talking about this camp thing? Yeah, let’s do that!’

“So we thought, let’s bring our best friends who are also performers in, and who we know are good instructors, to do a few classes just to get back in the swing of things. It was as much for the participants as it was for us because we needed to feel connected again.”

But even then, la Feva and Joe knew that they didn’t want it to be just burlesque—so they added clowning first. And then belly dancing. And it grew from there. Today, the Newport Theater Camp offers year-round, eight-week courses and workshops on a variety of fringe disciplines such as sketch comedy, clowning, pole dance, and burlesque.

“The response has been overwhelming—we have sold out almost every class,” Joe notes. “Beyond just the business success, the responses that we had have been like, ‘Thank you SO MUCH for doing this.’”

Once people started taking basic and then intermediate classes, there was a demand for a stage performance series too. “We had a lot of people asking if we were even doing a solo act development series and we were like, ‘Oh, we have some time in between the winter and the spring sessions, so let’s do it,’” la Feva explains. 

“So we have two solo act classes running concurrently now. Eva has one group, and I have another, and our showcase will be on February 5,” Joe says.

The pair continue to foster community in the fringe arts oeuvre. When they don’t offer something, they refer to other instructors and schools. Joe says, “We are all leaning into that collaboration and support.

“One silver lining from the pandemic is that it did level the playing field, like by having no playing field. I think because it was so long, people came back with a ‘live together or die alone’ attitude, like, if we can’t live together, we’re all gonna die alone. So everyone came back with this truly collaborative spirit of being like, ‘Let’s make this happen!’”

Read More