Pitches for March
Sam Joyce
How’s it going at Dyett High School?
The first day of school at Walter H. Dyett High School for the Arts in September 2016 nearly didn’t happen. Dyett High School was slated to close at the end of the 2014–2015 school year, after three years of disinvestment as CPS phased it out. But amidst protests and a hunger strike by local parents and activists with the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett, CPS announced in fall 2015 that the school would reopen in 2016 as an arts-focused, open-enrollment neighborhood school. Today, the new Dyett is in its fourth year. Examine how the school’s doing now. What is the arts programming like? What do students think of it? How is its enrollment and academic performance?
Crucially, what is the community’s relationship to the school today? In agreeing to reopen Dyett, CPS rejected all the community proposals it had initially solicited in response to public pressure—including a different proposal for a high school for the arts. The hunger strikers had demanded a green technology school, and the Coalition saw the announcement as a refusal to work with the community. The hunger strike continued for two weeks past the reopening announcement before stopping amid health risks and a sense that the city would not bend further. Which of the Coalition’s other demands have been delivered on today? Are students coming primarily from within the school’s enrollment boundary, or outside it?
The writer should speak to people who participated in the hunger strike or other leaders in the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett (perhaps Jitu Brown or Jeanette Taylor), including then-students, as well as current parents, students, and staff. The recent history (also explored in Eve L. Ewing’s Ghosts in the Schoolyard) should be present in and inform the piece, and the coverage should look at Dyett as a site for art, too. Ideally, the piece will be a feature that takes both the art and education angles of the story seriously. (Olivia Stovicek, 02/10/20)
Perspective on South Side/North Side Theater Spaces
Though there are plenty of actors, directors, and designers who call the South Side home, as well as exciting performances on the South Side, support for theater in Chicago tends to focus on the North Side. Free Street Theater artistic director Coya Paz’s recent Reader op-ed highlighted and has invigorated a conversation around this issue (see the Free Street Theater pitch). How are those artists impacted by a North-Side-centric theater world? What challenges does that pose? What spaces do they enjoy, or work to build, on the South Side, and how do their experiences differ there? Find an actor to interview and discuss, in a way that explores barriers to access related to the North Side theater world while also acknowledging theater and performance on the South Side. I can connect a writer to two South Side actors who would likely be interested in speaking to this topic; if they both respond positively, interviewing them together, in dialogue, could be fruitful. (Olivia Stovicek, 2/10/20)
CineSpace: Latinx actors protested in front of Cinespace in Little Village (bordering North Lawndale) in 2019, after noticing filming activity in their neighborhoods, but no local hiring. Cinespace replied that there was not much they could do because they do casting and hiring in California. Also, Cinespace bought a parcel of land near the proposed Saint Anthony Hospital development site on 31st and Kedzie, and they are vying to buy more land, potentially disrupting the hospital’s plans to build a hospital complex in the following years. Recent Chicago Tribune reporting suggests that Cinespace might have gotten preferential treatment from former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. (Jackie Serrato)
Park development in Pullman
The National Park Service just awarded a $6 million contract to develop a visitors center in Pullman, which is expected to be completed by 2021. Restoration is ongoing on buildings throughout the neighborhood, but the completion of the visitors center is projected to be a spark that will eventually draw 300,000 visitors annually to the neighborhood. Talk to Teri Gage, the park’s new superintendent, as well as someone from Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, a private firm that has dumped tens of millions into developing a new Walmart, food hall, and sports facility in the neighborhood — when the tourists start coming, what will Pullman look like? (Sam J. 2/26/20)
The Double Parlor
Tamara and Steve Smith have turned the first floor of their three-flat in South Chicago into a space for literary and community events that they’re calling “The Double Parlor.” In 2019 they hosted about half a dozen events, such as a reading and book launch for Dave Ranney’s “Living and Dying on the Factory Floor.” Tamara works at the U of C, and also is involved with Charles H. Kerr publishing, a Chicago publisher of radical, socialist, and labor history.
Their building was previously home to the family of Arnold Mireles, a community activist who was murdered in 1997 by an aggrieved slumlord against whom Mireles had been organizing. When the Smiths moved in, they found Mireles’s papers, and have recently donated them to the Newberry Library. The Double Parlor is dedicated to Mireles’s memory. The writer should talk with Steve and Tamara, who can put them in touch with the Mireles family. The next event in the space -- a talk with Toussaint Losier, a UofC History PhD now at the University of Massachusetts whose research centers on grassroots responses to mass incarceration in Chicago -- is postponed; new date pending. scheduled for March 15. (Martha Bayne. 2/10/2020)
The National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen presents its annual Sor Juana Festival, a multidisciplinary art festival celebrating one of Mexico’s greatest writers, 17th century nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The festival runs from March 7-April 25. Maybe this could be split into a couple parts—a preview of this year’s festival, and then coverage of the actual events. Could also be split up between 2-3 writers. Spanish speakers preferred. (Sam S.)
Chicago Works: Deborah Stratman
This multimedia exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art is centered around Stratman’s 2016 documentary The Illinois Parables, which chronicles the history of the region—from its Native original inhabitants, through the invention of the nuclear reactor, to the police murder of Fred Hampton. Stratman created an extra part of the film specifically for the exhibit. There will be an artist talk with Stratman and the curator on 3/17, its opening day, which would be good for the writer to attend. (Sam S.)
For the last couple months, Whiner Beer at The Plant has been hosting a monthly food, beer, and music party called the Pop Up Get Down. Attend the next one, 3/19, talk to organizers, attendees, vendors, and let us know what its vibe is. (Sam S.)
Carnitas y Barbacoa Fest 2020
A short-n-sweet writeup of this McKinley Park festival, taking place 3/29, celebrating Mexican slow-cooked meats. Spanish speakers preferred. (Sam S.)
Packingtown Museum Opening Reception
Attend the March 28 opening reception of this new, Kickstarted project at The Plant in Back of the Yards, which seeks to tell and preserve the story of the area it’s in: the Union Stock Yards. Dominic Pacyga, author of Slaughterhouse, a history of the area, will speak, among others. Explore the history and plans for the museum, discuss the offerings with fellow attendees, etc. Potentially look at how this could complicate Alderman Patrick Daley Thompson’s plans for a union stockyards museum in the old Stock Yards Bank building, which he’s been floating for five years now. (Sam S.)
Cover the Chicago iteration of this traveling exhibit of Frida Kahlo’s rarely-seen photos, curated by photographer Pablo Ortíz Monasterio, who will speak at the National Museum of Mexican Art (the exhibit’s home) on 5/30. Attend that talk and/or the 4/3 opening reception, interview the organizers/curator, attendees, etc. as necessary and discuss Kahlo’s work and the circumstances of the exhibit. (Sam S.)
Makaya McCraven: We’re New Again
Chicago-based “beat scientist” McCraven, whose work with Bridgeport indie label International Anthem we’ve covered before, is releasing a new album, which is a reworking of Gil Scott-Heron’s I’m New Here!. Attend this live conversation and performance at the Logan Center for the Arts on May 3, potentially talk to McCraven yourself, and give us your takeaway of the album and his work. (Sam S.)