Chicago is continuing to boom as a center for film and television production. Last summer alone, some 15 productions added nearly $700 million to the city’s local economy. This was due to filmmakers, studios, and networks taking advantage of tax incentives making it cost-effective to shoot in the area. But with the uptick in productions, […]
Tag: Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events
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For Chicago Fire stylist Steykine Wills, the main job is about helping to build characters
Chicagoan Steykine Wills, a hair stylist who works full-time for the locally-produced television drama Chicago Fire, sees helping to create characters as a central part of her job. “Depending on if a character appears disheveled, for example, we have to make them appear that way,” Wills explained. “We have to read the script and make […]
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Nina Escobedo: Bringing a passion for costumes to Chicago’s TV and film industry
Nina Escobedo credits her grandmother for sparking the childhood interests that ultimately led to her becoming a professional costumer working in Chicago. “My grandmother taught me to sew at the age of four,” recalled Escobedo. “It started with buttons and embroidery. Once I had legs long enough to reach a sewing machine pedal, she taught […]
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Alex Diamond learns from Chicago P.D. work for filmmaking future
Assistant Director Alex Diamond jokes that his professional abbreviation, “A.D.,” should really stand for “Anxious Director.” “We always have to think of what could go wrong, and what could be an issue,” explained Diamond, a graduate of Columbia College and a veteran of several local independent productions. A resident of Chicago’s West Side, he is […]
Posted inGhost Light
Deb Clapp takes final bows at the League of Chicago Theatres
When I was first doing theater in Chicago back in the Pleistocene era (that is, the late 1980s), the League of Chicago Theatres (formed in 1979 as the Off Loop Producers Association) seemed most notable for running the Hot Tix discount ticket booth and offering co-op advertising rates to member theaters in publications like the […]
Posted inMusic
The Reader’s guide to Chicago in Tune
The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events originally planned to celebrate the Year of Chicago Music in 2020. Then the pandemic diminished those festivities to the point that the city declared 2021 the Year of Chicago Music too. The ongoing surge of the Delta variant means the U.S. won’t be rid of the pandemic […]
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How DCASE helped Chicago music survive the pandemic shutdown
When COVID-19 swept the country, music venues were among the first to shutter, throwing tens of thousands of live entertainment professionals out of work and sidelining artists who depend on touring income. The National Independent Venue Association formed in April 2020 and currently represents more than 3,000 performance halls, promoters, and festivals; it’s done much […]
Posted inMusic
Music workers’ jobs disappeared, but their bills didn’t
With federal aid to venues only now arriving, how are tour managers, stagehands, bookers, and their colleagues in the concert business making ends meet?
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Chicago’s September jazz festivals cope with COVID
The city is replacing the Chicago Jazz Festival with a slimmed-down online event, while the smaller, nimbler Hyde Park Jazz Festival plans to try pop-up in-person shows.
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Lightfoot hijacks Lollapalooza
Did Chicago musicians booked for Lollapalooza know their sets might look like an endorsement of Mayor Lightfoot?
Posted inMusic
The Chosen Few Picnic & Festival comes to everybody’s backyards
For its 30th anniversary, one of the world’s largest house-music parties has been pushed online by the pandemic—but it might reach even more people that way.
Posted inMusic
Open the Circle teaches footwork because footwork saves lives
Chicago nonprofit Open the Circle works to spread a local Black dance culture that can knit together youth communities.
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Plugging into Chicago’s forgotten house venues
A tour and oral history of the long-gone spaces that birthed one of the foundational sounds in modern pop
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The schedule for the 2019 Millennium Park Summer Music Series is here!
Its 11 shows can’t make up for all the series DCASE has killed, but booking Jupiter & Okwess, Chucho Valdes, Car Seat Headrest, Lydia Loveless, and Los Amigos Invisibles helps a lot.