Gretchen Kalwinski

Features article about street artists: “Concrete canvas”
Features article; a street art tour: “Going, going, gone”
Features article; gang signs vs. street art: “Writing on the wall.”

“The artists installing this “guerilla” art (mostly in the warmer months and the dark of night) call themselves street artists and often hide their identities from cops by using nicknames. But don’t confuse their work with gang graffiti or tagging: It’s illegal, but there’s an altruistic mission to their madness. [for full article, click here.]” July 24, 2008. Issue #178.

Once Upon a Time (or the Secret Language of Birds)

Joe Meno injects Redmoon’s aesthetic with his particular brand of unsentimental yet pathos-laden humor.

Tuesday Feb 13, 2007
by Gretchen Kalwinski

Redmoon Theater is known for its outlandish productions that employ puppets, carnival aesthetics, gymnastics and whimsical, otherworldly sets and costumers. But sometimes their performances can suffer from a lack of narrative arc—the fantastical, beautiful scenes are entertaining in their own right, but aren’t always held together by a strong plot.

But for “Once Upon A Time,” Redmoon hired a writer to piece together parts of their concept and form a cohesive script. Enter Joe Meno, acclaimed Chicago novelist and playwright, who also has a penchant for the whimsical. Meno promptly injected Redmoon’s aesthetic with his particular brand of unsentimental yet pathos-laden humor, creating a modern fairy tale about Emily, a lonely and lost girl living in a tenement in the 1920s. After realizing she can speak to and understand the chirping of birds, her loneliness is eased.

The engaging plot that follows revolves around the theft of “all the world’s birds” and the corresponding loss of human dreams. With some clues to guide them as to the whereabouts of the stolen birds, Emily and her friend Bruno (a retired wrestler and giant) embark on a dangerous quest to retrieve them.

The lovely and unusual set is comprised of a small puppet theater at center stage and a large screen above, which the puppet action gets projected onto. Narrator Lindsey Noel Whiting does double-duty providing voices for all the characters, while the puppets—made up of entertaining, disproportionate photos—are maneuvered by puppeteers via sticks. All this is set against local musician Kevin Donnell’s haunting atmospheric music.

The puppet theater itself is an intricate masterpiece, which the audience crowded around when the play ended. Aside from the illustrations and little mini-sets built into it, the theater also employs a clever, wheel-driven mechanism (designed by jack-of-all trade artist Erik Newman) for moving panels of scenery back and forth on hemp-string. Others members of the stellar artistic team include director Frank Maugeri, Kass Copeland (puppet theater design), Seth Bockley (assistant director), Tracy Otwell (toy theater design), Angela Tillges (art director) and Jim Lasko (Redmoon founder).

The ticket price is a bit steep: $30 for adults and $15 for tots. But the haunting mood that Redmoon creates with its visual dynamism, along with the warm humanity of the tale, makes it a perfect wintertime family outing that’s well worth the cost of admission.

“Once Upon a Time (or the Secret Language of Birds)” runs through April 8 at Redmoon Central, 1463 W. Hubbard Street, Chicago. Shows 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Sunday; 3 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, $15-30; call (312) 850-8440.

Centerstagechicago.com; Theater Review

A Very Chicago Christmas

Attending the Goodman Theater’s annual production of “A Christmas Carol.”

Monday Dec 04, 2006 by Gretchen Kalwinski

Pictured in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol adapted by Tom Creamer directed by William Brown are (l to r) Martin Yurek (Ghost of Jacob Marley) and Jonathan Weir (Ebenezer Scrooge).

photo: Michael Brosilow

I’ll admit it: I’m one of those holiday-nerds who cues up my iTunes holiday playlist the day after Thanksgiving. Even so, I haven’t attended the Goodman Theatre’s long-running annual production of “A Christmas Carol” since I was a kid, carted in from Northwest Indiana on a class field trip. The reason is twofold: One, the crowds, and Two, the germy half-pints who tend to make up a large portion of the audience.

This year I decided to throw caution to the wind and see the Dickens classic on the weekend following Thanksgiving with my mom. We had some extra time before the show and could have checked out the Macy’s Christmas windows kitty-corner from the theater (and with a Mary Poppins theme), but as Marshall Fields die-hards we turned up our noses at the opportunity and passed them by with nary a second glance.

Instead, we walked to Dearborn and Washington to take in the Chriskindlmarket (an outdoor holiday bazaar sponsored by the German American Chamber of Commerce of the Midwest) at the Daley Center. Chriskindlmarket usually runs during the month before Christmas and shows off a big, lighted tree, craft and gift booths, and even Santa Claus.

Some of the crafts embrace the cheeze-factor, but there are also a good amount of delicate hand-carved and glass-blown ornaments, pretty lace tablecloths and artfully clever puppets and toys—and foodstuffs; among other delectable offerings were brats with kraut, apple cider, almond-apricot strudel and sweet-cheese fritters.

Satiated, we made our way to the Goodman, listened to the carolers in the lobby, and took our seats. A fun fact: “A Christmas Carol” has been running since 1978 but the company changes it up a little every year to keep things fresh. I found that the timeless play was even better than what I remembered as a kid: The authentic sets were spot-on, the flying and ghostly effects were clever, and Scrooge was a deliciously cranky (and funny) curmudgeon, backed up with a talented and believable cast.

Years of honing the production means that the look of the sets is authentically Dickensian and are neither amateurish or overdone. They even managed to find a Tiny Tim who was legitimately cute instead of cloying.

More than that, the whole experience felt communal in a really good way, and the layout and intimate size of the Goodman lends themselves to that vibe. Though I’d originally balked at the idea of hoards of kiddies, I didn’t mind the ones I ran into; it was refreshing to attend this well-worn production with a gaggle of tots who were probably seeing their first play ever and it lent some extra jubilation to the event. The lessons in A Christmas Carol may seem to be “true meaning of Christmas” cliches, but hey, some tales bear repeating, and the morals are well-worn ones that aren’t bad to be reminded of now and then, right?

After the production, we tried to go to Petterino’s, the legendary bar and restaurant attached to the theater, but it was too busy, so we opted for the Atwood Cafe around the corner in the Hotel Burnam instead, and sipped on an overpriced spiked cider and Manhattan, watching the State Street passerby.

And that soft fuzzy buzz you feel? That’s how you truly know that the holidaze have arrived.

Guidebook rating: It goes without saying that all holiday-nerds should attend the production at least once to kick-start their holiday season. But even if you’re not a holiday nerd, and are made to attend in order to appease family members or out-of-towners, you’re going to have a blast. Make the most of being downtown by checking out the Macy’s windows and sucking down a cold-weather drink at Petterino’s or Atwood Cafe.

Stats: A Christmas Carol runs two hours and five minutes including one 15-minute intermission. It generally runs the Sunday after Thanksgiving through Dec. 20.

Let’s just say I didn’t really prefer this play. More at the Centerstage review of Pantomime.

“This two-man play follows Harry Trewe (a British hotel owner in Tobago), his black employee Jackson Phillip, and the tale of what happens when Harry proposes that they put on a play satirizing the Robinson Crusoe story to entertain the hotel guests…..”

Stop Smiling Magazine

Issue #27
September 2006
The Third Coast

By: Gretchen Kalwinski

The Third Coast International Audio Festival (TCIAF) began in 2000 as a Chicago Public Radio project with the goal of celebrating the “best feature and documentary audio work heard worldwide on the radio and Internet.” TCIAF has myriad components including an annual conference and competition, and a website that archives Re: sound, a weekly radio program. TCIAF produced the cd that accompanies the Midwest issue, and here’s what executive director Johanna Zorn had to say about the Midwest tie-in.

How did you choose the pieces for the cd?
We wanted to offer a variety of examples, so we picked some favorites that demonstrate the versatility of the radio form. There are four tracks, and three of them were made by producers from Illinois or Michigan. The stories are all over the place! There’s a first-person narrative by a young gay boy trying to find his way in the world, and a documentary about a town in Arkansas that’s forever changed by the appearance of a bird. The topics are very different, but what they all have in common is that sound plays an essential role in each story.

Who were some of the producers and artists?
Some may surprise you–for instance, writer Rick Moody and musician Sujfan Stevens. Artists from other mediums have a growing interest in using audio to tell stories and make art; we’re witnessing a renaissance in using radio as a storytelling medium. Now, the tools for audio production are relatively low-cost; anyone can podcast through the Internet, and there are more radio programs out there inspiring folks who never took a journalism class to pick up some equipment and get busy.

Why did you choose the name “Third Coast Festival”?
While other cities may stake their claim to the third coast, we felt the title was especially fitting for a festival rooted in the heart of America’s Midwest and headquartered on Navy Pier in Chicago, right where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan. So the third coast is literal, another name for our prime location, but since we’re an international festival, we also hope it evokes coasts throughout the world. —GK

Time Out Chicago / Issue 73: July 20–27, 2006

The tell-tale art

The annual SKALD competition brings the art of storytelling out of the dark ages and onto the stage.

By: Gretchen Kalwinski

Photograph by Calbee Booth

Back in the days of Vikings, skald was a term for someone who told stories and performed poetry in exchange for jewels, cash and other booty. Evidently, human nature hasn’t changed much in the past few centuries: The annual SKALD storytelling competition, which offers such modern treasures as a $150 gift certificate from Borders and $250 in cash, has grown so popular that even the City of Chicago wants to get in on the action.

SKALD was born out of a 1999 WNEP Theater (a theater and comedy troupe) audition in which an actor told a two-minute story instead of performing the usual monologue or scene, WNEP’s founding director Don Hall recounts. These auditions were so entertaining, and company members were so eager to do it again, that storytelling quickly became its own show, SKALD. “In fact, most wanted to do it once a month,” Hall says. “I knew then that the concept had legs and decided to make it an annual thing.”

In past years, stories performed ranged from the irreverent—like the one about a man who gets a desk coffeemaker and becomes the office stud—to the creepy, like “a school janitor who used a classroom doll to…pleasure himself,” recalls SKALD competitor Rebecca Langguth. “It sounds darkly funny, but was heartbreaking.” Hall’s favorite story was performed by Jonathan Pitts about Pitts’s father David (an Ice Capades performer who skated with a chimpanzee named Spanky), and the duo’s encounter with a serial killer. “It was a true story, and Pitts showed the audience a blowup of the 1960s newspaper article at the end of his tale,” Hall says.

At this year’s SKALD, Hall hopes WNEP’s new partnership with the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs will lead to its biggest turnout yet. The city sponsorship means SKALD’s program is greatly expanded from last year, so this event includes more than the big storytelling competition on July 29. There’s also the MAELSTROM contest on July 28 (see sidebar), in which competitors are given ten seconds to create a three-minute story based on audience prompts. Young’uns will hear some tales at KIDSKALD, and a panel composed of storytelling experts such as Leah Guenther, executive director of Dave Eggers’s 826CHI writing program, and Greg Allen, the founding director of the Neo-Futurists. In addition, Hall will lead free workshops for adults while WNEP member Jessica Rogers teaches kids on Monday 24 and Tuesday 25.

In past years, competitors were admitted on a first-come, first-served basis, but this year’s high demand forced Hall to hold auditions. “We whittled it down to the best 16—six for MAELSTROM and ten for the [main] SKALD competition,” he says. SKALD contestants have six weeks to prepare their story, and Langguth says she plans to use every moment until then. “Last time I participated [in 2001], I practiced with an egg timer,” she says.

She also almost passed out from nerves. “I can still remember pulling the host aside and telling him that I didn’t think I could go on,” Langguth says. “Five years later, you’d think I’d have some kind of calm, but just thinking about it makes me nauseous. Maybe that’s what makes it such a wonder of a thing. Folks standing up and sharing something of themselves. It’s very intimate, in a way.” SKALD is about sharing stories, but it also involves competition. Yet Langguth’s got nothing but love for other participants: “Every year, there are new stories that break your heart or make you bust a gut. Last year, [eventual winner] Brad Norman told a fantastic story about a man who likes to bake. He made the most delicious chocolate-and-peanut-butter cake, and shared it with the audience afterwards.”

When asked about how she plans to demolish these other talented competitors, Langguth says, “It’s not about annihilation. I really want everyone to tell the best story, if only for my own entertainment.”

But then she quickly adds, “Don’t get me wrong—I want to win! Badly!” Just goes to show that things haven’t changed that much in the past few centuries: People still rally when booty is involved.

SKALD’s story time runs from Monday 24 to July 29. For more details, visit www.wneptheater.org/_html/skald7.html.

Stories on the spot

How good are this year’s MAELSTROM contenders? We gave four of them an idea and 10 seconds to improvise the beginning of a tale for us.

Competitor: Scot Goodhart Suggestion: “Cigarettes on the beach” Chrissie goes to the beach to “get fucked up.” The idea was that she and James would fill a Styrofoam cooler with Natural Light Ice and Marlboro Mediums, then take the 78 to the beach. They’ve been together for two months; he just moved in with Chrissie and her daughter Kaytlyn, who’s not his. The first thing I heard Chrissie say was, “It’s God’s fucking ashtray is why!” just before she swung at the guy confronting her about where she was depositing her butts. The last thing I heard her say as she was placed in the patrol car was, “I just wanted to get fucked up.”

Competitor: Mike Rosolio Suggestion: “Antlers” There are a few circumstances that no one, no matter how battle-hardened and worldwise, can be totally prepared to deal with. One of these is waking up in a foreign country. The world makes so much sense when you’re stationed in a log cabin–themed hotel in Seattle, and the clarity and comfort found there enhance the stark contrast of stepping off of a train car, blurry eyed from sleep deprivation and $2 mojitos, expecting to see the San Francisco Bay and finding instead the cruel beauty of British Columbia. While there wasn’t actually any danger of being detained against my will, and I was able to find a ticket back to the Golden State within a few hours, the point is instantly made that the future, no matter how scheduled it seems to be, is impossible to know, and that it might be among the wishes of fate to deliver you to the land of socialized medicine.

Competitor: Michael Brownlee Suggestion: “Breakneck” Samantha’s aching lungs fought to pull in enough oxygen to keep up with her pumping legs. “Faster. I need to go faster.” The footsteps behind her were closing in quick. She lowered her head and pushed herself harder. She could hear the panting breaths of her pursuer. She arched her back and lunged for safety. It was too late. She felt the hot hand on her back and cringed as she heard those awful, breathless words: “Tag. You’re it.”

Competitor: Cholley Kuhaneck Suggestion: “The postman rings twice” I don’t like getting mail. This offends my mail carrier. He tried marking all my mail return to sender. I was happy to see it go. He stuffed anything that was not addressed to anyone in particular in my mailbox. It backfired on him. He now had to move beyond Newtonian physics to make everything fit. Finally, he put my mail in everyone else’s mailboxes. All night my neighbors came by with pieces of mail for me. I put a note in my mailbox. “I promise I’ll get my mail weekly.” He left a note, “Write it a hundred times.”—Gretchen Kalwinski

Venue review published in March 2006, Centerstagechicago.com

Corbett vs. Dempsey
(Art Gallery)
1120 N. Ashland Ave., Chicago
Tel: (773) 278-1664

Corbett vs. Dempsey focuses on a niche that has somehow gone virtually untapped by other galleries: Chicago artists. Emphasizing Chicago painting and works on paper from 1940-1970, the gallery has a specific interest in “great regional art, and art that maybe hasn’t had its day.” The quiet subplot of each CvD show is that Chicago is and has been a major city for world class art, and the success of CvD’s exhibitions back up this conviction. Since owners John Corbett and Jim Dempsey enjoy scavenging and storytelling, the exhibitions often emphasize the artist’s back story. For example, Corbett and Dempsey once traveled to a warehouse in Florida to track down a lead on WPA artist Eve Garrison. This trip led to the discovery of a huge body of Garrison’s work and a successful CvD show, and the detective work involved in tracking down the paintings became an integral part of the way that Garrison’s work was explained to gallery visitors. It has also exhibited the work of Chicago Imagist Philip Hanson, the paintings of Robert Amft and the feminist nudes and figures of Linda Kramer.

Longtime friends and collaborators who initially collaborated on a Sun Ra project, Corbett and Dempsey have different and complementary curatorial styles at openings. Corbett springs around like an energetic cat, making introductions and talking excitedly about the work, while Dempsey’s quiet friendliness put everyone at ease. The airy gallery space above Dusty Groove records affords an expansive view of Wicker Park’s East Village, and is smattered with varied architectural salvages and art finds, further evidence of the gallery’s emphasis in uncovering overlooked artifacts.

Reviewed By: Gretchen Kalwinski

Published on VenusZine.com, September 2005

‘Walk the Line’ review
A big-mouthed woman and her long-legged, guitar-pickin’ man

By: Gretchen Kalwinski

Writer Richard Rodriguez poses the theory that love is an “active agent within history,” and that the history of the world is actually the history of people blending together and resolving differences in the name of love. Similarly, Walk the Line is not a music film, or even a biopic, but instead a film that tells the story of Johnny Cash’s life through the lens of love.

The first half of the film is made up of Cash’s childhood and simple country boy-beginnings, his first pangs of the music bug and gospel roots, and marriage to wife Vivian Liberto Distin, mother to four of Cash’s five children. But make no mistake about it, his meeting and decade-long flirtation with June Carter of country music royalty the Carter Family is the real focus here.

The latter half focuses on Cash’s drug habit and eventual redemption. This is a tale of boy meets girl (while boy and girl are married), boy becomes famous (and simultaneously pursues girl while also developing a nasty drug habit), and eventually the love of girl helps boy turn his life around. A diner scene the night that Cash and Carter first meet is a subtly acted and well-written conversation between 2 people that would continue to be intrigued and delighted by one another through 35 years of marriage.

Directed by James Mangold and based on Cash’s autobiographies Man in Black and Cash: The Autobiography, much of the film takes place while on tour, where Cash and Carter’s forbidden attraction played out alongside such luminaries as Jerry Lee Lewis, Waylon Jennings, and Roy Orbison. Joaquin Phoenix plays a wry, tortured, and passionately quiet Cash, complete with haggard facial lines that remarkably resemble Cash’s own. Reese Witherspoon’s Carter is a spunky showboat with a chirpy vulnerability that is appealing and true. The film makes the assumption that the audience already understands Cash’s legacy, and is light on the music-making or creative details of Johnny or June’s music, other than one scene showing Cash writing songs while in military service, and a scene depicting a pensive Carter composing “Ring of Fire” on her autoharp.

The film nicely encapsulates the strange glory of the moment in musical history in which this love story takes place, when blues, country, gospel, and rocknroll were feeding off of each other and melding as if by osmosis. And, during the requisite detox portion of the film, June is shown by Johnny’s bedside while Mother Maybelle Carter, grande dame of the Grand Ole Opry, stands at the outskirts of Cash’s property with a shotgun to ward off his mustached drug dealer.

In one scene, the tour car is heading from one venue to another and Carter is sitting in the backseat, complaining about the boyish antics of her cohorts. When the car finally pulls into their motel, Carter twangs, “Somebody get me out of this car with all these boys!” Her humble traveling companions at the time are none other than Jerry Lee Lewis, Cash, and Elvis Presley. Later in the film, Carter is more cynical about the habits and vices of the “boys” and we see her transform from a comic, girlish figure to a tough, understanding woman who will put up with little guff from Cash or anyone. The growth that takes place in the film is as much about her as it is about Cash. During their 35 year marriage, he’d credit her (loudly and often) with saving his life, and died four months after her passing. From the point that the two met, their life stories became invariably intertwined, and there is no way to separate the trajectory his life took from hers, to credit one with success without crediting the other. Devotion between a big mouthed woman and a long-legged guitar pickin’ man, and a true American love story indeed.

Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Published on Centerstagechicago.com, August 2005

Monique Meloche Gallery

Since 2000, moniquemeloche gallery has been showcasing controversial and cutting-edge artists working in a variety of media. The gallery has had three locations thus far: the first was Meloche’s home in Chicago, then a large West Loop location from 2001 to 2004, and in September of 2004, the doors were opened to the current location on Peoria. The former director of the Vedanta Gallery in Chicago, Meloche is known for her risk-taking curatorial style, and the stated mission of moniquemeloche is to “show challenging work both in Chicago and to a global audience.”

In keeping with this idea, the gallery participates consistently in national and international art fairs that include Art Miami 2001, San Francisco International Art Expo 2002, LISTE 03 Basel and Art Chicago International Invitational. The artwork has a strong emphasis on the conceptual, with work focusing on themes ranging from home and domesticity to race, politics and gender. Featured artists have included Dzine, Cindy Loehr, Laura Letinsky, Scott Stack and Carla Arocha. A single show may incorporate an installation work, video projection, and, as with the current Rashid Johnson show, an embroidered jersey stating “white people love me,” a hip-hop video installation and an opaque print of a hand giving the finger to the viewer, all at the same time.

The artwork is not always accessible (or, one imagines, terribly saleable), but that is quite the point. The well-lit space has high ceilings and windows, along with custom storage built by artists Rob Davis and Gabert Farrar. The front portion is used for installations and hanging art, while the back contains more wall space and a small alcove used for projections and video art. Its location is in the vicinity of other avant-garde galleries like Bucket Rider, Peter Miller and Rhona Hoffman, convenient for your Friday night art-walk.

Reviewed By: Gretchen Kalwinski