Today In The Culture, June 20, 2023: Project to Transform Monuments | Best Pizza in Chicago Closing | Jackalope Cancels Show

Lorraine’s Diner, “Dirty Dishes—But Damn Good Food”/Photo: Ray Pride, 2011

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ART

Cleveland Museum Of Art Extends Director Contract Through 2027

“Trustees of the Cleveland Museum of Art want another three years of the stable, productive leadership that began in 2014 when they hired William Griswold as the ninth director in the museum’s history,” reports Cleveland.com.

DESIGN

Landmarked Pre-Fire Seth Warner Home In Austin Damaged By Fire

“One of Chicago’s oldest homes caught fire early Thursday,” reports Block Club. “The home was built by abolitionist Seth Warner in 1869 and designated last year as a Chicago landmark.” “While the full extent of the damage wasn’t immediately clear, the homeowners and local preservationists were hopeful of a full restoration,” reports the Trib.

Neighborhood Names Disappear

“Places like Bricktown, Pacific Junction, and Whiskey Point now only exist on internet maps,” reports Chicago magazine. “Bricktown? It doesn’t really ring a bell,” said Bruce Bailey Jr., a member of the family that owns The Good Old Days, an antique store on Belmont. “I might have seen it on a map once. It confused me. They used to call this Antique Row, because there were fifteen antique stores. They’ve torn down so many buildings, there are only five of us left. Now it’s considered Roscoe Village.”

Airbnb Doing Very Well In Chicago Area

“Chicago Airbnb hosts made thirty-two-percent more than the typical host in the U.S last year, according to company figures shared with Axios.”

DINING & DRINKING

John’s Pizzeria Closes June 30

“Long story short, we lost our lease,” posts John’s Pizzeria and Ristorante on Facebook. “We’ve loved serving up Chicagoland’s best pies since 1957 and hosting all your birthdays, graduations and celebrations over the decades. Stop by or order by June 30. We’d love to serve you one last pizza or other Italian specialty. We’ll also have half baked pizzas you can freeze for later or call a day in advance and we’ll have them ready and frozen the next day.” David Hammond’s 2018 Newcity appreciation of John’s is here: “As far as I can tell, this place has never been reviewed by any of Chicago’s major print publications. It has, however, been praised by many people online. Grubhub gives it the top rating of five stars based on almost 3,500 individual reviews. People like it; publications ignore it.” Their site celebrating “sixty years of authentic Chicago pizza” is here.

Eater Chicago Recollects Twenty Lost Chicago Diners

“Diners, no doubt, are vaults of nostalgia. And they’re harder to find around Chicago. There’s a variety of causes, but locals cling to memories of their favorite spots. For that reason, Eater Chicago is paying tribute to the fallen, assembling [twenty] of the city’s most cherished diners that have closed. This is not a comprehensive list, and recency, bias, and age [affect] the ones selected,” lists Eater Chicago. Among them: Big Top Restaurant, Lorraine’s Diner, Lincoln Restaurant, Jim’s Grill, Melrose Restaurant, Belmont Snack Shop, Salt & Pepper Diner and Belden Deli.

Scooping Sideshow Gelato

Among offerings since Sideshow Gelato opened on June 1, reports Jenna Smith at the Trib, “the Prince Randian is a house favorite, named for the longtime Coney Island performer born without arms or legs, who would dazzle the audience by rolling and lighting a cigarette. The sweet treat is prepared with alcohol-free bourbon essence and a tobacco-flavored herbal tea blend with candied orange peels. Another beloved offering named for magician and gelateria-investor Penn Jillette—of Penn & Teller fame—is made of dark chocolate with blueberry jam and lots of cayenne pepper…The Lincoln Square gelato shop is the brainchild of Chicagoan Jay Bliznick, who credits his inspiration with simply being ‘nuts.’ ‘Nobody in their right mind would come up with something like this.'”

Bliznick trained “with an Italian gelato master before finally taking the leap during the pandemic to explore the possibility of opening his own gelateria.” The entertainment is key, too. “Some people aren’t gonna want to see somebody put a power drill up their nose, or swallow a sword. That’s fine. It’s not for everybody.”

Supping Club Lucky

Why’s Club Lucky having its best two years since it opened? “‘Over the years, we’ve grasped onto this notion of people really being desirous of comfort, of the feeling of returning to a simpler time,’ executive general manager Thomas Kleiner says. ‘Keeping things the way we have for decades—the atmosphere, the food, the look, the hospitality—embraces that desire to hang onto something we feel was as beautiful, wonderful, and special as a night out in the 1950s or sixties,'” writes Maggie Hennessy at Resy. “Since Jim Higgins and Bobby Paladino opened Club Lucky in 1991… precious few things have changed: from the toothsome eight-finger cavatelli wrapped in tangy-sweet tomato sauce and gargantuan Killer Martinis to the space itself, accented in red, black, and green and oozing with forties supper club charm.”

FILM & TELEVISION

Regal Cinemas Emerges From Bankruptcy With New Leadership

Cineworld, the owner of Regal Cinemas’ 511 theaters and 6,853 screens in the United States, is emerging from bankruptcy, reports the Financial Times. CEO Mooky Greidinger and his brother Israel will receive almost $35 million to walk away after the group emerges from Chapter 11. “The group’s creditors are set to take control of the company when the almost yearlong bankruptcy process wraps up in July and are planning to install a fresh management team to oversee a turnaround as it struggles with a slow recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and a customer exodus to streaming platforms.” Regal’s Chicago screens are City North and Webster Place.

MEDIA

Wealthy Democrats Encouraged To Invest In Media Like Wealthy Republicans

“Progressive media activists, rattled by the collapse of a generation of youth-oriented digital news outlets like Vice and BuzzFeed News, are pushing wealthy Democrats to invest in for-profit media companies and social media influencers,” reports Semafor. “That’s the conclusion of an eighty-five-page report… prepared for a gathering of progressive leaders in Washington, D.C. last month. The report calls for diverting a share of the investment that’s going into exclusively cause-funded nonprofits towards sponsored content and into direct investment in hybrid and for-profit enterprises with large audiences. ‘Likewise, rather than continuing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on TV ads, we believe that there is more long-term value for nonprofit investor —ranging from civic media focused philanthropies to mission-driven SuperPAC investors—in diverting a share of that investment into sponsoring topical reporting in a for-profit, or simply in buying some of the stations on which they are now advertising.” The report is here.

VICE Bought Out Of Bankruptcy For $300 Million

“Bankrupt media outlet Vice Media has found a bidder for its business that wants to chart a new course for the beleaguered company outside chapter 11 bankruptcy,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Vice, once valued at $5.7 billion, is planning to sell itself out of bankruptcy. A little-known Los Angeles-based company that wants to buy it has a quixotic culture that would be incomparable to those early days of Vice… GoDigital Media Group is a privately held conglomerate that owns video and music rights, especially in the Latin genre… The company has such a low profile, it currently doesn’t have a physical headquarters after shutting down its Los Angeles office during the pandemic,” adds CNBC.

“Our goal is to create emotions of joy and happiness in our customers and our employees,” the company says. “What differentiates us is our long-term perspective. The goal of the infinite game is simply continuity of play to make sure the game goes on. And when you live and work in that kind of a paradigm, you’re living and working in a compound interest paradigm.”

Southern California NPR Fires Ten-Percent Of Staff

Reliant on advertising revenue from movie studios, “SCPR, which operates the LAist website and LAist radio station (the NPR affiliate formerly called KPCC) as well as a podcasting studio, will eliminate twenty-one of its 175 staff positions due to a revenue shortfall attributed mainly to a cutback in advertising by Hollywood studios” during the ongoing writers strike, reports the Los Angeles Times (via Yahoo). “The move was intended as a step toward creating ‘a sustainable business model for an increasingly digital future.'”

MUSIC

Profiling Muti’s Ongoing Exit

“Since his successor has not yet been named, Muti will be continuing as a kind of shadow music director next season, and possibly longer,” writes Zachary Woolfe at the New York Times. Leaving—yet not entirely leaving—on a high note, with the “adoration of Chicago’s musicians and audiences, he has been sensitive that his farewell will seem like a grand anticlimax when he returns, just three months from now, for the fall opening concerts and a trip to Carnegie Hall. “‘He’s here again,’ they will say. ‘He’s back!’ It’s too much.”

“His departure is about more than inevitable turnover at an important ensemble, said Pierre Audi, the stage director and impresario. It’s a milestone as the generation of leaders born before the end of World War II passes—and, with it, the old-school conception of the commanding, protecting maestro. ‘Muti will leave Chicago, and that’s it,’ Audi said. ‘It’s the beginning of the end.'” Dennis Polkow’s overview for Newcity is here.

Record Label No Sé Discos Knows

Reports WTTW 11, “Brighton Park residents Jorge Ledezma and Lupe Martinez created the record label No Sé Discos in 2021. “No sé means ‘I don’t know’ and that came from working in retail,” Ledezma said. “Most of us have a background in retail.” They “describe their music as sounds from the working class… While the label is relatively new, their band, Allá, has been making music for the past twenty years… The goal is to create an outlet for artists to explore without the pressures of the music industry.” Said Ledezma, “The music we make is a direct reflection of what’s happening in our city, in our neighborhood, in our schools.”

Hearing White House On “Junk Fees,” Live Nation Says It’s Going To Straighten Out Ticket Practices

“Under pressure from the Biden administration, some of the biggest companies that handle ticketing for concerts and other live events announced on Thursday that they will make it easier for consumers to see the full price of tickets they want to buy, including the fees that can often add more than thirty percent to the total cost,” reports the New York Times. “Live Nation, the world’s largest concert company, said it would begin introducing ‘all-in pricing’— showing consumers the full price up front—at the venues it controls, which include more than 200 amphitheaters, clubs and other spaces in the United States. Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation, said it would make this tool available to other venues and promoters as well. Those changes are expected beginning in September.”

The White House is not letting up, adds the Times. “President Biden will host executives from several companies, including Airbnb and Live Nation, to announce new efforts to end so-called junk fees as inflation remains high… He has asked several federal regulators, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Transportation Department, to increase oversight of the opaque fees… Most Americans support limits on bank fees, while economists are increasingly accepting the idea of ‘greedflation,’ where price gouging by companies pushes up inflation.” But the “Chamber of Commerce accuses the White House of pushing for ‘price controls’ as it tries cracking down on junk fees.”

STAGE

Jackalope Theatre Cancels World-Premiere “Pretty Shahid”

Jackalope Theatre Company has canceled the world premiere production of “Pretty Shahid,” which was scheduled for June 16-July 23, written by company member Omer Abbas Salem and directed by Sophiyaa Nayar. Ticketholders will be contacted with refund options. “’Pretty Shahid’ experienced multiple issues with production that brought it to a halt. Although we have been assured that our summer programming will not be affected at the Broadway Armory, Jackalope has made the difficult decision to cancel the show,” Jackalope’s leadership writes in a release. “Assured by the strength of our relationship as a longterm partner at the Armory, Jackalope is working with the Chicago Park District and the city of Chicago to explore our options moving forward for the company.”

The romantic comedy “Pretty Shahid” tells the story of the Kazem family who immigrated to Chicago from Iraq and are attempting to assimilate and live when 9/11 happens. “The City of Chicago is eyeing one of the Chicago Park District’s biggest active facilities as a possible shelter space for migrants,” CBS 2 reported on June 6. “The Broadway Armory Park has been used as an emergency homeless shelter during the pandemic.”

Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum Shut Down

When Center Theatre Group announced “that it was indefinitely pausing shows at the Mark Taper Forum—the creative beating heart of one of the country’s largest regional companies—a sense of deep sadness and acute anxiety resonated with theater leaders across the country,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “Center Theatre Group might be calling this a ‘pause’… but that word is a euphemism for a closure—what the entire theater ecosystem had to endure when the COVID shutdowns hit in March 2020. The hard lesson learned—during closures that in some cases lasted close to two years—is that audiences won’t quickly return in nearly the numbers needed to make budgets.”

Some believe the season subscription model is outmoded. “Center Theatre Group’s budget gap is $12 million to $13 million, Pressman said. The company’s annual operating budget varies between $55 million and $70 million, depending on the season. Corporate contributions and individual donations—which constitute twenty-to-thirty-percent of the budget—are down about one-fifth compared with pre-pandemic giving. Ticket sales, which account for nearly seventy-percent of the budget, are only about seventy-percent of what they were in 2019 across all three of CTG’s stages.” CTG’s official statement is here: “We have to take the extraordinary step of pausing a significant portion of CTG programming beginning this summer and continuing through the 2023-24 Season, as well as taking significant restructuring measures to build a vibrant and sustainable organization that can navigate this new paradigm.”

A report, “Center Stage: The Role of Live Performing Arts in Revitalizing California Communities,” says that “the state’s performing arts sector lost a decade’s worth of job growth within a two-year period, with 2021 employment dropping to 2010 levels. More than 59,000 jobs evaporated during the pandemic.”

Bay Area Transit Cash Crash Could Crush Regional Theater

“Over a third of the audience of the major theater companies uses mass transit” in the Bay Area, reports the San Francisco Chronicle (via MSN), “as do half the artists and staff; the percentage is likely higher for smaller companies. If the severe cuts BART and Muni are warning of go through, theater there will be hobbled. ”

Cleveland Play House Seeks Artistic Director

Cleveland Play House “is seeking an energizing and constructive artistic director–only the tenth in its 108-year history–to help co-lead the organization into an invigorating next chapter that builds adventurous creativity from a place of openness, learning, financial stability, and community involvement.” More here.

ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.

Mellon Monuments Project Announced; Chicago Recipients Through DCASE

The Mellon Foundation has announced its latest round of grantmaking through The Monuments Project, with grants totaling $25 million that will be awarded directly to municipalities this summer. “The Monuments Project aims to transform the nation’s commemorative landscape through public projects that more completely and accurately represent the multiplicity and complexity of American stories,” the foundation writes. The Mellon Foundation has committed $250 million to the project by 2025; these grants bring the project’s total grants to $151.9 million.

The City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events will receive funding to support nine projects identified through a call from Chicago Monuments Project, spanning the creation of new commemorative sites, additional work alongside existing monuments and community engagement initiatives. More on the Monuments Project here. “Chicago’s monuments and memorials are more than just public art—they speak directly to the values, history, and vision of our great city,” Mayor Johnson says in a release. “I’m grateful for the Mellon Foundation’s support of the Chicago Monuments Project and the creation of cultural works around labor, civil rights, racial justice and other areas that represent our diversity, honor our history and tell our story.”

Eight projects are receiving $6.8 million, including the Chicago Torture Justice Memorial, artist Patricia Nguyen and architectural designer John Lee; George Washington Monument Intervention, a public art project by Chicago artist Amanda Williams; A Long Walk Home (ALWH), “#SayHerName: The Rekia Boyd Monument Project”; Mother Jones, in partnership with the Mother Jones Heritage Project (MJHP), a commission to honor Mother Jones’ important contributions to labor history; Mahalia Jackson monument by artist Gerald Griffin, spearheaded by the Greater Chatham Initiative (GCI); Pilsen Latina Histories, lead artist Diana Solis, scholars from the University of Illinois, Pilsen Arts & Community House staff, and additional artists and community groups in Pilsen; Chicago Race Riots of 1919 Commemoration Project, designed and produced in partnership with youth artists at Firebird Community Arts’ Project FIRE; Early Chicago, monuments that explore the settling of Chicago, including those to Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable and Kitihawa, and  projects which amplify Native American stories.”

Workers At Museum Of Science And Industry Choose Union

“Workers at the Museum of Science and Industry have voted to unionize, continuing a string of victories in the Chicago area by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees,” reports the Sun-Times. “The staff members will join AFSCME’s Council 31, which over the last eighteen months has won the right to represent employees at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Field Museum and other cultural institutions.” The total of represented employees will be about 140, reports the Trib.

American, United Pilots Warn Of Danger Of U. S. Raising Retirement Age To Sixty-Seven

Tribune Platforms Failed Mayoral Candidate Vallas’ Attack On Chicago Teachers Union

“The city won’t address crime as long as CTU stands in the way of making education about children,” the Tribune headlines a Paul Vallas-signed campaign-style attack several weeks after his loss to Brandon Johnson as mayor. “CPS consumes almost five times what is spent on the Chicago Police Department,” Vallas sloganeers, advancing rhetoric similar to that of his failed campaign.

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