2019 Annual Report

What a way to turn 30! Our 2019 season, themed Power, was one of the most impressive in the Festival’s history, and you made it all possible. From our most successful Benefit— raising $1.15M in support of the programs you love—to our largest program ever (Rachel Maddow at Arie Crown Theater with over 3,700 in attendance), you made the start of our third decade memorable.

It truly was a year that celebrated the best of the Festival’s past, present, and future. Power examined the complex dynamics and operations of the concept in a wide array of real-life situations. We are experiencing the effects of an unprecedented level of human power, often aided by new technologies, while at the same time witnessing a collective sense of powerlessness, in the face of vast social inequities, climate change, and ongoing political and economic turmoil. Together we revisited former themes that seem newly relevant to our current moment: He/She, Peace and War, Home and Away, and tech-know-ledgē. We brought a number of Festival favorites back, including Patti Smith, Salman Rushdie, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, each as relevant today as the first time they graced our stages. The Festival also featured individuals having a major moment, such as politician and activist Stacey Abrams, author George R. R. Martin, and anti-racist historian and evangelist Ibram X. Kendi. And we collectively considered the future of the arts and humanities in our city with the day-long Creative Chicago: Arts in the City.

Along with our celebrations came some difficult moments. In the spring of 2019, the Festival lost our champion and dear friend, Board Chair R. Scott Falk. Scott truly believed in the mission of the Festival to bring people together to explore the world around us, and nothing made that more clear than seeing his smile at the many programs he attended each year. We will always be grateful for his ideas and impact on CHF.

The Festival is excited to explore our 2020 theme, Vision, and to provide you with more ways to connect with us online—from live digital programs to explorations of our extensive archives to the active conversations with our community on social media.

Thank you again for all you contribute to our success, as audiences, members, donors, and partners. Here’s to thirty more years of powerful art, ideas, and community!

Allegra Biery, Board Chair

Phillip Bahar, Board Chair Executive Director

Alison Cuddy, Marilynn Thoma Artistic Director

Patti Smith and Jessica Hopper.

2019: Chicago Humanities Festival at 30 & The Year of Power

In 2019, the Chicago Humanities Festival celebrated its landmark 30th anniversary. In acknowledgement of the importance of three decades bringing the humanities to our audiences and to reflect some of the complex dynamics and operations of power we saw evolving, we explored the theme of Power throughout 2019. We considered the many facets of the concept—the powerful and powerless, silent heroes, power in relationships, the power of money, and what it means to have and to lose power.

To mark our organization’s 30th year, we also took time to reflect on the history of the Festival itself, through the series, Re/Vision, which involved a return to some of our past themes which have particular relevance to our current moment, including shifting gender dynamics with He/She (1998), questions of mobility and displacement with Home and Away (2005), the nature of intractable conflicts connected to Peace and War (2006), and the impact of rapid technological transformation within tech-know-ledgē (2011).

In total, we presented 116 events over 32 days, welcoming an in-person audience of 48,907.

I don’t like to provide easy answers, I like the reader to have to wrestle with them, because they’re never easy when we encounter them in real life.

—George R.R. Martin

Spring/Summer Season Highlights

Our fourth annual Spring Festival took place from April 25 to May 4, and featured 26 events. Presenters included Melinda Gates (noted figure in tech & philanthropy, and author of The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World), Amor Towles (Gentleman in Moscow), a concert featuring vocalist Maude Maggert accompanied by pianist John Boswell, historian Jeffrey J. Kripal discussing the power of unexplained phenomena within science, journalist Alex Kotlowitz on gun violence in Chicago, a lecture on the power of body positivity from Virgie Tovar, political force Stacey Abrams making a case for how our differences are our greatest strength, and four riveting performances of Please, Continue (Hamlet) by Yan Duyvendak and Roger Bernat, a non-scripted theatrical trial in which real life members of the judicial system (prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges) came together with actors and a jury drawn from the audience to explore the complex power of judging others and the limits and potentials of our court system. The Festival also presented two Student Matinees featuring authors Eve L. Ewing (Ironheart Vol. 1: Those With Courage) and José Olivarez (Citizen Illegal) for 970 CPS students.

My religion is love, truth, and justice.

—Michael Eric Dyson

Fall Season Highlights

CHF’s landmark 30th anniversary Fall Festival took place from October 26 - November 10. With 77 events over 17 days, we were excited to welcome an audience of 34,641 to dive even deeper into Power. In venues that reached from Evanston to the South Shore, Bronzeville to Hyde Park, and, of course, the Loop, our Fall Festival lineup included beloved actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfield, Veep) on her incredible career, poet Nikki Giovanni (A Good Cry), a timely conversation with historian Ibram X. Kendi (How to Be an Antiracist), author Madeline Miller (Circe) on our new favorite witch from Greek mythology, activist Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking) on the death penalty, author Salman Rushdie on his new novel (Quichotte: A Novel), musician Patti Smith (Year of the Monkey), author and mortician Caitlin Doughty (Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?), comedian Mo Rocca (Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving), prolific historian and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow), the inspiring anti-racism activist Jane Elliot, bestselling U.S. historian Sarah Vowell (Lafayette in the Somewhat United States), photographer Ari Seth Cohen (Style Over Sixty) on making a statement through style, and a performance by Chicago artist and musician Damon Locks.

The Festival also presented two matinees to 1,253 students as part of the Fall Festival featuring Erika L. Sánchez (I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter) and Mikki Kendall (Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists).

At some point, you have to look around the world and realize that we’re all in this together.

—Mikki Kendall

Clockwise from Top Left: A Festival volunteer with CHF staff, Damon Locks and the Black Monument Ensemble, audience members, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Bruce Dold.

Festival Facets

Creative Chicago: Arts in the City

In 2018 CHF convened artists from across the city for a six-hour conversation about Chicago-style creativity, past, present and future. The resulting project, Creative Chicago: An Interview Marathon, sparked lively conversations, debate, and partnerships. Energized by this experience, the Festival decided to revisit Creative Chicago with a day of programming that explored other aspects of our city’s creative community.

Inspired by the Marathon, CHF believed it was important to kick off Chicago’s fall cultural season asking ‘What does Chicago need?’ and work to find an answer through a set of conversations, digital polling and interactive experiences designed to elicit ideas about how our city’s residents, cultural institutions and artistic legacies/collections can work to develop empathy, friendship and connection across its citizens. This event, taking place on Saturday, September 14, featured two 90 minute panels (“The State of Arts and Culture in Chicago,” with Eric Williams, founder and creative director of The Silver Room, Chloe Johnston, Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Lake Forest College, and Lorelei Stewart, Director and Curator of Gallery 400, and “Policies for an Arts-Driven City,” with Meida McNeal, Director of Honey Pot Performance, Tempestt Hazel, Director of Sixty Inches From Center, Todd Palmer of Chicago Architecture Biennial, and moderator Tracie D. Hall, Director of Culture Program at The Joyce Foundation).

To complement the panels, the Festival also presented two experiential programs: “The Folded Map Project” with Tonika Johnson, Program Manager at R.A.G.E (Resident Association of Greater Englewood), and Paola D. Aguirre, founder of Borderless Studio and co-founder of City Open Workshop, and “Trading Races” with artist Kenyatta Forbes, the creator of the card games Trading Races and Trading Rappers, who created a lobby activation asking people to map their neighborhood cultural resources and respond to prompts about what their community needs. We also featured a live broadcast with on-site interviews by Yollocalli Arts Reach Pop Up Youth Radio. All Creative Chicago events were free and open to the public.

Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion

The Festival is fully committed to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI). We are always striving to curate programs that feature a range of voices—last year’s programs (including all of the authors, artists, performers, etc. we presented) featured 55% individuals who identify as women, 42% who identify as people of color, and 49% under the age of 50. Our neighborhood programming and partnerships (in Bronzeville, South Shore and across the city), and broader efforts to present speakers and issues relevant to audiences of color, have begun to transform our audience. We have nearly doubled representation by audiences of color—5 years ago, people of color made up only 13% of the Festival’s audience; today our audiences are nearly 25% people of color.

Audience participation in accessible event services also continued to increase this past year. A larger number of programs were made accessible to audience members than in any previous festival, including accommodations for Limited Mobility, Deaf/Hard of Hearing, Blind/Low Vision, and Technology barriers. In 2019, 407 individuals made 973 requests, our largest number ever, due, in part, to one of our most impressive programs ever, featuring Rachel Maddow. With your support, we are able to offer all of these accommodations for free to our audiences!

Beyond our stages, the Festival is also working internally with staff to ensure that we live up to our DEAI commitments, with a focus on our staff, Board, and processes. Our efforts will be reflected in our new Strategic Plan, which has DEAI and the expansion of our Digital efforts as vital components.

Audience members at Creative Chicago: Arts in the City.

Accessibility on a Grand Scale: Rachel Maddow & Arie Crown Theater

On Saturday October 12, 2019, the Chicago Humanities Festival presented the biggest program in its history—Rachel Maddow in conversation with CHF’s very own Marilynn Thoma Artistic Director Alison Cuddy. Taking place at the massive Arie Crown Theater, this event was an opportunity for CHF to host a dynamic conversation in front of a crowd of over 3,700 excited audience members, many of whom were new to the Festival. With so many guests, and a new venue for the Festival, our highly regarded commitment to accessibility became a focus of the night. As accommodations were requested by ticket holders leading up to the event, our master seating chart was constantly updated to ensure that those requesting special accommodations were able to fully enjoy the experience. On the day of the program, ticket holders were greeted by one of 12 access managers at the accessibility check-in table, where they answered any day-of questions, provided maps to help audiences find their pre-requested accommodations, escorted them through security, and managed any last minute needs, including providing portable wheelchairs for patrons wishing for assistance getting to and from the theatre in the cavernous space. CHF’s team helped with over 200 requests on this incredible night, ensuring everyone in the audience had what they needed to fully enjoy the program.

Rachel Maddow.

Student and Youth Engagement

The Festival remains committed to engaging the youth in our city through matinees and other special events. This year we partnered with Chicago Public Schools, After School Matters, Mikva Challenge, Urban Gateways, and Yollocalli Arts Reach to create memorable experiences and moments for Chicago youth. As part of our commitment to inspire Chicago students, the Festival presented one of our youngest authors ever, thirteen-year-old Jesselyn Silva, a rising boxing phenom.

Silva rose to national prominence in 2017 when The New York Times featured Girl Boxer, a short documentary on her Olympic goals. Since then, she has used her platform to advocate for underdogs in boxing and beyond.

The support of our members and donors enable us to offer free tickets to educators to bring groups of youth to our programs and to reimburse travel expenses for school groups. The kids all came to the book signing afterwards where they were presented with complimentary books from CHF to have Jessilyn sign. This was clearly a huge moment for both these students and Jessilyn; the students met an inspirational author who was around their age, while Jessilyn made new fans. They all took many photos together, and there was obvious delight on both sides when she signed books. This was an incredibly meaningful program to both Jessilyn—who said "I always wanted to be an author"—and her audience.

Membership

Humanist Circle

Joining the Festival's Humanist Circle is about more than all-access passes and reserved seats—it's about belonging to a community dedicated to seeking new ideas, fostering genuine connections, and exploring what it means to be human. It’s about advancing the mission of CHF and our efforts to make the Festival accessible to a broad public audience. Contributions from our Humanist Circle support affordable ticket pricing, award-winning accessibility initiatives, education and youth programs, and expanded digital programming.

Members

A group more than 2,200 strong, Festival members are essential to the Festival—philanthropic support covers about 80% of the Festival's operations! Members are not only some of our biggest fans (responsible for more than 16,000 admissions) but our biggest advocates, sharing their love for CHF with their friends and families, creating new members wherever they go. Their dedication—some being members for decades!—is an incredible testament to CHF’s ability to consistently engage audiences in various neighborhoods in powerful and thoughtful conversations.

Shortlist—Festival Fans In Their 20s and 30s

Make new friends, meet CHF presenters, and experience the best of the city! Shortlist members get to mingle with other Chicagoans in their 20s and 30s making moves in culture, tech, politics, and the arts. Shortlist exclusive events in 2019 included “Trading Races” with Chicago artist Kenyatta Forbes and Ashlyn Sparrow, Learning Technology Director at The University of Chicago's Game Changer Chicago Design Lab, a live musical performance by Lawrence "Binkey" Tolefree, and “Drag History” with comedian Frank DeCaro, joined by Chicago Drag Legends Chilli Pepper and Lucy Stoole, and newcomer Angelica Grace, for an evening of conversation and drag performances.

Audience members at the Indignant Women performance.

Annual Benefit

Our 30th Anniversary Gala was an incredible success! Featuring Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot in conversation with CHF’s own Marilynn Thoma Artistic Director, Alison Cuddy, it was our largest event to date, with $1.15M raised to fund our mission of producing powerful programming. It was an honor to have so many festival friends with us to celebrate, and to recognize our 2019 Humanists of the Year, Norman and Virginia Bobins, and Civic Leadership Award winner ITW. The Festival also took a moment to recognize two individuals who were key to setting the tone of 30 years of excellence, thanking Rich Franke, the mastermind behind the Festival, and founding Executive Director Eileen Mackevich, for helping to launch and build our beloved Chicago institution. In addition, the gala celebrated the contributions of Board Chair R. Scott Falk who passed away suddenly earlier this year. The outpouring of support we received at the Gala is a reflection of what we have collectively made the Festival: a vital cultural institution that brings thoughtful conversations to the stage around civic, social, and cultural issues that matter.

Virginia and Norman Bobins.

Benefit Co-Chairs

Allegra E. Biery, Northern Trust

Douglas H. Jackson, Greenhill & Co., LLC

John W. McCarter, Jr.

The Festival thanks its major supporters of the Annual Benefit Evening

Presenting Sponsors

ITW

Kirkland & Ellis, in memory of R. Scott Falk

Harve A. Ferrill

Karen Z. Gray-Krehbiel and John H. Krehbiel, Jr.

Liz Stiffel

Host Committee/Vice Chair

AAR Corp.

Abbott

Allstate Insurance Company, Cheryl Harris

Chapman & Cutler LLP, Charles C. Calloway

CIBC and The Robert Thomas Bobins Foundation

The Crown Family

Barbara and Richard J. Franke

Leonard A. Gail and Robin M. Steans, The Steans Family Foundation

Wilbur and Linda Gantz

Douglas and Lynn Jackson

In memory of R. Scott Falk, Judy and John McCarter

Ray and Judy McCaskey

Robert R. McCormick Foundation

Northern Trust, Allegra E. Biery

Debbie and Jeff Ross

Anita and Prabhakant Sinha

In memory of Harve Ferrill, Carl and Marilynn Thoma

Lisa and Paul Wiggin

Helen Zell

Patron

The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation

Janet and Craig Duchossois

FCB Chicago

Jennifer Steans and Jim Kastenholz

Nigel and Deborah Telman

The University of Chicago–Robert J. Zimmer, President

Jim Warren and Cornelia Grumman

The Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Kaplan Humanities Institute at Northwestern University

Clockwise from Top Left: Maude Maggart, Peter Sagal with Mo Rocca, Stacey Abrams, Ta-Nehisi Coates with Natalie Moore.