laughter - Chicago Humanities Festival

Transcription

LAUGHTER
October 17
November 2–15
2009
2009 Chicago Humanities Festival
Festival Sponsors
This page recognizes all gifts of $15,000 and above received
from institutional supporters through June 30, 2009. We are
grateful to these organizations for their support.
$100,000 and above
$50,000–$99,999
$30,000–$49,999
The Alice Kaplan Institute
for the Humanitites
at Northwestern University
$15,000–$29,999
The Crown Family
Additional support provided by
AN AGENCY OF
THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Chauncey and Marion Deering
McCormick Foundation
Get tickets early!
Experience the Festival as a
member—you’ll get first pick
of our programs and exclusive
invitations.
As always, the Fall Festival is a highly anticipated event. Many of our programs will sell
out. Don’t miss your chance. Members are
able to purchase tickets two weeks prior to
our sales to the general public. Simply put,
you will be on the fast track to enjoying Festival
experiences that last a lifetime.
Membership is also fully tax-deductible.
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philosophers, historians, and policy makers
to Chicago.
For more details, see page 72.
Renew or join CHF today at
www.chicagohumanities.org!
Chicago Humanities Festival
Program Guide 2009
Laughter Contents
Message from the Artistic Director
4
Benefit Evening
6
How to Order Festival Tickets
8
Volunteer
9
Program Listings
Saturday, October 17
10
Monday, November 2
20
Wednesday, November 4
20
Thursday, November 5
21
Friday, November 6
21
Saturday, November 7
24
Sunday, November 8
34
Monday, November 9
44
Tuesday, November 10
45
46
48
Friday, November 13
48
50
Sunday, November 15
62
Additional Information
71
Membership and Donations
72
Donors
74
Board of Directors / Staff
80
Stages, Sights & Sounds
81
CHF Education
81
Map
82
Parking
84
Presenter Index
86
Thanks
88
Weschler on Laughter
November 2009 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Chicago
Humanities Festival, and to celebrate, your trusty gremlins
here at Fort Humane have been busy fashioning something
special, a season entirely given over to the theme of Laughter.
Not “Happiness,” mind you: happiness is smug and bland
and self-satisfied. Laughter, on the other hand, runs the gam
ut: from blithe to bitter, raucous to subdued, fond to angry,
knowing to clueless, high to low, broad to pinprick-specific. Its
history wends back past Aristophanes and Job (the comedy
of suffering, after all) on up through Mozart and Molière, and
then right up to the present—please understand that around
here we think of Samuel Beckett as one of the funniest playwrights of the 20th century.
There are all the different ethnic and cultural shadings of
laughter: African American, Jewish, Irish, Russian, Persian,
Chinese, Latino, and on and on—each with its own knotty
tradition, and its airy cross-pollinations. Laughter has its
vexations: battles around political correctness and totalitarian
suppression. There is gallows humor and Gaelic humor. Psychologists, anthropologists, economists, philosophers, and
historians all have their two cents to offer. As of course do
artists, from New Yorker cartoonists through the latest crop
of graphic novelists. Modern theater traces its roots back to
mime and commedia dell’arte, and we will, too. Stand-up, sitdown, sleight of hand, slapstick Borscht Belt through flouncy
vaudeville. The sound of laughter, from Mendelssohn through
John Adams. And vintage screen comedy, from Buster Keaton
(who we will be considering alongside Wittgenstein, naturally)
through Cantinflas and Harpo Marx. With presenters as various as Jules Feiffer, Dick Gregory, Matt Groening, Lynda Barry,
Harold Ramis, Simon Schama, Sarah Jones, Billy Collins, Kay
Ryan, Sandra Tsing Loh, Robert Reich, Don Byron channeling
Mickey Katz, Ian Frazier, Margo Jefferson, John Hodgman, and
dozens more.
And where better to do all this than in Chicago, incubator and
home to some of the most influential improvisatory comedy
around? (Don’t even get us started on Second City and its many
progeny.) Midtown, of course, but with a special day in Hyde
Park, and a gala given over to celebrating those divinely paired
cut-ups, Rich and Barbara Franke, godparents to the entire 20year CHF parade. On top of all that, a major new website initia-
www.chicagohumanities.org | 312-494-9509
4|5
tive, a permanent online home for the humanities nationwide,
with Festival fare posted year-round such that, for starters, this
year, we’ll be able to keep you in stitches well past November at
www.chicagohumanities.org.
So, yeah, Laughter, you betcha: we stand ready to pitch our
antic glee against any depression the gods seem intent on
sending us. Now all we need is you!
Lawrence Weschler
The Marilynn Thoma Endowed Chair
The Chicago Humanities
Festival Benefit Evening
The Best Is Yet to Come
Richard and Barbara Franke
Honorees
In 1989 Richard Franke and a small band of visionaries had an
audacious idea. They sought to provide arts and humanities
programs to the broadest public possible in a manner both
intellectually stimulating and entertaining, and in partnership
with Chicago’s leading cultural organizations. Their vision and
efforts created the Chicago Humanities Festival.
Richard Franke’s passion for the humanities and his relentless commitment to making them accessible has made the
Chicago Humanities Festival one of the most anticipated
activities of the fall season and a cultural odyssey unique to
Chicago.
This fall, as we embark on our 20th festival, we honor Rich
and Barbara’s dedication and commitment to the Chicago
Humanities Festival at our benefit evening. Court Theatre’s
artistic director Charles Newell will produce the evening’s
entertainment in collaboration with music director Doug Peck
and director and lyricist Rob Lindley. Together they have recruited a group of extraordinary artists, among them Hollis Resnik,
Jonita Lattimore, Susan Moniz, and Kate Fry. Fittingly, these
artists are affiliated with many of the Chicago Humanities
Festival’s partnering cultural institutions. These artists will
dazzle us with a musical revue celebrating the Festival’s landmark anniversary and the institutions that mean so much to
Rich and Barbara.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
6:30–10 pm
Four Seasons Hotel
120 East Delaware Place, Chicago, Illinois
Tables
›› $20,000
›› $10,000
›› $5,000
Benefit evening tickets are $600 each.
Please call 312-553-2000 for more information.
How to Order
Festival Tickets
September
8–20
Member Ticket Sales
Your favorite programs may sell
out! Become a member and take
advantage of the exclusive twoweek advance ticket-buying period.
See page 72 or call our box office
for details.
September 21–
November 13
General Public Ticket Sales
www.chicagohumanities.org, 24 hours a day
Online orders are processed in the order they are received
within one business day.
312-494-9509
Monday–Friday, 10 am–5 pm
Saturday, 10 am–2 pm; Saturday hours conclude September
26.
Prices
$5–20 in advance. Payment may be made by Visa, MasterCard,
American Express, cash, or check. A $5 processing fee will be
added to all orders.
A $5 per ticket surcharge applies to all purchases at the door.
Door ticket sales are cash only.
Free tickets to many programs are available for teachers and
students with valid ID, and for 2009 registered Festival volunteers. Volunteer ticket orders must be made over the phone.
All ticket sales are final. Tickets may not be exchanged and
are nonrefundable, except in the event of program cancellation. If you are unable to attend an event for which you have
purchased a ticket, please call the box office at 312-494-9509
for information on ticket donation.
Ticket and Red Badge holders are only guaranteed admission
until 10 minutes prior to the program start time. Unclaimed
seats may be reassigned.
CHF limits its advance reservations and ticket sales to the
8|9
capacity of its venues. However, seats may be available at
sold-out programs. If available, tickets will be sold at the door,
first-come, first-served, 10 minutes prior to the start of each
program.
Programs, dates, venues, presenters, and artists are subject
to change without notice. For up-to-date program information,
please visit www.chicagohumanities.org.
Volunteer
Each year, the Chicago Humanities Festival needs hundreds of
enthusiastic volunteers to greet and usher patrons, manage
crowds, and sell tickets. In addition to an invaluable behindthe-scenes Festival experience, all volunteers receive free
Festival tickets.
To volunteer, visit the volunteer section of our website at
www.chicagohumanities.org, email [email protected],
or call 312-661-1028 ext. 21.
Festival day in hyde park
1
2
6
3
4
www.chicagohumanities.org | 312.494.9509
5
10 | 11
1 Court Theatre
5535 South Ellis Avenue
2 DuSable Museum of
African American History
740 East 56th Place
3 Fulton Recital Hall
1010 East 59th Street
4 Ida Noyes Hall
5 International House
6 Mandel Hall
Ida Noyes Hall
Max Palevsky Cinema
International House
Assembly Hall
Mandel Hall
100
Humor Humours:
Laughter
and the Brain
10 am
11 am
102
Clown Doctors
103
Latke-Hamantash
Debate
12 pm
1 pm
106
Chicago Sports
107
Opera and
Laughter
2 pm
108
Lurie and Savage:
Literary Laughs
3 pm
4 pm
110
History of
Comedy
in Hyde Park
5 pm
111
Muntu Dance
Theatre
6 pm
Evening
Court Theatre
Abelson Auditorium
DuSable Museum of
African American History
Ames Auditorium
Fulton Recital Hall
Goodspeed Hall 4th Floor
10 am
11 am
101
Jonathan Lear:
Irony
12 pm
1 pm
104
From Vice to
Virtue: Molière’s
Comedic Mission
2 pm
105
Tim & Tom:
A Comedy in
Black and White
3 pm
4 pm
5 pm
109
Contempo:
Contemporary
Classical Music
6 pm
Evening
saturday, october 17
Festival Day in Hyde Park
Join us as we launch the 2009 Festival with a full day of
captivating programs centered on our theme, Laughter. At
venues on the University of Chicago campus and in nearby
Hyde Park, you’ll enjoy all of the program quality and diversity
you expect from a Saturday at the Festival, including promi
nent lecturers, unforgettable performances, and informative
demonstrations.
Presented in partnership with the University of Chicago and as
part of the annual Karla Scherer Endowed Lecture Series for the
University of Chicago
Humor Humours: Laughter and the Brain 100
10–11 am
Ida Noyes Hall
Max Palevsky Cinema
$5
Laughter feels instinctive, but it’s really a brainy phenomenon.
Consider the pertinent questions: what part of the brain is
responsible for laughter and humor? What are the differences
between laughter that occurs as an emotional or behavioral
response, and laughter that occurs outside either explanation?
Join Steven Small, professor in the departments of neurology
and psychology, a member of the Committees on Neuro
biology and Computational Neuroscience, and director of the
Human Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago,
for a neuroscience perspective on that rich experience of
laughing your head off.
Jonathan Lear: Irony 101
11 am–12 pm
Fulton Recital Hall
$5
Irony is not a mere play on words, nor a witty way of remaining
detached from any commitment. It is, instead, a fundamental
capacity of the human soul, a peculiar way of testing our com
mitments to see if they ring true. Jonathan Lear, the John
U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on
14 | 15
Social Thought at the University of Chicago, has explored the
concept of irony from the ancient Greeks to the Romantics
and Kierkegaard, as well as its uses in modern psychoanalysis.
Lear guides us through the murky definitions of irony and their
relevance to—and in—contemporary society.
Clown Doctors 102
12–1 pm
International House
Assembly Hall
$5
Send in the clown doctors! Big Apple Circus’s Clown Care Unit
brings the joy of the classical circus to patients at the Univer
sity of Chicago’s Comer Children’s Hospital as well as 17 other
leading pediatric hospitals across the United States. In part
nership with medical and administrative staff, members of
the Clown Care team conduct “clown rounds,” their version of
medical rounds, where the prescription is always the healing
power of humor. In this presentation, Nurse Grandma and Dr.
Sparkle Gong get serious for a moment to demonstrate how
their innovative program empowers children and improves
staff and parent morale. H. Barrett Fromme, assistant profes
sor of pediatrics, University of Chicago, will join them.
Presented in partnership with International House Global Voices
Performing Arts Program
Deconstructing the Latke-Hamantash Debate 103
12–1 pm
Mandel Hall
$5
First held at the University of Chicago in 1946, the annual
Latke-Hamantash Debate has spawned a series of succes
sors at universities and colleges nationwide and remains a
mainstay of the campus calendar. These humorous academic
debates, sponsored by the Newberger Hillel Center, feature
University of Chicago professors in full regalia arguing the
relative merits of two of the greatest culinary achievements of
all time: latkes and hamantashen. Although no one has ever
won the debate, a colorful cast of characters has campaigned
mightily, displaying sincere devotion even while heartily lam
pooning academic seriousness. Why does the debate have
such relevance for generations of debaters and audiences
alike? Most importantly, will this special edition, complete
with “greatest hits,” settle the latke-hamantash question once
and for all?
From Vice to Virtue: Molière’s Comedic Mission 104
12:30–1:30 pm
Court Theatre
Abelson Auditorium
$5
In a petition to King Louis XIV, Molière wrote, “The mission of
comedy is to correct men’s vices.” Both a product and a daring
critic of classical France, Molière developed a sophisticated
and influential vision of the comic genre. This vision reinven
ted theatrical comedy with character-based satirical portraits of
various aspects of 17th-century French society. Charles Newell,
Court Theatre’s artistic director, and Larry Norman, University
of Chicago associate professor of Romance languages and
literature, discuss Molière’s most important works and his
infamous claims about the reformative powers of theater.
Tim & Tom: A Comedy in Black and White 105
2–3 pm
DuSable Museum of African American History
Ames Auditorium
$5
Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen met for the first time in tumul
tuous 1968 Chicago. While the country was wracked by the
civil rights movement, a sexual revolution, and a controver
sial war, these friends took the stage as the first—and so far,
only—black and white comedy team. Together they spent five
years touring the country, facing unabashed racism, occasion
ally violent hecklers, and cheering crowds. Reid went on to star
in the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati and create the influential
Frank’s Place, and Dreesen spent 30 years in stand-up, inclu
ding 15 years as Frank Sinatra’s opening act. The duo returns
to the stage to tell their stories and reflect on a lifetime of
unique experiences.
Tom Dreesen
Tim Reid
Chicago Sports 16 | 17
106
2–3 pm
International House
Assembly Hall
$5
At first blush, a sports program might seem a stretch for laugh
ter. Anyone who has spent time at the University of Chicago,
however, knows that sports on campus have been the butt
of many a joke. We also know how hard it is for Cubs fans to
laugh at themselves and their perennially disappointing team
(but do so anyway, rather than crying). In fact, Chicago sports
fans spend so much time—out of necessity, really—laughing
at themselves and their teams that it might not be much of a
stretch after all. Join sportswriter Lester Munson and a panel
of writers and athletes for a Chicago-style mash-up of sports
stories and commentary.
Presented in partnership with International House Global Voices
Performing Arts Program
Opera and Laughter 107
2–3 pm
Mandel Hall
$10
In 1783, W. A. Mozart composed the music and plot for a commedia dell’arte pantomime intended for Vienna’s upcoming
carnival season. Although written for string quartet, only the
first violin part and the sketchiest outline of his scenario sur
vive. In this session, University of Chicago faculty present an
excerpt of Mozart’s pantomime and a conversation centered
on opera and laughter as they relate to performance, audience,
politics, and improvisational comedy in the 18th century. Par
ticipants include faculty members Martha Feldman, David
Levin, and Roger Moseley. The ensemble Impromptu performs
the pantomime. Directed by Moseley, Impromptu comprises
student and faculty participants of the university’s ongoing
historically inspired musical improvisation workshop.
Martha Feldman
Lurie and Savage: Literary Laughs 108
3–4 pm
Ida Noyes Hall
Max Palevsky Cinema
$5
What does your laughter say about you? Alison Lurie, author
of nine novels including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Foreign
Affairs, and recently retired from the English department at
Cornell University, will discuss humor in literature and how
her own satiric fiction has frequently taken aim at campus life,
with Bill Savage, senior lecturer in English at Northwestern
University. They will share examples and discuss why—and
for whom—they are funny.
Generously sponsored by Paula R. Kahn
Alison Lurie
Contempo: Humor in Contemporary Classical Music 109
4:30–5:30 pm
Fulton Recital Hall
$10
Contemporary classical music doesn’t usually rank high on a
list of funny things. There is, however, a not-so-serious side.
Join pianist Amy Briggs, a leading interpreter of the music of
living composers; the new music ensemble Contempo; and
conductor Cliff Colnot for performance, commentary, and
insight into a playful collection of contemporary chamber
works. Highlights include Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Floof, scored
for an ensemble of six, and the piano solo Schnozzage, written
for two hands and a nose.
An Incomplete History of Comedy in Hyde Park 110
4:30–5:30 pm
International House
Assembly Hall
$5
Hyde Park lore includes not only the atomic bomb’s invention
in the basement of what became the Regenstein Library, but
also the birth of The Second City as a comedy troupe of Univer
sity of Chicago students. To separate truth from fiction in the
18 | 19
telling of this second tale, join Anne Libera, executive artistic
director of The Second City Training Centers, Sheldon Patinkin,
founding member of The Second City and chair emeritus of
the Columbia College Chicago Theater Department, and Tim
Kazurinsky, screenwriter, actor, and former Saturday Night
Live cast member. These three transport us from the early
1950s and the Playwrights Theater Club, through the Compass
Players of Alan Arkin, Elaine May, and Mike Nichols fame, to
the present-day Chicago institution, revealing how improvi
sational theater forms pioneered in Hyde Park changed the
course of comedy.
Presented in partnership with The Second City and International
House Global Voices Performing Arts Program
Muntu Dance Theatre 111
6–7 pm
Mandel Hall
$10
You know the feeling: it starts with a nod, then a smile, and
pretty soon you feel it to the ends of your fingers. That’s the joy
that comes from the celebration of the human spirit in motion.
Nationally recognized Muntu Dance Theatre has been bringing
that joy to audiences in Chicago since 1972. Known for high ances that
energy dancing and drumming, Muntu presents d
honor African and African American traditions. The Festival is
pleased to present Muntu in several works from its extensive
repertoire, including Eveningtime, a playful gem from Muntu’s
past, and Mujuboo Rock, a synthesis of authentic West African
dance with the contemporary, conceived by artistic director
Amaniyea Payne. You might just find yourself dancing—and
laughing—in the aisles.
monday, november 2
Monday, November 2
Chicago Sinfonietta: Laughter
CSL
7:30 pm
Symphony Center
Armour Stage
For reservations call 312-284-1554. CHF patrons may receive
50% discount on select seating. Ask for the CHF offer.
Free tickets are not available for Charter Humanist Circle
members, teachers, and students.
Think you can’t laugh at the symphony? Think again! The
Chicago Sinfonietta explores the theme of Laughter in our
annual collaboration as guest conductor Michael Morgan
delves into the humorous impulses of composers past and
present. The program includes Jacques Ibert’s Divertissement,
Michael Daugherty’s Dead Elvis, and Felix Mendelssohn’s
Symphony No. 4, among other works.
Presented in partnership with Chicago Sinfonietta
Harold Ramis’s Personal History of Film Comedy 200
7–8 pm
Northwestern University School of Law
Thorne Auditorium
$10
Director, writer, and actor Harold Ramis (Animal House,
addyshack, Stripes, Ghostbusters, Analyze This, Groundhog Day)
C
has brought us some of the funniest moments in modern film.
Join this comedy guru for an idiosyncratic journey through his
favorite film comedies. With film clips ranging from the Marx
Brothers (Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Gummo, and Zeppo) to
his latest, Year One, this film survey is ripe with sidesplitting
potential.
Harold Ramis
h
20 | 21
Cartoonists in Conversation: Lynda Barry and Matt Groening
201
7–8 pm
UIC Forum
$15
Matt Groening (creator of the The Simpsons, Futurama, and
Life in Hell) and Lynda Barry (Ernie Pook’s Comeek and The
Good Times are Killing Me) first met in the 1970s at Evergreen
State College, the improbable seedbed of some of the greatest
graphic comic work of the past several decades. They remain
close friends and continue to influence each other’s work.
Two of the country’s funniest people separately, Groening and
Barry together breach the comic sublime.
Presented in partnership with the University of Illinois at
Chicago.
Lynda Barry
Matt Groening
Friday, November 6
Franke Lecture in Economics: Robert Reich 202
6–7 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$15
It’s rumored the Roman philosopher Seneca once said, “Stand
back a little further and laugh.” This advice might also apply to
our present economic situation. In this year’s Franke Lecture,
economist Robert Reich, currently a professor of public policy
at the University of California at Berkeley, will offer insights
into what levity can be found in these tough times. Reich has
served in three national administrations, most recently as
President Clinton’s Secretary of Labor. He is also the author of
11 books, including The Work of Nations, The Future of Success,
Locked in the Cabinet, and Supercapitalism, and his articles
have appeared in the The New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New
York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.
Reich is a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine,
and his weekly commentaries on public radio’s Marketplace
are heard by nearly five million people.
friday, november 6
This annual lecture recognizes the significant contributions to the
Chicago Humanities Festival made by its founder and chairman
emeritus Richard J. Franke.
Robert Reich
Does Laughter Have an Accent?: An Evening with Sarah Jones
203
8–9 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$15
The shape-shifting, mind-boggling Sarah Jones stands to put
the better part of humanity into her Festival appearance. The
New York Times heralded the Tony Award winner’s one-woman
show Bridge & Tunnel as a “sweet-spirited valentine to New
York City, its polyglot citizens and the larger notion of an allinclusive America, that ideal place where concepts like liberty,
equality, and opportunity have concrete meaning and are not
just boilerplate phrases slapped around in stump speeches
and news conferences.” She’ll bring some of those characters
and a raft of fresh ones just for us, serving up one of the fun
niest and most heart-warming programs of the Festival.
Presented in partnership with Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the
Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, Columbia
College Chicago, and generously sponsored by the Lohengrin
Foundation
Sarah Jones
Harold Washington
Library Center
Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
The Newberry Library
Ruggles Hall
Northwestern University
School of Law
Thorne Auditorium
11 am
12 pm
304
Lynda Barry:
Writing the Unthinkable
302
Author Interview:
Lorrie Moore
301
New Yorker
Cartoonists
10 am
307
Barry Sanders:
Humor of
Lenny Bruce
313
Blacks, Jews, and the
Comedy of Subversion
3 pm
314
Joanne H. Alter
Lecture:
Claire McCaskill
2 pm
308
Robert Provine:
Cracking the
Laughing Code
1 pm
4 pm
317
Ourselves as Others
See Us
5 pm
6 pm
Evening
The Art Institute of Chicago
Fullerton Auditorium
Chicago Cultural Center
Claudia Cassidy Theater
First United Methodist Church
at The Chicago Temple
Francis W. Parker School
Diane and David B Heller
Auditorium
10 am
300
Sander Gilman:
Dr. Freud’s
Little Jokes
11 am
303
Richard Halpern:
Laughing at
Norman Rockwell
12 pm
1 pm
2 pm
3 pm
311
Iowa
International
Writers
315
Baskes Lecture
in History:
David Blight
305
Mel Watkins:
On the Real Side
312
The Lamentations
of Ian Frazier
309
Photography
Conversation
306
Mary Beard: What
Made the Ancient
Romans Laugh?
310
Jules Feiffer on
Depression-Era
Humor
4 pm
5 pm
316
The Not-So-Funny
Situation of
Alternative Comix
6 pm
Evening
318 / 7:30 pm
The Second City’s
Museum Pieces
saturday, november 7
Sander Gilman: Dr. Freud's Little Jokes, or How the Jews Became Funny
300
10–11 am
$5
Ego, repression, innuendo, a Freudian slip—what’s not funny
about Sigmund Freud? In fact, Freud proposed one of the
original theories of laughter back in 1905, arguing that humor
is “best fulfilled precisely by Jewish jokes.” But when and why
did the Jews become “funny,” and how did Freud’s conflicted
Jewish identity inform his development of psychoanalysis?
Sander Gilman, a scholar of Jewish cultural and literary history
and professor of the humanities at Emory University, will
explore Freud’s unique and influential understanding of the
role of laughter in the human psyche.
New Yorker Cartoonists 301
10–11:30 am
Thorne Auditorium
$10
No issue of The New Yorker would be complete without the
cartoons sprinkled throughout its pages. The magazine has
featured cartoons since its inception in 1925, and some of the
most important talents in American humor have contributed
cartoons in the ensuing eight decades. A trio of New Yorker
cartoonists—Pat Byrnes, Roz Chast, and Ed Koren—discusses
and deconstructs the elements essential to the magazine’s
famous cartoons and particular brand of humor. The New
Yorker’s cartoon editor Robert Mankoff moderates.
Presented in partnership with the Institute for the Humanities at
the University of Michigan
Roz Chast
Author Interview: Lorrie Moore 26 | 27
302
10:30–11:30 am
Harold Washington Library Center
$5
Lorrie Moore’s virtuosic prose, wry humor, and highly devel
oped sense of irony reflect how many Americans face daily
discomforts as well as national disillusionment. She is the
author of the short story collection Self-Help, the novel Birds of
America, and the September 2009 release A Gate at the Stairs,
among other books. Journalist Victoria Lautman, host and
producer of WFMT’s Writers on the Record, interviews Moore
for her perspective on humor in the writer’s life.
Richard Halpern: Laughing at Norman Rockwell 303
11 am–12 pm
$5
Norman Rockwell’s pastoral scenes of everyday small-town
life are among the most recognizable images in all of 20thcentury art. Opinions on Rockwell are divided, but both his
supporters and detractors agree that his art embodies a dis
tinctively American innocence. As Johns Hopkins English pro
fessor Richard Halpern suggests, however, we are often reluc
tant to acknowledge the sly, witty, and sometimes disturbing
dimensions of Rockwell’s work. Far from a banal painter of the
ordinary, Halpern contends, Rockwell is someone we have not
yet dared to see for the complex creature he is: a wholesome
pervert, a knowing innocent, and a kitschy genius.
Lynda Barry: Writing the Unthinkable 304
11 am–1 pm
The Newberry Library
Ruggles Hall
$5. Space may be limited.
Lynda Barry’s quirky and wholly original creative voice has
shone through in her syndicated strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek
and in such books as One! Hundred! Demons! and the 2008
book What It Is. In this two-hour workshop designed to help
participants tap their own creativity, Barry plumbs the depths
of the imagination, where play can be serious, monsters can
have purpose, and not knowing can be an answer in itself.
Mel Watkins: On the Real Side 305
12–1 pm
$5
Mel Watkins, a former writer and editor of the New York Times
Book Review, has written extensively on African American com
edy and literature. His 1994 book, On the Real Side, is a highly
acclaimed social history of underground African American
humor and its impact on US culture. Watkins will discuss
African American humor ranging from its emergence during
slavery and evolution from blackface minstrelsy through such
seminal comedians as Bert Williams, Stepin Fetchit, Moms
Mabley, Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, and Chris
Rock.
Mel Watkins
Mary Beard: What Made the Ancient Romans Laugh?
306
12–1 pm
First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple
$10
Doctors, men with bad breath, eunuchs, barbers, men with
hernias, bald men, shady fortune-tellers—none is spared in
the jokes of ancient Rome. Mary Beard, professor of clas
sics at Cambridge University and classics editor of the Times
Literary Supplement, will talk about the ancient Roman joke
book known as the Philogelos, a collection of over 250 gags and
the only joke book from the ancient world to have survived.
Beard will share Roman jokes about the colorful—and mostly
male—characters of ancient life, and delve into what, exactly,
made the ancient Romans crack up.
Barry Sanders: The Subversive Humor of Lenny Bruce
28 | 29
307
12:30–1:30 pm
$5
When Barry Sanders was an undergraduate in Los Angeles in
the 1960s he attended Lenny Bruce’s infamous performances
nearly every night. He eventually befriended Bruce and wrote
about his experiences with the provocative comedian in
Sudden Glory: Laughter as Subversive History, his acclaimed
book about the corrosive power of laughter in society. Sanders,
a prolific author and professor emeritus of Pitzer College, will
discuss Bruce’s outrageous routines and how they forever
changed American popular culture.
Robert Provine: Cracking the Laughing Code 308
12:30–1:30 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$5
Laughter is magical, mysterious, and one of our most honest
signals. In fact, laughter is often more about relationships than
jokes and can reveal what people really think of us. Recent dis
coveries about laughter have revolutionized scientists’ ideas
about this instinctive human vocalization. Robert Provine, a
neuroscientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County
and the author of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation, reveals
recent research findings on laughter in a discussion mingled
with audience participation and video.
Photography Conversation 309
1–2 pm
$5
Works by artists Liz Deschenes and Gaylen Gerber concentrate
our attention on the process of looking. Deschenes, based in
New York, and Gerber, based in Chicago, will discuss their
new works specially prepared for the inaugural photography
exhibition in the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute of
Chicago. Matthew S. Witkovsky, Art Institute curator and chair
of photography, moderates.
Presented in partnership with The Art Institute of Chicago
Richard Gray Visual Art Series: Jules Feiffer on Depression-Era Humor
310
1–2 pm
Diane and David B Heller Auditorium
$10
From cartoonist Milt Gross to the Marx Brothers, from Popeye
and Blondie to Jack Benny and Charlie McCarthy, Depressionera humor channeled the spirit of a nation through hard times
to high and silly hopes. Jules Feiffer, Pulitzer Prize–winning
cartoonist, playwright, and children’s book author, gives a
guided visual tour he describes as “cultural anthropology with
laughs” in this time of resurgent interest in the Depression.
The annual Richard Gray Visual Art Series recognizes a significant
gift from founding CHF board member and distinguished art
dealer Richard Gray.
Jules Feiffer
Iowa International Writers: Global Humor in the Digital Age
311
2:30–3:30 pm
$5
Laughter can exclude as well as include. In the digital age,
when a joke from one corner of the world goes viral, who
exactly is in on it? In this program, writers-in-residence at
the International Writing Program (IWP) at the University of
Iowa explore emerging global and digital constraints on the
age-old human need to laugh in the face of fear, vulnerability,
and pain. Poet, nonfiction writer, and IWP director Christopher
Merrill will lead the writers in an examination of humor in a
hyper-connected world.
The Lamentations of Ian Frazier 2:30–3:30 pm
$5
312
30 | 31
New Yorker veteran Ian Frazier often delights in transporting
his readers into a bizarre comedic universe in which every
day absurdities are taken to their logical conclusions. “Coyote
vs. Acme,” for example, imagines the Looney Tunes preda
tor as the plaintiff in a lawsuit claiming repeated, grievous
bodily harm. In his Festival program, Frazier will draw on a
smattering of his most beloved humor pieces, including the
legendary “Lamentations of the Father,” a piece that manages
to nail both what it is like to be a parent and what it must be
like to be God.
Blacks, Jews, and the Comedy of Subversion 313
2:30–4 pm
$5
This provocative roundtable discussion explores two of the
most important influences on comedy and popular culture
in the United States: African American humor and Jewish
humor. From Bert Williams, Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, and
the “race films” of the 1920s to Woody Allen, Richard Pryor,
Jerry Seinfeld, and the age of Obama, the panelists will dis
cuss comedy’s role in critiquing and subverting dominant
American culture. Panelists include Romi Crawford, assistant
professor of visual and critical studies at the School of the
Art Institute and a former curator at the Studio Museum in
Harlem; Sander Gilman, an authority on Jewish culture and
psychoanalysis and professor of humanities at Emory Univer
sity; and Mel Watkins, author of On the Real Side: A History of
African American Comedy from Slavery to Chris Rock.
Joanne H. Alter Women in Politics Lecture: Claire McCaskill
314
2:30–3:30 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$10
This first annual lecture, marking a new Festival tradition,
features US Senator Claire McCaskill from Missouri. After
serving the state of Missouri as a state legislator, Jackson
County prosecutor, and state auditor, McCaskill made history
in 2006 as the first woman elected to the US Senate from
Missouri. The Democratic senator currently serves on the
Senate Armed Services, Commerce, and Homeland Secu
rity and Governmental Affairs committees, and also chairs
the newly formed Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight.
On the rise in Washington, she is also a darling of the social
edia site Twitter, where she dishes to followers and constim
tuents on defense budgets and senatorial schedules, as well
as on the everyday details of her life. In her lecture, Senator
McCaskill shares her perspective on public service, policies,
and progress forward.
This annual lecture honors the late Joanne H. Alter’s pioneering
work on behalf of women interested in social action and public
service.
Claire McCaskill
Baskes Lecture in History: David Blight The Real Abe Lincolns:
Loving and Hating Lincoln in the American South
315
3–4 pm
$10
David Blight, professor of history at Yale University and one
of the nation’s foremost authorities on the American Civil
War and its legacy, presents the 2009 Baskes Lecture in History. His lecture is timely, falling in the 200th anniversary year
of Lincoln’s birth and in a period of renewed interest in the
nation’s 16th president. Blight is the editor and author of six
books, including A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to
Freedom, Including Their Narratives of Emancipation and the
prizewinning Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American
Memory.
This annual lecture recognizes a generous multiyear contribution
to the Chicago Humanities Festival by Julie and Roger Baskes.
The Not-So-Funny Situation of Alternative Comix 316
4:30–6 pm
$5
We are likely living in the golden age of graphic novels and
alternative comics, but the artists themselves are facing a
significant crisis in the medium’s history: the evaporation of
many of their outlets as alternative newsweeklies and comix
publishers cease publishing their work in the midst of their
32 | 33
own financial calamity. The Chicago Reader’s Michael Miner
hosts a summit meeting with Jules Feiffer and Chris Ware to
examine the crisis and sift for solutions.
Chris Ware
Ourselves as Others See Us 317
4:30–6 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$10
Even as globalization takes hold, foreign journalists continue
to see and tell US news stories from a different perspective
than their American counterparts. One year after the 2008
presidential election, find out how foreign media channels
depict President Obama and the news stories of the moment.
Former Chicago Tribune editor and columnist Charles Madigan,
now presidential writer-in-residence at Roosevelt University,
returns to moderate this annual forum of prominent US-based
international journalists.
The Second City’s Museum Pieces: Sketches at an Exhibition
318
7:30–8:30 pm
$15
The iconic Chicago comedy troupe The Second City celebrates
its 50th anniversary this December. In anticipation of this mile
stone, the Festival and The Second City present a performance
of rare gems from The Second City’s archives. Together these
sketches trace the evolution of the company’s razor-sharp
satire. The performance will feature a group of accomplished
Chicago actors and will include the famous “Museum Piece”
sketch, originally starring Alan Arkin and Barbara Harris. This
sketch focuses on a beatnik’s efforts to woo a college girl
whose only previous encounter with 1950s counterculture
occurred in her English lit class.
Presented in partnership with The Second City
School of Law
Thorne Auditorium
Spertus Institute of
Jewish Studies
Feinberg Theater
Symphony Center
Armour Stage
400
Chicago Tribune
Literary Prize:
Tony Kushner
10 am
11 am
403
Trickster!
404
Simon Schama
Tells Jewish Jokes
12 pm
1 pm
3 pm
409
The Book of Job
and the Comedy
of Suffering
408
Chicago Tribune
Heartland Prizes
2 pm
4 pm
413
Dick Gregory:
The Color of
Funny
5 pm
6 pm
Evening
Sunday, November 8
Auditorium
Harold Washington
Library Center
10 am
11 am
12 pm
401
Author Interview:
Jonathan Lethem
402
The Importance
of Being Playful
1 pm
2 pm
405
Buster Keaton
and Wittgenstein
407
Well Defined:
Michael Salinger
406
Insect Antics:
A Louse-y Sense
of Humor
3 pm
410
Donald
Barthelme
Tribute
4 pm
411
Neighborhood
Writing Alliance:
Where I’m From
412
Robert Mankoff:
Cartoon Caption
Contest
5 pm
6 pm
Evening
414 / 7:30 pm
A Tribute to
Johnny Mercer
sunday, november 8
Sunday, November 8
2009 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize: Tony Kushner
400
10–11 am
Symphony Center
Armour Stage
$15
The Festival is pleased to again host the presentation of the
annual Chicago Tribune Literary Prize. The prize is part of
the Chicago Tribune’s ongoing dedication to reading, writing,
and ideas.
Tony Kushner’s plays include A Bright Room Called Day; Angels
In America, Parts One and Two; Slavs!; Homebody/Kabul; and
Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori.
He has written adaptations of Pierre Corneille’s The Illusion,
S. Ansky's The Dybbuk, and Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person
of Sezuan and Mother Courage and Her Children; as well as
English-language libretti for the operas Brundibar by Hans
Krasa and The Comedy on the Bridge by Bohuslav Martinu.
He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’s film version of
Angels In America, and for Steven Spielberg’s film Munich. His
books include Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of
Virtue and Happiness; Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice
Sendak; The Art of Maurice Sendak, 1980 to the Present; and
Wrestling With Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to
the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict, coedited with Alisa Solomon.
His most recent play, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to
Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, received
its world premiere at the Guthrie Theater in May 2009 and
will open in New York in 2010.
Kushner, arguably the most acclaimed playwright of his
generation, has received numerous accolades, including
the Pulitzer Prize, an Emmy Award, an Oscar nomination,
two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, an Olivier Award, two
Evening Standard Awards, a New York Drama Critics Circle
Award, two London Drama Critics Circle Awards, a Whiting
Writer's Fellowship, the PEN/Laura Pels Award for a MidCareer Playwright, a Spirit of Justice Award from the Gay and
Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, and a Cultural Achieve
ment Award from The National Foundation for Jewish Culture.
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
In 2008, he became the first recipient of the Harold and Mimi
Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award.
Kushner has also earned a reputation as one of the most out
spoken literary figures in America and, in the vein of Arthur
Miller, has insisted through his writing and his public voice
36 | 37
on the playwright’s role as political provocateur. The Chicago
Tribune Literary Prize honors his contribution to American
literature and culture.
All proceeds will benefit the Chicago Tribune Holiday Campaign, a
campaign of Chicago Tribune Charities, a McCormick Foundation
Fund.
Tony Kushner
Author Interview: Jonathan Lethem 401
12–1 pm
$5
In describing his September 2009 novel Chronic City, Jonathan
Lethem says it’s about “a circle of friends that includes a faded
child-star actor, a cultural critic, a hack ghostwriter of auto
biographies, and a city official. And it’s long and strange.”
Judging from Lethem’s prior work, we can also be sure it will
be very funny. The MacArthur Fellow, author of seven novels,
including Fortress of Solitude and the incomparable Motherless
Brooklyn, discusses chronicling Gen X angst with journalist
Victoria Lautman, host and producer of WFMT’s Writers on
the Record.
Jonathan Lethem
McCormick-Deering Lecture: The Importance of Being Playful
402
12–1 pm
$10
Stuart Brown, founder and president of the National Insti
tute for Play, investigates the importance of play in human
development. Brown trained in general and internal medicine,
psychiatry, and clinical research. He became interested in the
sunday, november 8
role of play in human development when he discovered a
common element in the lives of a group of carefully studied
homicidal young males: lack of childhood play. In this lecture,
he discusses the importance of play, the negative consequen
ces of a play-deprived life, and the strong correlation between
success and playful activity.
This annual lecture recognizes a generous multiyear contribution
to the Festival by the McCormick-Deering Foundation.
Trickster!
403
12–1 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$5
The Trickster—sometimes funny, often devious, always
unpredictable—is a familiarly mischievous character in the
folklore of many cultures. In this family program, two tales of
tricksters good and bad come alive through story and dance.
Emily Hooper Lansana and Glenda Zahra Baker of In the Spirit
tell the tale of West Africa’s meddlesome yet helpful Anansi
the Spider. In contrast, the wicked demon king Ravana of the
Hindu epic the Ramayana disguises himself to capture a beau
tiful princess. This story is brought to life with vivid masks and
costumes by Kalapriya Dance, Indian dancer Pranita Jain, and
I Gusti Ngurah Kertayuda of Indonesian Dance of Illinois.
Simon Schama Tells Jewish Jokes 404
12–1 pm
Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies
Feinberg Theater
$10
World-renowned historian and cultural critic Simon Schama is
best known as the droll, erudite host of the BBC’s A History of
Britain and Simon Schama’s Power of Art. But he also indulges
in a secret passion: collecting and recounting a vast array of
Jewish jokes. Schama joins Festival artistic director Lawrence
Weschler to share some of his funniest jokes and unpack
their complex cultural resonances in a sort of klezmer slap
down. Simon Schama is professor of history and art history
at Columbia University and the author of over a dozen books.
His articles have appeared in The New Yorker and the New
York Review of Books.
Simon Schama
38 | 39
Kinetic Comedy in Buster Keaton and Ludwig Wittgenstein
405
1:30–2:30 pm
$5
One of the most unsettlingly dour philosophers of the century
and one of its greatest comic geniuses—come to think of it,
Ludwig and Buster even look separated at birth. But Robert
Goff, professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa
Cruz, suggests that the physical antics of silver screen star
Buster Keaton and the mental high-wire perambulations of
Cambridge don Ludwig Wittgenstein may have even more in
common than that. It’s not just that Keaton can be so philo
sophically profound, it’s that, read properly, Wittgenstein can
turn out to be unexpectedly (if quite wittingly) hilarious.
Insect Antics: A Louse-y Sense of Humor 406
1:30–2:30 pm
$5
Face it: bugs are funny. All those legs, the pullulating anten
nae, the shiny carapace, their general squishiness, the way
they freak us out. May Berenbaum’s day job is professor of
entomology at the University of Illinois; on the side, she’s the
humor columnist for the American Entomologist, contempla
ting everything from cockroach farts to bug-squashing erotica.
Writer Amy Leach, a regular contributor to A Public Space, is
working on a book about caterpillars, pea tendrils, and the
moon. Together they will muse on both the scientific and the
comic sides of insect life—and the intersection of the two.
sunday, november 8
Well Defined: An Irreverent Poke at Vocabulary Definitions
407
2–3 pm
$5
After writing poetry for over 20 years, Michael Salinger had an
epiphany. A veteran of the National Poetry Slam competition,
Salinger recognized the correlation between the rich rhythms
of the English language and the complexities of its vocabulary.
He has since created an innovative teaching method, incor
porating rhyming and vocal performance, that helps youth
understand and remember such challenging vocabulary words
as “credulous” and “instigate.” Playful poems and Salinger’s
animated delivery make this program family-friendly. Salinger
will also discuss his work on stage and in the classroom as a
literary advocate and poetry champion.
2009 Chicago Tribune
Heartland Prize Winners 408
2–3:30 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$15
This annual prize, awarded separately for fiction and non
fiction, recognizes recently published works “embodying the
spirit of the nation’s heartland.” The prizes are part of the
Chicago Tribune’s ongoing dedication to reading, writing, and
ideas.
Fiction: Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
A rich, wonderfully alive novel from one of our most admi
red and best-loved writers, Lark and Termite is Jayne Anne
Phillips’s first book in nine years. Set during the 1950s in
West Virginia and Korea, it is a story of a brother and sister,
and of the power of loss and love, the echoing ramifications
of war, family secrets, dreams and ghosts, and the unseen,
almost magical bonds that unite and sustain us. Phillips is the
author of three other novels, MotherKind, Shelter, and Machine
Dreams, and two collections of widely anthologized stories,
Fast Lanes and Black Tickets.
Nonfiction: Methland by Nick Reding
Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered the most dan
gerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more apparent
than in the small towns of America’s heartland. In Methland,
journalist Nick Reding introduces us to Oelwein, Iowa, pop
ulation 6,126. Like thousands of other rural communities,
40 | 41
Oelwein has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the
agricultural industry and a depressed local economy. The pro
duct of four years of reporting, Methland paints a portrait of
not just one town, but of small town America on the brink,
ultimately offering the very thing that meth took from Oelwein:
hope. Nick Reding is the author of The Last Cowboys at the End
of the World, and his writing has appeared in Outside, Food and
Wine, and Harper’s Bazaar.
All proceeds will benefit the Chicago Tribune Holiday Campaign, a
campaign of Chicago Tribune Charities, a McCormick Foundation
Fund.
The Book of Job and the Comedy of Suffering 409
2:30–3:30 pm
Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies
Feinberg Theater
$5
Is the Bible’s most tragic book actually funny? Radio person
ality and self-described “Torah maven” Aaron Freeman ferrets
out the belly laughs in the tale of history’s longest-suffering
hero. Job’s litany of anguish and over-the-top misery are rife
with comedic possibilities, though Freeman will also help us
see the story’s poignancy and spiritual depth. Freeman and
his wife, artist Sharon Rosenzweig, publish the popular and
controversial online weekly cartoon series The Comic Torah. A
stand-up comedian, Freeman is also a member of the quar
tet The Israeli/Palestinian Comedy Tour, a commentator for
NPR’s All Things Considered, and a frequent performer with
The Second City.
Hiding Man: A Tribute to Donald Barthelme 410
3–4 pm
$5
No Festival celebrating the many shades and fault lines of
laughter would be complete without recognizing the late
Donald Barthelme’s literary contributions. Fans of The New
Yorker fiction writer are in for a treat. Long a favorite of fel
low writers, Barthelme has enjoyed a happy public revival
recently with the publication of Tracy Daugherty’s critically
acclaimed biography, Hiding Man. To celebrate Barthelme’s
work, Daugherty joins novelist Jonathan Lethem and Festival
artistic director Lawrence Weschler in an antic round-robin of
celebration and readings.
sunday, november 8
Neighborhood Writing Alliance: Where I’m From 411
3:30–4:30 pm
$5
The Neighborhood Writing Alliance, publisher of The Journal
of Ordinary Thought, facilitates opportunities for adults in lowincome Chicago neighborhoods to write, publish, and per
form works about their lives. This is your chance to hear their
vivid, original, and thought-provoking stories about laughter
and humor across Chicago. Performer and vocalist Glenda
Zahra Baker directs accompanying percussion, song, and
movement.
Robert Mankoff: Cartoon Caption Contest 412
3:30–4:30 pm
$10
Robert Mankoff is The New Yorker’s cartoon editor and created
the precursor to the magazine’s weekly caption contest in
1998. Over the course of 185 contests since, he has received
more than a million entries. Built on his extensive caption
database, his presentation traces how individual experience
and the cultural climate intersect to create a common comic
landscape for humor. He also offers a peek behind the scenes:
interviews with winners and the stories of their winning ideas,
demographic data on entrants, and a lexicographic analysis
by a dictionary editor. To cap it off, Mankoff unveils a fresh
cartoon for a brand-new contest. (Would-be Festival entrants:
bring your one-liner skills.)
Presented in partnership with the Institute for the Humanities at
the University of Michigan
The Color of Funny: Dick Gregory on Race, Comedy, and Justice
413
5–6 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$10
It’s hard to predict whether Dick Gregory will be most cele
brated as a path-breaking comedian or a trailblazing civil rights
activist. It’s impossible to imagine the history of either move
ment without him—or without the unique way he managed
to blend the two. In the early 1960s, he became one of the
42 | 43
first black comedians to perform before integrated audiences.
In 1967, he ran for mayor of Chicago against Richard J. Daley,
and a year later for president as the Freedom and Peace Party
candidate. The editor of African American Humor: The Best
Black Comedy from Slavery to Today, Gregory is still a staunch,
wry political voice across a range of issues as varied as nutri
tion, social justice, and the environment. Chicago Sun-Times
columnist Laura Washington will interview the provocative
and always unpredictable Gregory.
Dick Gregory
William and Greta Wiley Flory Concert: A Tribute to Johnny Mercer
414
7:30–9 pm
$15
American songwriter Johnny Mercer wrote lyrics for over
200 composers and musicians, including Hoagy Carmichael,
Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Henry Mancini, and André Previn.
From the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s, many of his
songs were among the biggest hits of the time. Author Barry
Day, who with coeditor and Festival favorite Robert Kimball
has compiled Mercer’s complete lyrics in a new book, shapes
a performance that celebrates the timeless musician in the
centenary year of his birth. This concert will feature some
of Mercer’s best-loved tunes, such as “Moon River,” “Blues
in the Night,” and “Satin Doll,” with performances by Klea
Blackhurst, Billy Stritch, Steve Ross, Stefanie Morse, and
Charles Cochran.
This annual celebration of the American Songbook is underwritten
by a generous gift from Greta Wiley Flory in memory of her late
husband Bill, a longtime friend and supporter of the Festival.
monday, november 9
Monday, November 9
Facing History and Ourselves: Community Conversation with Paul Farmer
500
6–7:30 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$10
Partners in Health (PIH) began in 1987 as a small healthcare service for residents of Cange, Haiti. The program quickly
expanded to include training programs for health-care out
reach workers, a mobile unit for preventive screening of area
residents, and an ongoing study of sickness and health among
Haiti’s rural inhabitants. Today, PIH has expanded its reach
across Haiti and into five more countries. Founding director
and medical anthropologist Paul Farmer, the subject of Tracy
Kidder's book Mountains Beyond Mountains, speaks about his
work with PIH and his commitment to global health care.
This program is part of the national speaker series offered
by Facing History and Ourselves, an international and pro
fessional development organization with a commitment to
cultivating a more humane and informed citizenry through
the engagement of students of diverse backgrounds. These
Community Conversations are sponsored by The Allstate
Foundation.
Paul Farmer
Herbert Siguenza: From Cantinflas to Culture Clash
501
7:30–8:30 pm
Wilbur Wright College
Events Building Theater
$5
Charlie Chaplin called Cantinflas the “greatest comic of all
time,” and in 2003, Herbert Siguenza wrote and performed
a tribute that explored Mario Moreno’s beginnings as a per
former in the rough border city of Ciudad Juárez and his path
to icon of the Mexican cinema. In this program, Siguenza
weaves between performance and lecture, stitching together
44 | 45
Cantinflas’s biography with famous film gags and illumina
ting Moreno’s influence on a new generation of comics and
social satirists, including Culture Clash, the most prominent
Chicano/Latino performance troupe in the country. Siguenza
is a founding member.
Presented in partnership with Wilbur Wright College, one of the
City Colleges of Chicago
Tuesday, November 10
John Hodgman: More Information Than You Require
502
6–7 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$10
Befuddled nerds unite! John Hodgman, The Daily Show’s
“famous minor television personality” and resident expert,
and the hapless PC in Apple’s PC vs. Mac commercials, will
read from his most recent book More Information Than You
Require. The book follows the bestselling all-you-need com
pendium of facts The Areas of My Expertise. Hodgman may
hold forth on subjects as diverse as: “The Past (as There Is
Always More of It), The Future (as There Is Still Some Left),
All of the Presidents of the United States, The Secrets of Holly
wood, Gambling, The Sport of the Asthmatic Man (Including:
Hermit-Crab Racing), Strange Encounters with Aliens, How
to Buy a Computer, How to Cook an Owl, and Most Other
Subjects.” Festival artistic director Lawrence Weschler joins
him in conversation to test the depths of his knowledge.
Presented in partnership with The Second City
John Hodgman
wednesday, november 11
Guerrilla Girls: Feminist Masked Avengers 503
7:30–8:30 pm
Museum of Contemporary Art
Theater
$10
Since their first riotous appearance in 1985, the Guerrilla
Girls have dedicated themselves to exposing sexism, racism,
and corruption in the art world, the film industry, and pop
ular culture. Adopting the names of dead women artists and
decked out in full jungle drag, these anonymous avengers use
facts, humor, and outrageous visuals to skewer institutional
bias and inequality. In this program, the Guerrilla Girls give
a guided tour through the history of their many public inter
ventions, perform satirical skits, and inspire us to create our
own sophisticated acts of aesthetic resistance.
Presented in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary
Art and Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and
Gender in the Arts and Media, Columbia College Chicago, and
Ellen Stone Belic
Guerrilla Girls
The Helen B. and Ira E. Graham Family ASCAP Cabaret
504
7:30–9 pm
$20
Pianist Dave Frishberg, a perennial jazz standout, headlines
the Festival’s annual ASCAP Cabaret. Dubbed the “Woody
Allen of song” by the London Daily Telegraph, Frishberg has
penned pieces wry and witty, occasionally tender and bitter
sweet, that defy neat categorization. The man responsible for
classics “Peel Me a Grape,” “I’m Hip,” “You Are There,” “My
Attorney Bernie,” and “Heart’s Desire” shares the stage with
fellow cabaret cats, including soloists Karen Morrow and KT
Sullivan.
Generously sponsored by the Helen B. and Ira E. Graham
Family
46 | 47
Dave Frishberg
Marga Gomez: Long Island Iced Latina 505
7:30–8:30 pm
Theater
$15
Marga Gomez, whom Robin Williams deemed “a lesbian
enny Bruce,” presents her latest solo theater piece in an
L
exclusive Chicago performance. Long Island Iced Latina begins
with a hilariously dark memoir of her time as the only brown
girl in a white high school, then switches gears to deliver a
manifesto for Latinos who can’t speak Spanish, suck at Salsa,
and suffer from Blonditis. “We’re everywhere,” Gomez claims,
“and we vote!” Long Island Iced Latina played to full houses at
Miami’s South Beach Comedy Festival and New York’s Teatro
Stagefest. One of the country’s first openly gay comedians,
the award-winning Gomez is the author/performer of eight
solo plays presented Off Broadway and internationally. She
has appeared on LOGO, Comedy Central, HBO, PBS, and
Showtime.
Presented in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art
Marga Gomez
thursday, november 12
Art Institute of Chicago President’s Lecture: 506
John Adams
The Vinteuil Sonata: Where Music and Literature Collide
6–7 pm
Rubloff Auditorium
Enter at 159 East Monroe Street
$10
Pulitzer Prize–winner John Adams is one of America’s most
admired and respected composers. His operatic works—
including Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, and Doctor
Atomic—are epics that push the boundaries of modern com
position. His best known orchestral piece, On the Transmigration of Souls, commemorated the first anniversary of the 9/11
attacks on the World Trade Center and won the 2003 Pulitzer
Prize for Music. Adams will lecture, with particular emphasis
on novels by Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust, on how some
writers of fiction describe the act of listening to music. This
annual lecture is presented by President and Eloise W. Martin
Director of The Art Institute James Cuno.
Presented in partnership with The Art Institute of Chicago
John Adams
Friday, November 13
Doris Conant Lecture on Women and Culture: Barbara Ehrenreich
507
6–7 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$10
Barbara Ehrenreich, one of the nation’s most incisive and witty
cultural and political commentators (Nickel and Dimed and
Bait and Switch) will draw on one of her recent books, Dancing
in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, to trace the history
of communal celebrations—the groaning feasts, the ecstatic
dancing, the slapdash costumes, the suspended morals—to
consider how such festivals were reshaped by the influence
48 | 49
of the church and the demands of industrial society, and the
degree to which such rituals and revelries survive into this day.
(Anybody remember Grant Park last November 4?)
This annual lecture honors Festival supporter Doris Conant in
recognition of a generous gift to the Chicago Humanities Festival
by the Conant Family Foundation.
Barbara Ehrenreich
Harold Washington
Library Center
Harold Washington
Library Center
Reception Hall
Theater
School of Law
Thorne Auditorium
606
Burnham Centennial
Program: Bold Plans
for the Next 100 Years
12 pm
1 pm
608
Irene Pepperberg
in Conversation
BEXPO
Burnham Centennial Program: Think Big Youth Expo
11 am
602
Laughter and the First
Amendment
10 am
2 pm
610
Burnham Centennial
Program:
The Future of Chicago
611
Torey Malatia on
Radio Humor
3 pm
4 pm
615
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
and Glenda Carpio
5 pm
617 / 7:30 pm
Don Byron Plays
the Music of
Mickey Katz
6 pm
618 / 9:30 pm
Don Byron Plays
the Music of
Mickey Katz
Evening
Chicago History Museum
Rubloff Auditorium
Auditorium
10 am
600
Foot Is a Funny
Word: The Comic
Spirit of Dance
11 am
601
Of Mad Knights
and Dark Helmets
603
Four Women
Talk About
Being Funny
12 pm
604
Wayne
Koestenbaum:
Harpo Marx
605
Terra Foundation
Lecture on
American Art
1 pm
607
Crossing the
Line:
Paul Provenza
2 pm
609
Laughter
Bollywood Style
3 pm
612
Ars Antigua:
Musical Jokes
of the Baroque
613
Ilan Stavans:
The Riddle of
Cantinflas
4 pm
5 pm
614
The Cultural Translation
of Laughter
6 pm
Evening
616 / 7 pm
Yuri Lane:
A Beatbox
Journey
Foot Is a Funny Word: The Comedic Spirit of Dance
600
10–11 am
$5
Elizabeth Zimmer writes about the arts for print, broadcast,
and online media on three continents. She was the dance edi
tor for the Village Voice from 1992 to 2006. In “Foot is a Funny
Word,” Zimmer uses video to peer back to the Renaissance
and scan forward through Romantic ballet and the 20th cen
tury to the present, tracking instances of the funny, the giddy,
and the absurd within the Western concert dance tradition.
Of Mad Knights and Dark Helmets: Parody and Postmodernism in Don Quixote
and Spaceballs
601
10–11 am
$5
With such films as Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein,
Mel Brooks has made a career of spoofing various film genres.
Brooks, of course, is not the first to engage in such paro
dies. Miguel de Cervantes’s masterpiece Don Quixote—which
Cervantes claimed to be first and foremost a parody of the
extremely popular chivalric romances of his day—has been
delighting readers since its publication in 1605. By compa
ring Don Quixote and Brooks’s Spaceballs, Bruce Burningham,
associate professor of Spanish and comparative literature
at Illinois State University, will not only examine the social
function of satire but will also explore Cervantes’s novel as a
postmodern precursor to Brooks’s parody of George Lucas’s
Star Wars films.
Laughter and the First Amendment 602
10–11:30 am
Thorne Auditorium
$5
Parody, mockery, and satire are common tools in a humorist’s
arsenal, and since our nation’s birth they have been used to
ridicule public figures in public debates. When, however, does
52 | 53
this vein of humor cross the legal line? Distinguished jurists
and scholars will discuss comedians and cases that tested
the limits of the First Amendment. Examples include Lenny
Bruce’s obscenity conviction, the Supreme Court decisions
involving George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” monologue,
and the dispute between Jerry Falwell and Hustler magazine
over the outer bounds of permissible parody. Geoffrey Stone,
a leading First Amendment scholar, moderates the panel,
which includes Ronald Collins, scholar at the First Amend
ment Center and coauthor of The Trials of Lenny Bruce, and
Judges William J. Bauer and Diane P. Wood of the US Court
of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Generously sponsored by the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation
Diane P. Wood
Four Women Talk About Being Funny 603
10:30–11:30 am
$5
What do funny and feminine and feminist have to do with each
other? Anything? A lot? Four influential women in Chicago’s
theater scene talk about what they’ve learned about being
funny. With experiences—some funny, some not—in wri
ting, directing, improvising, and acting, their conversation
may range far and wide in search of what role gender plays
in delivering and receiving humor, or if gender plays a role at
all. Martha Lavey, ensemble member and artistic director of
Steppenwolf Theatre, will moderate the roundtable discussion,
which will include Leslie Buxbaum Danzig, actor and director
of 500 Clown; Tanya Saracho, writer, actor, and founding artis
tic director of Teatro Luna; and Lauren Katz, founding member
of ED, a long-form improv group born in Chicago.
Burnham Centennial Program:
Think Big Youth Expo
BEXPO
11 am–4:30 pm
Reception Hall
Free, reservations not required. Space may be limited.
During the 2008–09 school year, students at schools through
out Chicago have explored the city’s relevance to them histori
cally, currently, and personally. Students have also reflected
on Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Chicago and contemplated the
city’s future and their own roles in its stewardship. The result
of this exploration is the Think Big Youth Expo, which will
showcase a selection of student writings and artwork that
represent the big ideas of Chicago’s youth. At this expo, a
capstone to the partnership between the Chicago Humanities
Festival and Chicago Metropolis 2020 in celebration of the
Burnham Plan centennial, student docents will provide the
public with a view of how their creative ideas developed.
Presented in partnership with the Chicago Public Library, Chicago
Matters, and Chicago Metropolis 2020
Wayne Koestenbaum: The Anatomy of Harpo Marx
604
12–1 pm
$5
It’s always tough to shine in the shadow of your siblings,
especially if your last name is Marx. Harpo Marx uttered
nary a word, but his rubber-band limbs and signature harp
spoke volumes. Poet and cultural critic Wayne Koestenbaum
will share his contagious enthusiasm for the silent hilarity
of the mostly mute Marx brother in this one-of-a-kind lec
ture, which he describes as “a loving annotation, a midrash
of Harpo.” Koestenbaum teaches in the English department
of New York’s CUNY Graduate Center and is the author of
many books of nonfiction and poetry, including Best Selling
Jewish Porn Films, The Queen’s Throat, and the novel Moira
Orfei in Aigues-Mortes.
Wayne Koestenbaum
54 | 55
Terra Foundation Lecture on American Art: Jennifer Greenhill
605
12–1 pm
Rubloff Auditorium
$10
The market for humor expanded rapidly in the United States
in the years following the Civil War. By the 1890s, this taste for
comedy had erupted into a “plague of jocularity,” as one writer
put it, and prompted art critics to try to contain it in the realm
of so-called high art. But why was humor so threatening? What
kinds of humor were out of bounds and for whom? Jennifer
Greenhill, who teaches the history of American art at the Uni
versity of Illinois, College of Fine and Applied Arts, will dis
cuss the artists who walked the line between levity and gravity.
Through techniques adopted from the platform comedians
of the day—such as Mark Twain and Artemus Ward—these
visual humorists struck the funny bone by playing it straight.
This annual lecture recognizes a generous multiyear grant from
the Terra Foundation for American Art. The Terra Foundation is
dedicated to fostering the exploration, understanding, and enjoyment of the visual arts in the United States for national and
international audiences.
Burnham Centennial Program: Bold Plans for the Next 100 Years
606
12–1:30 pm
$5
In 2109, what will Chicago look like? What change will have
come to the dwellings in our city and its outskirts, to road
ways and transit, communications networks, technology, and
economies? Will we commute via flying cars? Or no longer
be commuting at all? Join a panel of visionary designers and
thinkers, including urban designer Bruce Mau, architect and
planner Doug Farr, and Cheryle Jackson, president of the
Chicago Urban League, for an exciting look into an imagi
native future. Adele Simmons, vice chair of Chicago Metro
polis 2020, moderates.
Crossing the Line 607
12:30–1:30 pm
$5
Making searing and honest observations about people and
the world around them is a comedian’s stock in trade. But
are there times when comics go too far? Does it matter who,
or how many, are offended by a joke? Does it matter who’s
telling it? Paul Provenza joins Katie Watson for an incisive
conversation exploring the volatile side of comedy. Provenza is
an actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He directed the 2005 film
The Aristocrats and is a regular on Chicago Public Radio’s Wait,
Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! Watson is an attorney, medical ethicist,
and faculty member of The Second City. This program is not
recommended for those who are easily offended. Really.
Irene Pepperberg in Conversation 608
12:30–1:30 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$10
Irene Pepperberg spent 30 years of her career working with
Alex, the world’s most famous parrot. Her recent book Alex
and Me offers both unique insights on the workings of the
avian mind and a tribute to a beloved research partner. In her
talk, Pepperberg will share research findings and thoughts on
animal intelligence and, most crucially, humor, with Alison
Cuddy, host of Chicago Public Radio’s Eight Forty-Eight.
Irene Pepperberg
Laughter Bollywood Style 609
2–3 pm
$5
Jokes and comedy are often culturally specific: the ability to
make and understand a joke —to “get it”—often marks us
as belonging to a particular community. When we laugh or
what we laugh about, and what is or isn’t funny to us, tell us
56 | 57
(and others) where we belong, how we belong, or how we
resist belonging. Using examples from Hindi cinema, known
to global audiences as “Bollywood,” Anuradha Needham will
delve into the cultural specificity of laughter and the famously
entrancing song-and-dance sequence. Needham, a leading
scholar on the prolific Indian director and screenwriter Shyam
Benegal, is professor of English at Oberlin College.
Burnham Centennial Program: The Future of Chicago—How We Get There
610
2:30–4 pm
$5
From neighborhood to city to region, how are innovative plan
ners, activists, and policy makers making a difference on the
ground today, and how will they be leading our city forward
over the next 20 years? This panel considers practical and
immediate solutions to questions about housing, education,
transportation, and the environment and sustainability in
and around our fair city. Panelists include John Fregonese, a
regional planning and transportation expert; Sadhu Johnston,
the City of Chicago’s chief environmental officer; and Carlos
Nelson, executive director, Greater Auburn-Gresham Devel
opment Corporation. Steve Edwards of Chicago Public Radio
moderates.
This American Laugh: Torey Malatia on Radio Humor
611
2:30–3:30 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$10
President of Chicago Public Radio and cofounder of the hit
radio series This American Life, Torey Malatia is the butt of
Ira Glass’s radio jokes on a weekly basis. Listen and laugh as
Malatia, having scoured the audio archives, shares humorous
radio stories, jokes old and new, and a cornucopia of laughout-loud audio playfulness.
Presented in partnership with Chicago Public Radio, and gen
erously sponsored by Carol Rosofsky and Robert Lifton
Ars Antigua: Musical Jokes of the Baroque 612
3–4 pm
$15
Chicago’s Ars Antigua, led by Jerry Fuller, is dedicated to pre
senting music of the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras,
will perform a selection of musical jokes on period instru
ments. A musical joke, however, is a subtle and slippery thing.
To give the gags some traction, David Schrader, professor of
music at Roosevelt University, will discuss with the audience
what can make a piece of music funny. The program will in
clude Leopold Mozart’s Die Schlittenfahrt (The Ice Journey),
W. A. Mozart’s A Musical Joke, and excerpts from Haydn’s
“Joke” quartet, as well as works by Michel Corette and Georg
Philipp Telemann.
Ilan Stavans: The Riddle of Cantinflas 613
3–4 pm
$5
To US audiences he was simply the devoted valet Passepart
out in the 1956 film Around the World in 80 Days, but Mario
Moreno “Cantinflas” was one of Mexico’s most prolific actors,
appearing in more than 50 films. Ilan Stavans, Amherst Col
lege professor of Latin American and Latino culture, asserts
Cantinflas was not just a popular entertainer but also a verifi
able genius whose work redefined Latino humor. Designed as
a journey through Cantinflas’s 60-year career with Stavans as
guide, this program examines the indelible legacy of Cantinflas
through film and archival materials.
Generously sponsored by Maria Bechily and Art Velasquez,
president, Azteca Foods
The Cultural Translation of Laughter 614
4–5:30 pm
$10
Did you ever hear the one about the guy who turned into
a bug? Franz Kafka's friend and biographer Max Brod often
recalled how, when Kafka read his latest stories out loud to
friends, listeners would actually roll on the floor, convulsing
with laughter. In the United States, though, Kafka and other
58 | 59
eastern European writers such as Chekhov gained reputa
tions as serious and dramatic writers, even bleak and dour.
In a daring stab at reclamation, Bosnian-born, Chicago-based
novelist Aleksandar Hemon and the team behind the radio
series Stories on Stage bring Kafka, Chekhov, and other twisted,
funny stories to life in this unique program: at once an uproar
ious performance, a moving tribute, and a fascinating look at
the mysteries of cultural translation.
Black Humor: Reflections on an American Tradition with
Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Glenda Carpio
615
4:30–6 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$10
Cultural critic Henry Louis Gates Jr., a distinguished national
leader in African American Studies and director of the W. E. B.
Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at
Harvard University, joins forces with Glenda Carpio, author of
Laughing Fit to Kill: Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery, for
a discussion examining the rich and radical tradition of black
humor, satire, and wit. Together they will explore how comedy
has been used to confront the injustices of slavery and racism
in America. Carpio will illustrate the discussion with video
clips of Richard Pryor, Dave Chappelle, and Wanda Sykes.
Presented in partnership with the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences
Yuri Lane: From Tel Aviv to Ramallah, A Beatbox Journey
616
7–8:30 pm
$15
With a synergy of beatboxing and storytelling, Chicago-based
performance artist Yuri Lane breathes new life and humanity
into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this hip-hop travelogue
of peace, the lives of two young men, one Israeli and the
other Palestinian, collide at a West Bank checkpoint against
a soundscape of dance club beats, muezzin calls, and Tel
Aviv traffic. Video disc jockey Sharif Ezzat provides amazing
live visual backdrops for this tour-de-force play, written and
directed by professor Rachel Havrelock. The New York Times
heralded the show as “vivid, heartening,” and the Chicago
Tribune dubbed it “a coolly extraordinary 55 minutes.”
Yuri Lane
Don Byron Plays the
Music of Mickey Katz
617 & 618
7:30–8:45 pm • 9:30–10:45 pm
Theater
$20/$10 students general admission
Free tickets are not available for Charter Humanist Circle
members and teachers.
Mickey Katz was a multifaceted mid 20th-century man: clar
inetist, klezmer bandleader, and musical director for Spike
Jones. The preeminent song parodist of the 1950s, Katz
combined Yiddish lyrics and popular American standards in
giddy cultural mash-ups. In 1993, jazz musician Don Byron
rediscovered the music of this American pioneer and ignited
klezmer’s revival with the Nonesuch album Don Byron Plays
the Music of Mickey Katz. This concert tribute features nine
musicians, led by multi-instrumentalist Byron, in a reunion
of that album’s virtuosic ensemble.
Presented in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art
Don Byron
Auditorium
School of Law
Thorne Auditorium
10 am
700
Margo Jefferson:
Mae West and
Hattie McDaniel
11 am
12 pm
1 pm
704
Commedia
dell’arte:
Managing Chaos
708
A Beckett Brouhaha:
The Neo-Futurists and
Lucky Plush Productions
4 pm
709
All Jokes Aside:
Film and Discussion
3 pm
705
Gallows Humor:
Medical Ethics
and Laughter
2 pm
5 pm
Evening
710
Poets in Conversation:
Billy Collins and Kay Ryan
6 pm
11 am
12 pm
1 pm
2 pm
3 pm
706
Scared Silly:
Mad Scientists
and the Movies
10 am
701
Bob Sabiston:
Drawing with Life
707
When the World
Comes to Visit
Sunday, November 15
Rubloff Auditorium
702
E. Patrick
Johnson:
Pouring Tea
703
First Generation American
Humor: Firoozeh Dumas
and Sandra Tsing Loh
4 pm
5 pm
6 pm
Evening
sunday, november 15
Sunday, November 15
Margo Jefferson: Blackface, Whiteface—
Hattie McDaniel and Mae West
700
10:30–11:30 am
Thorne Auditorium
$5
Here’s what these great performers, born a year apart, shared:
a background in vaudeville and blues, great comic timing, and
a gift for playing against and along with cultural expectations.
Each used blackface and whiteface traditions to her own end.
West was given room to shape her sumptuously insolent image.
McDaniel received a handful of race directives—be bossy, be
loud, talk dialect, fuss but always obey your superiors—and
turned these ingredients into a memorable character. Margo
Jefferson, cultural critic, Pulitzer Prize winner, author of On
Michael Jackson, and professor at Columbia University and
Eugene Lang College, The New School, uncovers the simi
larities and differences between West and McDaniel in their
respective quests for laughs and larger-than-life personas.
Generously sponsored by the Lohengrin Foundation
Bob Sabiston: Drawing with Life 701
12–1 pm
$10
Accomplished filmmaker Bob Sabiston may be best known
for his groundbreaking work on indie favorites Waking Life
and Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly, but his short films
were the first to showcase his wholly original technique of
merging live-action and animation. Sabiston will screen two of
his short animated films and discuss his work as a filmmaker,
graphics programmer, and software innovator.
64 | 65
Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Stories
702
12–1 pm
Rubloff Auditorium
$5
In this lecture-performance, writer E. Patrick Johnson provides
a glimpse into the lives of several subjects from his book Sweet
Tea: Black Gay Men of the South. In the book, Johnson subverts
countless preconceptions of black gay subcultures thriving in
just about every imaginable rural and religious milieu in the
South. In addition to the performance, Johnson will describe
the journey of researching his book and his interpretation of
the true stories it contains.
First Generation American Humor: Firoozeh Dumas and Sandra Tsing Loh
703
1:30–3 pm
$10
Part performance and part conversation, this program will
follow two of the country’s premier women humorists as
they train their exquisitely particular ethnic vantages on such
knotty topics as race, religion, and the cultural conundrums
of immigrant life. Firoozeh Dumas, author of Funny in Farsi
and Laughing Without an Accent: Adventures of an IranianAmerican, at Home and Abroad will recount how a girl from
Abadan ended up as a comic writer in America, a country
where the words “Iran” and “humor” rarely find their way into
the same sentence.
Writer and pubic radio regular Sandra Tsing Loh will perform
“My Father’s Chinese Wives,” a short selection from her OffBroadway solo show Aliens in America, a darkly comic and semiautobiographical tale of growing up in your typical middleclass Chinese-German household in southern California.
Presented in partnership with Silk Road Theatre Project
Firoozeh Dumas
Sandra Tsing Loh
sunday, november 15
Commedia dell’arte: Managing Chaos 704
1:30–2:30 pm
$10
The Doctor is in! Il Dottore (the Doctor), one of commedia’s
classic characters and an unapologetic busybody and knowit-all, guides us through the rich history and delightfully
silly machinations of commedia dell’arte—literally, the art
of comedy. Joined by a band of merry pranksters, Thomas
Simpson, senior lecturer in Italian at Northwestern University,
explores the characters, masks, and performance structures
behind the apparent anarchy of what many consider to be
the first incarnation of physical comedy. Collaborators include
Italian director and teacher Paolo Coletta and perfomers David
Gaines and Sean Michael Kaplan, all trained at the legendary
Jacques Lecoq School in Paris. Marx Brothers fans, take heed!
Presented in partnership with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura,
Chicago and the Kaplan Center for the Humanities at Northwestern University
Gallows Humor: Medical Ethics and the Dark Side of Laughter
705
1:30–2:30 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$5
Pain can generate as much laughter as joy can. When does
humor in a difficult situation help, and when does it hurt?
Katie Watson is a medical ethicist and attorney on the faculty
of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s
groundbreaking Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program.
She is also on the faculty of The Second City Training Center. In
this first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary program, Watson draws
from psychology, philosophy, theater, literature, and law to
consider backstage storytelling in medicine, and the ethics of
humor as a coping mechanism in difficult professions.
Scared Silly: Mad Scientists and the Movies 706
3–4 pm
$5
From Victor Frankenstein and Dr. Moreau to their modern
counterparts, mad scientists have long appeared in sciencefiction and horror movies—though sometimes only to raise
66 | 67
From Victor Frankenstein and Dr. Moreau to their modern
counterparts, mad scientists have long appeared in sciencefiction and horror movies—though sometimes only to raise
a laugh. In this discussion of the mad scientist and popular
culture, film historian Scott Curtis, physicist Sidney Perkowitz,
and astrophysicist Rocky Kolb explore the stereotype of the
mad scientist, examine his role, and dissect the meaning of
this kind of humor in science fiction and horror.
When the World Comes to Visit 707
3–4 pm
Rubloff Auditorium
$5
In February and March 2010, Canada will host the Olympic
and Paralympics Winter Games. Beyond the showcasing of
outstanding athletic and cultural performances, the games
can touch the soul of a nation, inspiring people of all ages,
prompting community celebration and pride, fostering unity,
embracing diversity, and instilling a genuine spirit of peace in
us all. Michael Chambers, president of the Canadian Olympic
Committee and member of the Vancouver Olympic Commit
tee board of directors, discusses the role of the upcoming
games in creating champions at home and at play while
pursuing the ideal of a world made better through sport and
cultural exchange.
Presented in partnership with the Canadian Consulate General
in Chicago
A Beckett Brouhaha: The Neo-Futurists and Lucky Plush Productions
708
3:30–5 pm
$15
“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness,” wrote Samuel Beckett
in his great play Endgame. The Festival salutes this funniest
of unhappy playwrights with a unique program featuring
two of Chicago’s most innovative performance companies.
Lucky Plush Productions performs Endplay, a vibrant dance
piece inspired by one of Beckett’s short dramas, and the NeoFuturists present excerpts from their award-winning original
work The Complete Lost Works Of Samuel Beckett As Found In
An Envelope (partially burned) In A Dustbin In Paris Labeled
‘Never to be performed. Never. Ever. EVER! Or I'll Sue! I'LL SUE
FROM THE GRAVE!!!’
sunday, november 15
All Jokes Aside: Film and Discussion 709
3:30–5 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$5
All Jokes Aside was a comedy club in Chicago’s South Loop
that primarily featured the work of black stand-up comedians.
For most of the 1990s, All Jokes Aside was one of the preeminent comedy clubs in the country, giving early exposure
and paychecks to young comedians like Steve Harvey, Jamie
Foxx, Cedric the Entertainer, D. L. Hughley, Carlos Mencia,
and Bernie Mac. Veteran TV producer John Davies and former
club owner Raymond C. Lambert share stories from the club’s
glory days and show pre-release excerpts from their film A
Funny Business: The Rise and Fall of All Jokes Aside, which uses
archival film footage and interviews with many of the head
liners to chronicle the club’s major contribution to Chicago’s
comedic legacy. Chicagoan Reid Brody is the film’s executive
producer.
Poets in Conversation: Billy Collins and Kay Ryan 710
6–7:30 pm
Thorne Auditorium
$10
California-based Kay Ryan is in the midst of her second year
long term as US poet laureate; New Yorker Billy Collins served
a pair of terms earlier this decade. Both are wry and sly, wise
and capacious, and both are beloved. The prospect of the
two of them onstage together, trading insights and verse, fills
us with delighted anticipation. Collins, winner of the 2005
Mark Twain Prize for Humor in Poetry, is the author of the
anthologies Picnic, Lightning, Sailing Alone Around the Room,
and Ballistics, among others. Ryan won the 2004 Ruth Lilly
Poetry Prize, and her books include Say Uncle and The Niagara
River.
Presented in partnership with The Poetry Foundation
Billy Collins
Kay Ryan

Additional Information
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CHF Education
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Presenter Index
Thanks
70 | 71
additional information
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you renew or join us today?
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Charter Humanists: $2,500 and above
›› 2 all-access Red Badges that provide free admis
sion and preferred seating to all Festival programs,
excluding the benefit gala and other specially priced
programs
›› Personalized Festival planning services
›› Free Friends-level gift membership
›› Charter Humanists above $5,000 receive additional
Red Badges
72 | 73
* Red Tickets must be reserved in advance and include free
admission and preferred seating to a fall Festival program
of your choice, excluding the benefit gala and other specially
priced programs.
Other Ways to Give
Endowment
The Thinking Ahead Endowment helps ensure the future of
CHF by providing a source of income for Festival programs in
perpetuity. Your contribution helps ensure the CHF will continue to provide affordable education and enlightenment.
Planned Giving
If you would like to know more about tax-deferred or life
income gifts, please call 312-661-1028 ext. 16.
To become a member or make a gift, please visit
www.chicagohumanities.org or call 312-661-1028 ext. 15.
Endowed Series
Karla Scherer Endowed Lecture Series for the
University of C
hicago
Recognizing a significant gift to the CHF endowment from
board member Karla Scherer, the Festival annually engages
the University of Chicago in the creation of programs of interest to both the campus community and the larger Festival
audience. Many of these programs include current or retired
University of Chicago faculty members or distinguished
alumni. Pages 14–19
The Marilynn Thoma Endowed Chair
The Festival’s artistic director provides the creative vision and
leadership that ensures that the Festival’s programs are fresh
and informative and feature outstanding speakers and performers. Through a significant endowment gift from board member Marilynn Thoma and her husband Carl Thoma, the CHF
is fortunate to have the ability to recruit talented visionaries.
CHF artistic director Lawrence Weschler holds the Thoma
Chair. Festival programs featuring Weschler include:
›› Program 404, page 38
The Richard Gray Endowment for the Visual Arts
A significant gift to the CHF endowment from founding board
member and vice chair emeritus Richard Gray underwrites
the Festival’s visual arts programs. These programs encour
age wider appreciation of visual culture while helping a new
generation of observers and collectors develop a refined
artistic eye. This year’s speaker is Jules Feiffer.
Donors
Philanthropic support keeps the Chicago Humanities Festival
thoughtful, lively, and accessible. We gratefully acknowledge all gifts
of $250 or more received from July 1, 2008 through July 1, 2009.
‡ Includes In-Kind Support
§ Includes Endowment Contribution
* Includes support to Digital Initiative
Corporations, Foundations,
Public Sector
$250,000 and above
Target Stores ‡
$100,000–$249,999
IconNicholson LLC ‡
McCormick Foundation
$50,000–$99,999
Allstate
American Airlines ‡
Kirkland & Ellis, LLP ‡
Nuveen Investments Polk Bros. Foundation The John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation $25,000–$49,999
Chicago Magazine ‡
Chicago Sinfonietta ‡
Francis W. Parker School ‡
Northwestern University,
Alice Kaplan Institute for
the Humanities ‡
Terra Foundation for
American Art The Crown Family Turner Advertising ‡
Verizon Wireless ‡
$15,000–$24,999
Chauncey and Marion Deering
McCormick Foundation Museum of Contemporary Art ‡
Northern Trust Company People’s Energy Science Chicago University of Illinois at
Chicago ‡
WBEZ 91.5 FM ‡
$10,000–$14,999
Chicago Department of Cultural
Affairs ‡
Chicago Public Library, Harold
Washington Library Center ‡
Chicago Tribune Harris Bank Hugh M. Hefner Foundation Illinois Arts Council Poetry Foundation ‡
The Boeing Company $5,000–$9,999
Blue Plate ‡
Chicago History Museum ‡
Chicago Life Magazine ‡
Chicago Park District CWR Pediatric Cardiology First United Methodist Church
at The Chicago Temple Illinois Humanities Council John R. Halligan Charitable Fund
Lohengrin Foundation Inc. Orchestra Hall at Symphony
Center ‡
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund
The Irving Harris Foundation The Regenstein Foundation The Richard H. Driehaus
Foundation The University of Chicago
University of Illinois
at Chicago ‡ Winston & Strawn LLP $2,500–$4,999
Alsdorf Foundation The Art Institute of Chicago ‡
Eli’s Cheesecake ‡
Lannan Foundation Ploughshares Fund Ruzicka & Associates, Ltd. ‡
Spertus Institute of Jewish
Studies ‡
The Ellen Stone Belic Institute for
the Study of Women and
Gender in the Arts and Media,
Columbia College Chicago The Rhoades Foundation $1,000–$2,499
BBJ Linen ‡
Chicago Climate Exchange
Chicago Reader ‡
Court Theatre ‡
DuSable Museum of African
American History ‡
International House Global
Voices Program ‡
Miller, Shakman & Beem, LLP The Newberry Library ‡
Wilbur Wright College ‡
$500–$999
National Museum of Mexican
Art www.chicagohumanities.org | 312-494-9509
Individual Donors
$250,000 and above
Barbara and Richard J. Franke *
$75,000–$249,999
Anne and Bill Fraumann *
Mary L. and Richard Gray *
Susan and Lewis Manilow *
Marilynn and Carl Thoma * § ‡
$50,000–74,999
Ann and John Amboian *
Kimberly and R. Scott Falk *
Harve A. Ferrill *
The Mayer and Morris Kaplan
Family Foundation *
$25,000–$49,999
Anonymous Julie and Roger Baskes §
Michelle L. Collins *
Ellen and Paul Gignilliat *
Merle Reskin Gail and Timothy Schwertfeger *
Mr. and Mrs. Harrison I.
Steans *
Marcie and Avy Stein *
Molly and Christopher
Stephan *
$15,000–$24,999
Jean and John Berghoff *
Ms. Allegra E. Biery and Mr. René
Cornejo Ira E. Graham Emily and Christopher N. Knight Richard and Judith Stern Family
Foundation $10,000–$14,999
Family of Joanne Alter
Mary and Carl Boyer Liz and Kent Dauten Deborah and S. Cody Engle Greta Wiley Flory Ginger Gassel Mary Louise Gorno Julie and Parker Hall Ruth P. Horwich §
Pam and John R. McCambridge Nancy A. Lauter and Alfred L.
McDougal Charitable Fund Karla Scherer Scott C. Smith Marge and Don Sveen *
$5,000–$9,999
Anonymous Anonymous Anonymous Lucy and Peter Ascoli Ellen S. Belic Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Berghorst
Joyce Bixler Bottum
Gilda and Henry Buchbinder
Kay and Matthew Bucksbaum
74 | 75
Ann and Roger Cole
Doris and Howard Conant
Charlotte and James Delaney
Quinn and Bob Delaney
Nancie and Bruce Dunn
Denise and Gary Gardner
Virginia and Gary Gerst
Lois and Marty Hauselman
Barbara and Jim Herst
Mary P. Hines
Barbara and Garrett Johnson
Marie A. Lona and Brad Coolidge
Judith E. Neisser §
Jerry Newton and David
Weinberg Alexandra and John Nichols Susan and Ted Oppenheimer Christine and Michael Pope Carol Rosofsky and Robert B.
Lifton ‡
Debbie and Jeff Ross Esther S. Saks Heather Steans and Leo Smith Grace and John Stanek Judy and Michael Stein Takiff Family Foundation Herbert S. Wander $2,500–$4,999
Anonymous Doris and Laurence Ashkin
Mr. and Mrs. Philip D. Block, III
Susan Bowey
Sallie and Allan Bulley
The Butz Foundation
Lenore and Douglas Cameron
Ann and Richard Carr
Jane and John Chapman
Gail and Richard Elden
Beatrice and Samuel Ellis
Joan and Robert Feitler
Judy and Clif Fenton
Adrian Foster
Karen and Jim Frank
Mary and Terry Franke
Maurice and Muriel F. Fulton
Judith and Mickey Gaynor
Ethel and William Gofen
Alfred G. Goldstein
Mary Kathryn Hartigan
Susan and George Heisler
Eileen and David Hovey
Deone Griffith Jackman and
Eugene Goldwasser
Paula R. Kahn
Anne and Burton Kaplan
Judy and John Keller
Anne and John C. Kern
Diana and Neil King
Judy and J. Philip Kirk
Jeanne Klauber
Patricia and Martin Koldyke
Molly Lazar
Audrey and Eric Lester
Julius Lewis
Elizabeth Amy Liebman
Mary and Lars Lofgren
Kay and Jim Mabie
Roberta and George Mann
Sonia Marschak
Patty and Mark McGrath
Jeanine and Andrew McNally
Lucy and Edward Minor
Linda and David Moscow
Jean and Jordan Nerenberg
Arthur C. Nielsen, Jr.
Henry Nord
Penny and Bill Obenshain
Michelene Polk and Robert
Harper
Margot and Thomas J. Pritzker
Family Foundation Ruth Ann and Neil Quinn Sandy Rau Ann and Tom Rodhouse Sheli and Burton Rosenberg Babette H. Rosenthal Judy and Warner Rosenthal Susan B. and Myron E. Rubnitz Shirley W. and Patrick G. Ryan Cynthia M. Sargent and Robert E.
Sargent Barbara and Gene Schmitt Maureen and Marc Schulman ‡
Mrs. Rose L. Shure Adele Simmons Anita and Prabha Sinha Kelly Standing James H. Stone Mr. and Mrs. Jerome H. Stone Jean Stremmel Pamela B. Strobel Peggy Sullivan Anne and William Tobey Laura and Bob Watson Florette and Robert Weiss Iris Witkowsky Barbara Zenner $1,000–$2,499
Susan S. and Lawrence Aaron Earl Abramson James L. Alexander §
Anonymous Anonymous
Judy Wise and Sheldon Baskin
Mr. and Mrs. Gerald I. Bauman
Jeanette and Ben Beavers
Suzanne and William Bettman
Dr. Andrea Billhardt
George W. Blossom, III
Nancy and George Bodeen
Jane and Stephen Coley
Linda F. Cushman
Wendy and James Daverman
Barbara and Charles Denison
Alice and Edwin R. DuBose
Barbara and Tom Filippini
Joan and Martin Fox
Mitzi and Cyrus F. Freidheim
Joel M. Friedman Suzanne and Albert Friedman Darlene and Larry Gilford Mr. and Mrs. James J. Glasser Jean and Steven Goldman Mr. and Mrs. Thomas D. Heath Lisa and Jack Heitman Denise and Jerry Hickey Jan and Robert Hirsch Gail and Thomas Hodges Angie and Tom Holleb Mr. and Mrs. R. Thomas
Howell, Jr. Caroline and Charles Huebner Pamela and Roger Hull Carolyn and Clark Hulse *
Barbara Huyler Mary Ittelson and Rick Tuttle
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Karger
Mr. and Mrs. Jack Karp
Diane and Byron C. Karzas
Carolyn and Howard Katz
Kip Kelley
Suzanne Krueckeberg
Tina and Richard Lieberman
John and Martha Mabie
Linda and Denny Mayer
Ann and John H. McDermott
Jane and Bruce McLagan
Barbara and Richard Metzler
Sandi and Michael Miller
Lucy and Edward Minor
Brooks and Howard Morgan
Leslie and Arthur Muir
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph E. Nathan
Claire and Gordon Prussian
Audrey and Michael Rubinstein
Edna and Richard Schade
Kay Torshen and Alan
Schriesheim
Carol W. and James L. Schroeder
Grace and John Stanek
Pamela and Mike Starr
Tammy and Eric Steele
Mary and Harvey Struthers
Jeanne M. Sullivan
Helen and Dick Thomas
Fred L. Turner
Penny and John Van Horn
Tina and William Wardrop
Dr. and Mrs. Charles Watts
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Weil
Laura and Michael Werner
Ms. Jane Woldenberg
Ann S. Wolff
Thyra E. Zerhusen and Robert
Gustafson
$500–$999
Annette Bacola
Beverly Blettner
Elin and Stanley Christianson
Ann Cunniff
Constance and Peter Dickinson
Murrell Higgins Duster
Lorna C. Ferguson and Terry
Clark
Rita Franke
Sherry and Richard Frenzel
Sylvia Gordon
Sue and Melvin Gray
Sally Hands
Joyce E. Hodel
Nancy A. Horner
Mr. and Mrs. Justin S. Huscher
Ruth and Stephen Jackson
Jan and Bill Jentes
Mr. and Mrs. Paul Frederick Kahn
William Ketchum
Marian Kneafsey
Bob Kuppenheimer
Jane Y. Lahey
Carolyn S. Levin
Judith and Bill Locke
Mr. and Mrs. Donald Lord
Ann and Richard Marcus
Sue and Phil Marineau
Michelle McCarthy
Jack and Louise Mills
Judy C. Petty
Ellard Pfaelzer, Jr.
Betty and Tom Philipsborn
Lori and Laurence Rubin
Mrs. Bruce Sents
Susan and David A. Sherman
Roberta and Howard A. Siegel
Maxine and Larry Snider
Perry J. Snyderman
Liz Stiffel
May and Ted Swan
Deana and Lyman Welch
Joanna and Lawrence Weschler
Mary and Paul Yovovich
Bobbi Zabel
$250–$499
Ada and Whitney Addington
Joe and Susan Adler
Marcia and Howard Aduss
Sheila and James Amend
Charles and Dale Carol Anderson
Anonymous
Peggy Gudenas and Cedric
Antosiewicz
David and Suzanne Arch
Guneuz D. Ast
Mrs. Dimitri Azar
Bradford L. Ballast
Frank V. Battle
Marlene and Buzz Baumgarten
Mr. and Professor Henry S.
Bienen
Heather and Richard Black
Jose Perez-Sanz and Catherine
Bosher
Alan Brodie
Adrienne and Arnold Brookstone
Alice Brunner
Virginia and Roger Carlson
Cleve Carney and Kay Schmitt
Sylvia and Nils Cederberg
Debbie and William Cernugel
Joyce and Bruce Chelberg
Dee Dee Chesley
76 | 77
Harriet and Myron Cholden
Marge and Lewis Collens
Dolores Connolly
Margaret Corwin and Paul
LeRoux
Rhonda J. Cox
Mr. and Mrs. John V. Crowe
David Curtis
Mr. and Mrs. Alfred D‘Ancona
Inge de la Camp
Jane and William Doepke
Ingrid and Richard Dubberke
Carol Eastin
Nancy Marder and Jeremy Eden
Gail and C. D. Eder
T. W. Eller
Mrs. Richard Firfer
Patty and Bob Fitzgerald
Marcia Flick
Susan and Jim Florsheim
Ann and Arthur Fox
Judith R. Freeman
Marcia and Tom Fritz
Terri and Stephen Geifman
Carol and Jerry Ginsburg
Sue and Wayne Glassman
June and Alvin Golin
Mr. Thomas A. Gorman, IV
Carol and Alan Greene
Neil and Maureen Hamilton
Cap and Carroll Haney
Lorill and Patrick Haynes
Dr. and Mrs. Arthur L. Herbst
Shirley Kitzmann and Thomas
Hilgart
Judith A. Hinchman
Benjamin W. Hulse
Mary Slivon and Douglas
Hurdelbrink
Lorraine and Jay Jaffe
Jeannie and Edward James
Mr. and Mrs. Edward R. James
Leigh S. Johnson
Maryanne C. Kalin-Miller
Mort Kaplan
Richard F. Kaufman
Connie and Dennis J. Keller
Bill and Julie Kellner
Meghan Kennedy
Leslie and Thomas Kennedy
Jewell and Gerould Kern
Carol and Loring Knoblauch
Beth A. Landsman
Ramsey Lewis
Jan and Philip Lewis
Lois Lipton and Peter Carey
Mrs. Frank Little
Sue Lodgen
Mary and Charles Lofgren
Renée Logan
Anne S. and Edward W. Lyman
Fred and Una Malkinson
Karen and Andrew McGhee
Gary Metzner
Mrs. Donald S. Miller
Lois and Robert Moeller
Cynthia and Lawrence Mollner
Paula and Herbert Molner
Dawn C. Netsch
Tom Nicholson
Catherine and Oliver Nicklin
Sheila O’Brien and Wayne
Anderson
Nan Ochs
Mr. and Mrs. Julian A. Oettinger
Peter Landon
Lynn B. Pearl
Barbara and Sanford Peck
Jane and Donald Perkins
Mary Jane Pollack
Bobbie and Charles Price
Myra and John Reilly
Kathy and Jack Riley
Kathy Roe and Jack Rovner
Gail and Richard L. Rosseau
Judith and Robert Rothschild
Pauline Schultz and David J.
Rudis
Jones and Michael Runkle
Drs. Safinaz and Nabil Saleh
Deloris and Harold Sanders
Judith and David Saunders
John Scanlon
Edna and Richard Schade
Jessica and Gary Schaer
Shirley and John Schlossman
Lilavati and David Sinclair
Junie and Dorothy Sinson
Peggy and David Snyder
Linda and George Stevenson
Ms. Sarah Stewart and Mr. James
Cuno
Josie Strauss
Richard and Rosemary Tourville
Jan and Bruce Tranen
David and Maxine Unger
Dr. and Mrs. Jeffery S. Vender
Marsha and Stuart Weis
Penelope Whiteside
Sue and Robert Wieseneck
Carol and Elwyn Winston
Ruth and Norman Zachary
Charles Zugerman
Board of Directors
Officers
Willard Fraumann
Chair
Jean S. Berghoff
Vice Chair
Harve Ferrill
Vice Chair and Secretary
Karla Scherer
Vice Chair
Avy H. Stein
Vice Chair and Treasurer
Marilynn J. Thoma
Vice Chair
Directors
John P. Amboian
Allegra E. Biery
Mary A. Boyer
Michelle L. Collins
R. Scott Falk
Denise Gardner
Mary Louise Gorno
Clark Hulse
Christopher N. Knight
Marie A. Lona
John R. McCambridge
Scott C. Smith
Grace K. Stanek
Harrison Steans
Christopher Q. Stephan
Emeriti Board of
Directors
Officers
Richard J. Franke
Founding Chair
Richard Gray
Founding Vice Chair
Directors
Paul C. Gignilliat
Morris A. Kaplan
Ruth Ann Quinn
Richard J. Stern
Donald E. Sveen
John A. Wing
Staff
Mary Kate Barley-Jenkins
Director, Programming
Rem Cabrera
Development Director,
Institutional Giving
Saloni Dar
Associate Director, Development
& Administration
Alice DuBose
Adjunct Development Officer
Stuart Flack
Executive Director
Joan M. Fox
Managing Director
Heidi Hewitt
Associate Director,
Planning and Production
Matthew Heinrich
Webmaster / Technical Director
Heather Irwin
Associate Manager,
Patron Services
Gabriela C. Jirasek
Marketing and New Media
Associate
Johanna Kasimow
Program Coordinator
Jara Kern
Associate Director, Marketing
and Communications
Dana Lambert
Operations and Volunteer
Coordinator
Alexis MacLennan
Production Coordinator
Julia Mayer
Senior Program Manager
Audrey L. Peiper
Director, Individual Giving
Carol Rosofsky
Counsel to Development,
Programming and Special Events
Lawrence Weschler
Artistic Director
Interns
Fall 2008: Stephanie Dybel,
Andrew Ledet, Yani Soriano, Stanzi
Vaubel
Winter–Spring 2009: Jessica Bell,
Chelsea Finger, Elizabeth Goetz,
Austin Pruett, Jake Simpson,
Steffen Willeweit
Summer 2009: Emily Alexander,
Elizabeth Espindola, Elizabeth
Goetz, Corrina Lesser, Kristen
Strobbe, Noreen Wasti, Steffen
Willeweit
80 | 81
Nearly 5,000 adults, children, teachers, and families attended
the 2009 Stages, Sights & Sounds Festival, formerly known
as the Children’s Humanities Festival. This year, the Festival
offered more than 40 performances, with artists representing
five countries, at venues in Chicago and Evanston. Performers
and performances with international flavor included Italy’s
Teatro di Piazza D’Occasione’s Butterflies; Germany’s Theater
Handgemenge in A King’s Journey; Mexico’s Marionetas de
la Esquina with A Moon between Two Houses; and England’s
James Campbell in a stand-up comedy show for kids. Chicago
partners included Northwestern University’s Theatre and
Interpretation Center for How Can You Run with a Shell on
Your Back?, Barrel of Monkeys with Words@PLAY, the Mary
and Leigh Block Museum of Art, and Kathe Telingator and
Michael Edgar Myers of Stories on Stage.
Stages, Sights & Sounds returns next spring with a terrific
array of unique performances, arts, and humanities events
for people of all ages.
CHF Education
The mission of the Chicago Humanities Festival Education
program is to plant and cultivate a passion for the humanities
in educational communities, offering educators and students
diverse, dynamic learning opportunities. By nurturing an active
personal relationship with the humanities, the CHF ignites
lifelong learners. While CHF Education programs reflect the
yearly theme of the Fall Festival, our concentration remains
on offering programs that provide professional development
resources that are both intelligent and encouraging. We know
it is the determination of the teacher that often informs the
atmosphere of the classroom.
Programs offered by CHF Education
›› Classics in Context seminar series
›› Continuing Professional Development Units (CPDUs)
›› Educational Resources & Publications
›› Educator’s Guide to the Festival
›› Free Ticket Program
›› Meet the Artist classes
›› Summer Institute for Teachers
›› Words@PLAY poetry project
13
4
2
11
6
7
1
3
10
9
5
8
12
82 | 83
1 Chicago Cultural Center
77 East Randolph Street
2 Chicago History Museum
1601 North Clark Street
3 First United Methodist Church
77 West Washington Street
4 Francis W. Parker School
2233 North Clark Street
5 Harold Washington
Library Center
400 South State Street
6 Museum of Contemporary Art
220 East Chicago Avenue
7 Northwestern University School
of Law, Thorne Auditorium
375 East Chicago Avenue
8 Spertus Institute of
Jewish Studies
610 South Michigan Avenue
9 Symphony Center
10 The Art Institute of Chicago
11 The Newberry Library
60 West Walton Street
12 UIC Forum
725 West Roosevelt Road
13 Wilbur Wright College
4300 North Narragansett
Avenue
Parking
Below we offer parking suggestions for a selection of 2009
Chicago Humanities Festival venues. This list is not meant to
be comprehensive but may assist you in planning your Festival
excursions.
October 17: Festival Day in Hyde Park
Campus Parking
On weekends, University of Chicago campus parking lots offer
free visitor parking. CHF attendees do not need a permit to
park in these lots. Convenient parking lots near Hyde Park
venues are located at:
›› 58th Street and Kimbark Avenue
›› South University Avenue between
58th and 59th streets
›› 5500 South Ellis Avenue
Street parking is available where signage permits. For Ida
Noyes Hall, International House, and Mandel Hall, conve
nient street parking options include 56th, 57th, 58th, and 59th
streets, and Greenwood, University, and South Woodlawn
avenues.
Court Theatre and Fulton Recital Hall
Accessible parking is available in the garage at 5500 South
Ellis Avenue, at the corner of 55th Street.
November 2–15: Suggested Festival Parking
Below we offer parking suggestions for neighborhoods and
venues.
Lincoln Park
Venue: Francis W. Parker School
Parking in the Park, 539 West Webster Avenue
(corner of L incoln and Webster)
Venue: Chicago History Museum
Public parking is located one block north of the museum at
Clark and LaSalle streets. Enter on Stockton Drive.
North Michigan Avenue Area
Venues: Museum of Contemporary Art Theater and Thorne
Auditorium
Public parking is located in the MCA parking lot at 220 East
Chicago Avenue.
Convenient nearby parking also includes the garage at
Northwestern Memorial Hospital (222 East Huron Street)
and at 608 North Lake Shore Drive.
84 | 85
South Michigan Avenue Area
Venues: Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, Symphony Center,
Suggested parking includes the Harrison Garage (605 South
Wabash Avenue), the Standard Parking garage (17 East Adams
Street), and the Grant Park South Garage (entrance ramp is
on Michigan Avenue just south of Monroe Street).
Loop/Printers Row
Venue: Harold Washington Library Center
See: www.chipublib.org/branch/details/library/
harold-washington
UIC Forum
Ample parking is located two blocks west of the UIC Forum
(1135 South Morgan Street, Lot 5).
Public Transportation
The following websites may assist you in making plans to take
public transportation to Festival events.
CTA website: www.transitchicago.com
Metra website: www.metrarail.com
Presenter Index
Last name, first name, program number, page number
A
Adams, John, 506, p. 48
Ars Antigua, 612, p. 58
B
Baker, Glenda Zahra,
403, p. 38, 411, p. 42
Barry, Lynda, 201, p. 21, 304, p. 27
Bauer, William, 602, p. 53
Beard, Mary, 306, p. 28
Berenbaum, May, 406, p. 39
Bilbassy Charters, Nadia,
317, p. 33
Blackhurst, Klea, 414, p. 43
Blight, David, 315, p. 32
Briggs, Amy, 109, p. 18
Brown, Stuart, 402, p. 37
Burningham, Bruce, 601, p. 52
Byrnes, Pat, 301, p. 26
Byron, Don, 617, 618, p. 60
C
Carpio, Glenda, 615, p. 59
Chambers, Michael, 707, p. 67
Chast, Roz, 301, p. 26
Chicago Sinfonietta, CSL, p. 20
Cochran, Charles, 414, p. 43
Cohen, Ted, 103, p. 15
Coletto, Paolo, 704, p. 66
Collins, Billy, 710, p. 68
Collins, Ronald, 602, p. 53
Colnot, Cliff, 109, p. 18
Crawford, Romi, 313, p. 31
Cuddy, Alison, 608, p. 56
Curtis, Scott, 706, p. 67
D
Danzig, Leslie Buxbaum,
603, p. 53
Daugherty, Tracy, 410, p. 41
Davies, John, 709, p. 68
Day, Barry, 414, p. 43
Deschenes, Liz, 309, p. 29
Dreesen, Tom, 105, p. 16
Dumas, Firoozeh, 703, p. 65
E
Edwards, Steve, 610, p. 57
Ehrenreich, Barbara, 507, p. 48
Ezzat, Sharif, 616, p. 59
F
Farmer, Paul, 500, p. 44
Farr, Doug, 606, p. 55
Feiffer, Jules, 310, p. 30, 316, p. 33
Feldman, Martha, 107, p. 17
Frazier, Ian, 312, p. 31
Freeman, Aaron, 409, p. 41
Fregonese, John, 610, p. 57
Frishberg, Dave, 504, p. 46
Fromme, H. Barrett, 102, p. 15
Fry, Kate, GALA, p. 6
Fuller, Jerry, 612, p. 58
G
Gaines, David, 704, p. 66
Gates Jr., Henry Louis, 615, p. 59
Gerber, Gaylen, 309, p. 29
Gilman, Sander, 300, p. 26,
313, p. 31
Goff, Robert, 405, p. 39
Gomez, Marga, 505, p. 47
Gossett, Philip, 103, p. 15
Greenhill, Jennifer, 605, p. 55
Gregory, Dick, 413, p. 42
Groening, Matt, 201, p. 21
Guerrilla Girls, 503, p. 46
H
Halpern, Richard, 303, p. 27
Hemon, Aleksandar, 614, p. 59
Hodgman, John, 502, p. 45
J
Jackson, Cheryle, 606, p. 55
Jain, Pranita, 403, p. 38
Jefferson, Margo, 700, p. 64
Johnson, E. Patrick, 702, p. 65
Johnston, Sadhu, 610, p. 57
Jones, Sarah, 203, p. 22
K
Kaplan, Sean Michael, 704, p. 66
Katz, Lauren, 603, p. 53
Kazurinsky, Tim, 110, p. 19
Kerker, Michael, 504, p. 46
Kertayuda, I Gusti Ngurah,
403, p. 38
Kimball, Robert, 414, p. 43
Koehler Vuocolo, Kristie,
102, p. 15
Koestenbaum, Wayne, 604, p. 54
Kolb, Rocky, 706, p. 67
Koren, Edward, 301, p. 26
Kushner, Tony, 400, p. 36
L
Lambert, Raymond C., 709, p. 68
Lane, Yuri, 616, p. 59
Lansana, Emily, 403, p. 38
Lattimore, Jonita, GALA, p. 6
Lautman, Victoria, 302, p. 27,
401, p. 37
Lavey, Martha, 603, p. 53
Leach, Amy, 406, p. 39
Lear, Jonathan, 101, p. 14
Lethem, Jonathan, 401, p. 37,
410, p. 41
Levin, David, 107, p. 17
Libera, Anne, 110, p. 19
Lindley, Rob, GALA, p. 6
Lindsay-Ryan, Rebecca,
BEXPO, p. 54
Loh, Sandra Tsing, 703, p. 65
Lucky Plush Productions,
708, p. 67
Lurie, Alison, 108, p. 18
M
Madigan, Charles, 317, p. 33
Malatia, Torey, 611, p. 57
Mankoff, Robert, 301, p. 26,
412, p. 42
Mau, Bruce, 606, p. 55
McCaskill, Claire, 314, p. 31
Merrill, Christopher, 311, p. 30
Miner, Michael, 316, p. 33
Moniz, Susan, GALA, p. 6
Moore, Lorrie, 302, p. 27
Morrow, Karen, 504, p. 46
Morse, Stefanie, 414, p. 43
Moseley, Roger, 107, p. 17
Munson, Lester, 106, p. 17
Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago,
111, p. 19
86 | 87
Reid, Tim, 105, p. 16
Resnik, Hollis, GALA, p. 6
Ross, Steve, 414, p. 43
Ryan, Kay, 710, p. 68
S
Sabiston, Bob, 701, p. 64
Salinger, Michael, 407, p. 40
Sanders, Barry, 307, p. 29
Saracho, Tanya, 603, p. 53
Savage, Bill, 108, p. 18
Schama, Simon, 404, p. 38
Schrader, David, 612, p. 58
(The) Second City, 110, p. 18,
318, p. 33
Shapiro, James, 103, p. 15
Sidorov, Dmitry, 317, p. 33
Siguenza, Herbert, 501, p. 44
Simmons, Adele, 606, p. 55
Simpson, Thomas, 704, p. 66
Sjogerman, Craig, 102, p. 15
Small, Steven, 100, p. 14
Stavans, Ilan, 613, p. 58
Stone, Geoffrey, 602, p. 53
Stritch, Billy, 414, p. 43
Sullivan, KT, 504, p. 46
Swenson, Ingrid, BEXPO, p. 54
T
Telingator, Kathe, 614, p. 58
N
Needham, Anuradha, 609, p. 57
Neighborhood Writing Alliance,
411, p. 42
Nelson, Carlos, 610, p. 57
Neo-Futurists, 708, p. 67
Newell, Charles, 104, p. 16,
GALA, p. 6
Norman, Larry, 104, p. 16
W
Ware, Chris, 316, p. 33
Washington, Laura, 413, p. 43
Watkins, Mel, 305, p. 28, 313, p. 31
Watson, Katie, 607, p. 56,
705, p. 66
Weber, Jon, 504, p. 46
Weschler, Lawrence, 404, p. 38,
410, p. 41, 502, p. 45
Witkovsky, Matthew S., 309, p. 29
Wood, Diane P., 602, p. 53
O
O’Malley, Judy, 614, p. 58
Z
Zimmer, Elizabeth, 600, p. 52
P
Patinkin, Sheldon, 110, p. 19
Peck, Doug, GALA, p. 6
Pepperberg, Irene, 608, p. 56
Perkowitz, Sidney, 706, p. 67
Phillips, Jayne Anne, 408, p. 40
Provenza, Paul, 607, p. 56
Provine, Robert, 308, p. 29
R
Ramis, Harold, 200, p. 20
Reding, Nick, 408, p. 40
Reich, Robert, 202, p. 21
Thanks
The Chicago Humanities Festival would like to thank the following
individuals for their hard work:
Production
Steffen Willeweit
Program Guide Copy Editor
Amy Teschner
Printing and Fulfillment
Jeff Lowitz, Lowitz & Sons
Festival Photography
Mike Boehmer
Robert Carl
Lloyd DeGrane
Steven Kovich
Mara Faye Lethem
Margherita Mirabella
Margaretta Mitchell
Stephanie Rausser
Dan Rest
Beth Rooney
Additional Thanks
Patricia Barber
Dain Borges
Andrew Brown
Amanda Burr
Tina Cervone
Linda Choi
S. Hollis Clayson
Anna Vaughn Clissold
Cynthia Cordes
Yolanda Cursach
Christopher Enright
Maxine Friedman
Erika Hanner
Leon Hilton
Shannon Hynes
Kineret Jaffe
Mark Kadish
Peter Kardon
Eileen Kleeberg
Joseph Olewitz
Sarah Pesin
Joe Sak
Marc Schulman
Janet Carl Smith
Matthew Stagner
Peter Taub
Mai Vukcevich
Steve Young
CHF extends a special thanks to Matt Groening for designing this
year’s program guide cover. You may recognize our cover models as
Akbar and Jeff from Groening’s comic strip Life in Hell. They made
their debut in 1984 and have since been featured in their own cartoon
book of philosophies and insights, Akbar and Jeff’s Guide to Life.
—Notes—
88 | 89
—Notes—
—Notes—
90 | 91
—Notes—
—Notes—
92 | 93
—Notes—
—Notes—
94 | 95
—Notes—
©2009 Matt Groening Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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