Chicago Humanities Festival lands a knockout fall 2023 lineup — and a new direction

CHICAGO — The fall lineup for the 2023 Chicago Humanities Festival is here, but before you poke around its ambitious sprawl of 50-something events, spread over two months (Sept. 17 to Nov. 15), before you eye-pop at Millie Bobby Brown (Sept. 17) or plan autumn weekends around the relentless ignorance of our politicians (Andy Borowitz, Oct. 18) and the history of sketch comedy (Keegan-Michael Key and wife Elle Key, Oct. 5), consider the stresses of piecing together such a festival:

There’s the artist who requires 30 minutes of complete silence before stepping on stage. The coastal agents who just do not think of Chicago as a “viable market” for their clients. The nationally renowned scholar who doesn’t see the point of adding a Chicago academic to a panel discussion. There’s the audiences who will not venture north of Madison. Or drive south of Roosevelt. You are a Midwestern organization with a roughly $4 million annual budget, but you are still a nonprofit and some of those big names you want to book insist on quite the entourages. Also, actors, being on strike at the moment, will not discuss on stage, you know, the things we know them from. Should you worry that Trump-centric comedian Sarah Cooper (Oct. 14) is scheduled so close to Fox News’s Bret Baier (Oct. 14)? Will they run into one other? You want a smart festival addressing social issues of the day — this year, it’s the rise of AI and the impact of climate change — but you might need to land the Fonz (Henry Winkler, Nov. 4) to help subsidize a panel on the links between Chicago public art and environmental justice (Oct. 14).

Oh, the agita.

You thought planning a dinner party was hard?

Try planning one that lasts 60 days and seats Sonic Youth’s noise merchant Thurston Moore (Nov. 1) and provocative essayist Roxanne Gay (Nov. 5) alongside a fair number of elderly attendees. The Chicago Humanities Festival was initially a one-day fall thing. It’s now in its 34th year and, at its most sprawling, once offered about 130 events a year. These days, the festival is year-round and puts on roughly 100 events. Like other cultural institutions, it’s also smaller. Attendance is about 50,000, closer to its post-COVID 2019 number, said Phillip Bahar, executive director. But like other cultural groups reliant on constituencies, membership (its key financial support) has fallen — Bahar expects membership to be 35% lower than pre-COVID’s 2,500 members.

The good news is, that the audience is younger than a decade ago, when the festival’s membership rolls, like other Chicago theater companies and musical arts organizations, looked overly gray.

If Lauren Pacheco has her way, that change will continue.

“If we’re feeling different this year, if we’re visibly looking different, that’s because we are moving in a different direction,” said Pacheco, now in her second year as co-creative director with Michael Green. “Michael and I have a vision and we’re still getting to know each other and find our alignments, and like other cultural organizations, we recognize a need to cultivate a younger audience, and a more diverse audience, and also addressing the relevant issues. What does that mean in the long haul here? I think it means we’re going to be a bit playful — experimental.”

And, for lack of a better word, more Chicago.

Variety-wise, this year’s festival resembles past festivals. You get A-list cultural voices: Bob Odenkirk and daughter Erin discussing their new book (Oct. 14); a tribute to Philip Glass (Nov. 5); author Zadie Smith (Sept. 19); poet Tracy K. Smith (Nov. 5). And a handful of A-list political names: Rachel Maddow (Oct. 19), former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger interviewed by journalist (and Chicago native) Jonathan Alter (Nov. 5). Plenty of national thought leaders: Matthew Desmond on poverty (Oct. 14); Walter Isaacson on Elon Musk (Oct. 14); Naomi Klein on our online hall of mirrors (Sept. 19); David Brooks on the importance of being seen (Nov. 5). And one or two left field surprises: Controversial Harvard physicist Avi Loeb on the existence of aliens (Nov. 5); Illinois first lady MK Pritzker on renovating the Governor’s Mansion (Oct. 14).

There are deep-dive chats on AI: AI and creativity (Oct. 18), AI and criminal justice (Nov. 5). And climate change — climate change and morality (Oct. 21), climate change and Chicago (Nov. 5).

But then, there’s Sebastian Hidalgo (Oct. 18), the native Pilsen photographer who made a name depicting the effects of gentrification; Chicago chef Rick Bayless (with San Francisco chef Anna Voloshyna) on Ukrainian food (Oct. 14); Chicago fashion designer Chelsey Carter (Oct. 18); South Side police shootings and the making of film that uses police bodycam footage (Nov. 5).

“We want to bring the best scholars from across the country,” Pacheco said, “but at the same time we are in this amazing city and we need to figure out how to better leverage what it offers.”

One way to do this, said co-creative director Green, is put more attention on live performance and experiential events — such as Chicago-based Fulcrum Point New Music Project performing minimalist composer Le Monte Young (Nov. 16). “That, alongside the Philip Glass event, for instance, you get kind of this miniseries of informal learning on minimalism.”

About a year and a half ago, Green and Pacheco replaced Alison Cuddy as creative director. Green was a public events programmer at the Museum of Contemporary Art and veteran of the education department at the Art Institute of Chicago; Pacheco was a longtime arts administrator and grassroots organizer, at, among other places, Indiana University and University of Chicago.

A couple of autumns later, the Humanities Festival will still unfold in the usual places — the Loop, Hyde Park, Evanston. But Green and Pacheco plan to expand it routinely into far more places around the city. Last spring, for instance, they programmed a day of events at the Epiphany Center for the Arts on the West Side that included acclaimed authors Brandon Taylor and Aleksandar Hemon. Pacheco, citing census data and the growth of Latino populations across Chicago, is now eyeing events on the Far Southwest Side as well as “nontraditional venues” around Little Village and outdoors. Her dream, she said, would be a Humanities Festival at Guaranteed Rate Field, playing a broader audience. “One day, if we keep this excitement going, I hope, you’ll see a few low riders pulling up to something at the Chicago Humanities Festival.”

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The Chicago Humanities Festival’s Fall Festival runs Sept. 17 to Nov. 15 at various venues; for schedule and more information at www.chicagohumanities.org.

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