NEW YEAR. NEW OUTLOOK.

During a light-hearted conversation this week, a friend told me that their first 2017 resolution was to complete all of their unmet 2016 resolutions. On some level, that is how we may all feel about making these kinds of commitments to ourselves.

I decided to take a different course in 2017 and it doesn’t involve reexamining whatever I didn’t get done last year. I’m scraping the “New Year’s Resolution” timetable in favor of a new improved path. In truth, I have been following something like this for several years, but as these few weeks are a time for reflection, I realized that I was being hard on myself and ultimately on others around me.

Over the years of trying to achieve my resolutions, if I was confused or sad, I would eat, so the diet resolution was compromised. Although I walk daily, the fact is that I may never again exercise as much as I should. So then the guilt starts to seep in. And then there’s the addiction to sugar, something my late friend John Callaway told me about several years ago. I dismissed it at the time, but it is very real.

Particularly to people of a certain age ... of which I am, as it turns out, one.

I never thought that I would become a person of a certain age, but now that I am one, I’m quite happy about it. I wish that I could do all the things to excess that I used to do, but I can’t. My system won’t allow it and, frankly, all of those excesses were, well, excessive.

So, the conversation continues. Over the past year, we have explored life through the eyes of actors, artists and entrepreneurs. We heard how art, music, dance and theatre is created … what the important steps are in developing new work … learned about musical comedy, character development, long-running success and explored all the various forms of social media that allow us to communicate with each other, even if we don’t want to communicate with each other.

While the old notion to move the ball down the field is still present, I am eager to get others on the team to help improve the game. In this new year, I have a new outlook -- more positive, assertive, with sights fixed on building a bigger base and having more fun, all the time.

That’s what I want to talk about this year and I hope we can have many more conversations along the way.  

DE USURIS

MR & MRS PENNYWORTH now playing at Lookingglass Theatre through February 19th WEBSITE  TICKETS

THE TALL GIRLS - SHATTERED GLOBE The world-premiere of Meg Miroshnik's new play at Theater Wit in previews beginning January 12 WEBSITE TICKETS

BEN HOLLIS

BEN HOLLIS - How The Beatles Nearly Ruined My Life and David Bowie Saved It Skokie Theatre
Sat, Jan 21 - 8 pm; Sun, Jan 22 - 2 pm. TICKETS    

SKOKIE IDOL begins January 28, 2017 WEBSITE
 

THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS - Porchlight Music Theatre Opens February 3rd at Stage 773. WEBSITE  TICKETS

Winter’s Jazz Club is Chicago's newest jazz room in Streeterville. Abigail Riccards, Paul Marinaro WEBSITE Howard Reich READ

Chicago's Theater Week is coming in February. WEBSITE

Frank Sesno's Ask More – WEBSITE – BUY

Winston Groom's El Paso – From the best-selling author of Forrest Gump. 

WEBSITE - BUY

Building Chicago by John Zukowsky should be in everyone's collection. Listen to our live program from the Chicago History Museum HERE

JAMES FRAZIER - GOLD STAR FAMILIES CONVERSATIONS MAY 25, 2016

JIM FRAZIER is a Gold Star Family member in Illinois who leads Gold Star Survivor Outreach efforts. This conversation was recorded on May 25, 2016 as part of our Skokie Theatre series in advance of the City of Chicago Memorial Day ceremony and parade. The wide-ranging discussion is centered on the important work being done to support Gold Star Family members in Illinois and across the country.
 
Jim Frazier on grieving:  
“I have discovered the message that I will drill as much as possible to the families I talk to … who are 'stuck', and that’s the most common … getting stuck because of what they’re afraid of. If you say to a grieving family ‘it’s time to move forward,’ they will get very angry with you because their thought is … ‘if I move forward than I have forgotten about my loved one … I’m supposed to forget about them? I’m never going to forget about them’. What’s difficult to explain is that you can heal without ever forgetting them … healing to me means that damage no longer controls me.”
 
Jim Frazier on how to help Gold Star families:                          
“Today in our society, we’re not afraid to walk up to that veteran and say thank you for your service, and that’s fine, but what do you say to someone who’s wearing one of these? It’d be nice if everyone knew what it was. It’s a little gold star with a purple background … this is given by Congress and it means you lost a loved one in combat. When you meet a family or an individual that’s got one of these … thank them for the sacrifice of their loved one … ask the name of the loved one because there’s nothing better I like than when somebody uses my son’s name because then it tells me that I’m not the only one remembering him … somebody else is remembering him too… and then say 'tell me something about Jake' and shut up. That’s all you gotta do.”

PODCAST HERE

 

ETHAN MICHAELI AND CHRIS JONES

New Podcasts Now Online. But first ...

Friday, July 15, 2016 - News of the terrorist attack in Nice, France yesterday delayed our posting of these programs out of respect for the victims of this horrific, senseless attack. These attacks, and the lawless nature of unrest across our country, are grim reminders of the evil that exists in our world and the disregard for human life that stems from bigotry and hatred. 

Now more than ever we need to continue the conversation, remain passionate and respectfully committed to preserving life across our social spectrum and insure the safety and well-being of all of our children. 

The study of history provides insight into our lives. It is in this spirit and in recognition of the importance of an on-going dialogue, that we are making our discussion about race relations in the 20th century available through this podcast today.

Our Conversations FTA podcast features a spirited and engaging 2013 conversation with Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones.  ET

ETHAN MICHAELI

ETHAN MICHAELI
author of
THE DEFENDER
How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (January 2016)
 
Ethan Michaeli is an award-winning author, publisher and journalist based in Chicago. He was a copy editor and investigative reporter at The Defender from 1991 to 1996. Ethan joined us for the debut of Conversations with Ed Tracy at the Skokie Theatre on March 23rd to discuss his new book, The Defender.

ETHAN MICHAELI on the role of The Defender during the Great Migration:
 
“With the migration from the south, The Defender becomes an even more important way for people to keep in touch with the communities that they’d left behind. So you’d have people essentially writing to each other, kind of communicating the way we would today on social media through Facebook … as a way to tell people 'Hey I'm in the city … I have a job … I’m doing well …you should come too.' The Defender was directly responsible for doubling the African American community in Chicago during World War I from about 50,000 people to around 100,000.”
 
ETHAN MICHAELi on The Defender’s coverage of Emmett Till’s death and the graphic images that ran on the front page:
 
“Those images, those stark images, went around the country and landed like a bomb, everywhere. People frankly were somewhat inure to the news of lynching in the south, these kind of things happened fairly often and the reports were coming out on a regular basis. Earlier in the 20th century, white newspapers in the south had advertised lynching in the sense that they had said 'there will be a lynching on Tuesday night … this is where you should come' …  so it wasn’t that lynching was a covert operation. It had just changed into something that suddenly to the vast majority of Americans became unacceptable with the photos of Emmett Till … that really was a dramatic moment that started to see a real change in public opinion about that issue, about extrajudicial violence against African Americans.”

ETHAN MICHAELI on current race relations:
 
“I started the book with an assumption of progress. Yes, maybe things were moving along slowly but they’re moving along. By the time I finished the book, I wasn’t seeing progress. I was seeing change. I was seeing that things are possible today in the sense of an African American president that weren’t possible decades ago, but, at the same time, it was hard to escape that things had gotten so much worse for an entire class of people … Emmett Till maybe could not have become president, but the infrastructure was there so he could have become a successful business person, a scholar ….  Whereas LaQuan McDonald … we gave up on LaQuan a long time before he got to that corner where he was killed by the police. He never had a chance to really make much of himself, and we as a society didn’t provide him with that chance. That’s tragic.”

CHRIS JONES

CONVERSATIONS FTA (From The Archive)

 CHRIS JONES
author of
Bigger, Better, Louder: 150 Years of Chicago Theater as seen by "Chicago Tribune" Critics
University of Chicago Press (October 4, 2013)

Chris Jones, chief theater critic and a Sunday culture columnist for the Chicago Tribune, joined the conversation at the Hubbard Inn on November 19, 2013 to discuss his new book. 

Also featured in this episode: a performance by World War II veteran Judy Brubaker, who played the role of Ms. Leach in the original Chicago cast of Grease in 1971.

CHRIS JONES on Claudia Cassidy and Richard Christiansen:
 
“The Tribune had two critics who held the job for most of the 20th century … one of them was Claudia Cassidy and one was Richard Christiansen. … They were very different critics. One was largely despised by the people she covered and one was largely beloved by the people he covered. One was known for vitriolic prose – horribly nasty prose in some cases, by today’s standards anyway – and one was known for a certain courtly gentlemanly understanding. And yet, both of them at their different periods of time, seemed to give this city what it really needed.”
 
Read more about Grease HERE
Stay up-to-date by visiting our website at: www.conversationswithedtracy.com.