We are lucky to have incredible storytelling talent in our neighborhood, including Morgan Park’s own Carly Oishi.
Carly is the former producer of live lit shows Solo in the 2nd City and Miss Spoken. Her favorite shows to perform in are The Paper Machete and Write Club. Professionally, she manages a team at a workforce development nonprofit, in addition to financial coaching and reselling as side hustles.
In her “spare” time she cleans and repairs designer purses, tries to find new books for her 8 year old and talks to her dog in an annoying baby voice.
See Carly and our other readers this Thursday at 730pm at the Beverly Arts Center (111th St and Western Ave). Brought to you by the Beverly Area Arts Alliance. A $5 donation is requested at the door, which benefits the Alliance and the BAC.
The many faces of the arts will be a part of this month’s Frunchoom, including one of Chicago’s hardest-working players behind the scenes: Mark Kelly.
Mark is a long-serving educator, arts advocate, and Chicago cultural leader. He recently retired as the Commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), and now serves as an advisor to a number of cultural organizations.
During Mark’s tenure, DCASE reimagined programming in the Chicago Cultural Center and Millennium Park, greatly expanded grants to artists and neighborhood cultural organizations, initiated and supported scores of public art projects, led the city-wide “Year of” efforts in theater, music, dance, public art, and creative youth, advocated for neighborhood cultural resources, and brought equity to the fore in all of these efforts.
Prior to DCASE, Mark was a senior administrator at Columbia College Chicago for over 30 years. He was a highly visible educator who sought to build an immersive cultural experience for Columbia’s creative students and to push each student to develop a body of work. Known for his “hell yeah liturgy”, Mark created many of the college’s student traditions and initiatives including Manifest, Shop Columbia, and the new student convocation.
During his forty years of cultural stewardship, Mark has pushed to move the arts beyond the frame and the stage and to connect them to the street and our daily lives. He led the Wabash Arts Corridor mural initiative, framed the artistic vision for the Arts in the Dark parade, and founded Art on the Mart.
He is a percussionist (still learning), lucky to have played with jazz artist Hal Russell and has performed at an Allen Ginsberg happening (if you don’t know what a happening is, you’re too young to appreciate this!).
See Mark this Thursday at 730pm at the Beverly Arts Center (111th St and Western Ave). Brought to you by the Beverly Area Arts Alliance. A $5 donation is requested at the door, which benefits the Alliance and the BAC.
Appearing at The Frunchroom this month is Won Kim: a multi-disciplinary artist helming a restaurant, painting murals, and DJing whenever he can.
Won grew up in the north side of the city but is now a proud resident of Beverly. His restaurant Kimski in the Bridgeport neighborhood is attached to another icon Maria’s Packaged Goods and Community Bar. It has been open for seven years and has been home to many pop-ups, startups, and hosted many community activations.
Won also paints murals and takes on commissions which have included clients such as Nike, Goose Island, VW, Alinea Group, Red Bull, and a slew of local Chicagoland restaurants. He DJs under the name Genghiswon, has held down music residencies at some of your favorite bars, and continues to play out to this day. He is always tired and ready to take on the next project.
See Won at The Frunchroom this Thursday at 730pm at the Beverly Arts Center (111th St and Western Ave). Brought to you by the Beverly Area Arts Alliance. A $5 donation is requested at the door, which benefits the Alliance and the BAC.
The culinary and storytelling arts pair nicely in The Frunchroom’s July show starting with Geena Doherty, the chef, and co-owner, of B*U*B Café in Blue Island, IL.
Geena began working in her grandparent’s butcher shop at just 10 years old where she learned the fundamentals of running a successful neighborhood staple and developed her love of the culinary industry through classic butchery techniques, classic Italian cuisine, and, of course, baking and pastry.
Geena achieved a formal culinary education at Moraine Valley Community College. Upon graduation, she was asked back to be a part of the Baking and Pastry Arts department where she taught for several years. Geena was lucky enough to work at several wonderful local Beverly establishments, as well as a few Chicago bakeries and cafes before making the decision to move farther south to Blue Island.
There Geena and her husband Gerard created a bond with the owners of Rock Island Public House on historic Olde Western Ave that would set them on a path of creating their own established pop-up eatery for five years within the walls of the pub. Serving food and creating events (like a drive-in-movie experience during the pandemic), the pair would grow their business Butter*Upon*Bacon to become a true community staple, that eventually would outgrow the walls of RIPH.
With upwards of 15 years of experience in the hospitality industry, Geena is extremely excited to partner with long-time pastry-pal and industry veteran Amber Sullivan to create the new B*U*B Cafe, slated to open in 2023.
Geena’s tales of life and kitchens on the South Side will be told at The Frunchroom this Thursday at 730pm at the Beverly Arts Center (111th St and Western Ave). Brought to you by the Beverly Area Arts Alliance. A $5 donation is requested at the door, which benefits the Alliance and the BAC.
The Frunchroom, the original live storytelling series about the South Side of Chicago that makes its home in Beverly/Morgan Park, returns to the Beverly Arts Center this month with five new storytellers.
The next show will be at 730pm on Thursday, July 20th at Beverly Arts Center (2407 W 111th St, Chicago). A $5 donation to benefit the Beverly Area Arts Alliance is requested.
* Geena Doherty, chef and co-owner of B*U*B Café * Mark Kelly, former commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) * Won Kim, artist and chef/owner of Kimski * Carly Oishi, Morgan Park resident and veteran Chicago storyteller * Erin Shea Smith, writer and outspoken feminist mom
(Please note: Due to a last-minute cancellation, Amanda Williams and Ghian
“Moreso than any previous show, this edition of Frunchroom showcases artists from a variety of disciplines,” said Scott Smith, host and co-producer of The Frunchroom. These artists work in diverse mediums from words to food to the land itself. They’re behind the scenes and out in front.”
The unique mix of art, cocktails, and stories is presented in partnership with The Beverly Area Arts Alliance, the organization responsible for local arts events like the Beverly Art Walk and the Uprising Craft Market.
The Frunchroom has played to packed houses since it began in April 2015 and has called the Beverly Arts Center home since October 2017.
Previous readers include local residents and business owners; radio and podcast hosts, teachers, poets, politicians and artists. In addition, the show has featured reporters and anchors from the Chicago Tribune, South Side Weekly, Bloomberg News, WBEZ-FM and WGN-TV.
About The Frunchroom: The Frunchroom is a quarterly live storytelling series of, by and about the South Side, produced by Morgan Park resident Scott Smith in partnership with The Beverly Area Arts Alliance. More information can be found at thefrunchroom.com or at beverlyarts.org.
One of our readers for tonight’s show is unable to make it due to illness. So we’re bringing back one of our 2017 readers: Tina Jenkins Bell.
Tina is a published fiction writer, journalist, academic, fiction editor for an online zine, blogger, and literary activist.
In 2020, she was nominated for an Illinois Literary Arts award. She writes a popular blog for the Chicago Writers Association and has had numerous work published, including: her soft sci-fi short story, “To the Moon and Back,” (Hypertext Journal); a mini memoir, “Devil’s Alley,” (Us Against Alzheimer’s); a collaborative hybrid, entitled “Looking for the Good Boy, Yummy,” (Black Lawrence Press); and a short story, “The Last Supper,” (Revise the Psalm).
Bell has also had two plays produced as staged readings for large audiences, including Cut the Baby in Half (Greenline Theater) and A Conversation Between Lorraine Hansberry and Gwendolyn Brooks (a collaborative effort produced by the Chicago Humanities Festival).
An active reader and presenter in the literary community, Bell is working on her second novel, Family Legacies.
The Frunchroom is open again tonight at 730pm at Beverly Arts Center. Brought to you by the Beverly Area Arts Alliance. A $5 donation is requested at the door, which benefits the Alliance and the BAC.
The Frunchroom is about re-centering the South Side narrative around the people who make it great. And Shermann “Dilla” Thomas knows what makes Chicago and the South Side great.
Chicago historian Dilla, as he is affectionately called, is a fascinating blend of modern historian, cultural worker, and public employee.
Dilla has become a Chicago social media sensation by going viral on Tiktok. His 60-second history videos on everything Chicago have been viewed over 8 million times, and he has amassed a following of 150K followers across all social media platforms. Dilla has been featured on all manner of Chicago media and has also appeared nationally on both The Today Show and The Kelly Clarkson Show. Dilla is a proud lifelong resident of Chicago’s South Side. He lives by the saying that everything dope about America comes from Chicago.
Through the power of storytelling, Dilla is helping to change the narrative locally and nationally about Chicago’s value to the world. He has been named 2022 Chicago Tourism Ambassador of the Year by Choose Chicago, the tourism agency of the city. He is a recipient of the prestigious Chicago Public Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award, as well as a Studs Terkel Uplifting Voices recipient. Dilla was voted 2021 best Chicago Twitter and best Chicago Tiktok pages by Chicago Reader magazine. He has presented Chicago history lessons and lectures to major institutions, corporate groups, and represented Chicago around the world. He is also a member of the Black Chicago History Initiate Steering Committee.
See Dilla and our other readers in The Frunchroom this Thursday at 730pm at Beverly Arts Center. Brought to you by the Beverly Area Arts Alliance. A $5 donation is requested at the door, which benefits the Alliance and the BAC.
For our 8th anniversary show, we’re bringing in some storytellers who have been on our must-have list for a while.
Megan Stielstra is the author of three collections: Everyone Remain Calm, Once I Was Cool, and The Wrong Way to Save Your Life, the Nonfiction Book of the Year from the Chicago Review of Books.Her work appears in the Best American Essays, New York Times, The Believer, Poets & Writers, Tin House, Longreads, Guernica, LitHub, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.
A longtime company member with 2nd Story, she has told stories for National Public Radio, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Steppenwolf Theatre, and regularly with the Paper Machete live news magazine at the Green Mill. She teaches creative nonfiction at Northwestern University and is an editor-at-large with Northwestern University Press.
See Megan and our other readers in The Frunchroom this Thursday at 730pm at Beverly Arts Center. Brought to you by the Beverly Area Arts Alliance. A $5 donation is requested at the door, which benefits the Alliance and the BAC.
We’re thrilled to be back at the Beverly Arts Center this Thursday with five more storytellers.
Michelle “Chellee” Rashad is raised and rooted in the Greater Englewood community. She is a compassionate leader on a mission to revitalize her neighborhood by investing in youth development and strengthening the support systems of families to build a more prosperous community.
As the fearless leader of Imagine Englewood if (IEi), Michelle has redesigned and developed youth programs to provide trauma-informed care, leveraged strategic partnerships to expand supportive services and activated vacant lots in the community to promote healthy living.
She helped build the award-winning, and nationally recognized, Greater Englewood Toastmasters Club, enhancing the communication and facilitation skills of residents and local leaders. She has developed valuable connections between students and community partners as the Appointed Local School Council’s community representative for Lindblom Math & Science Academy (her alma mater).
Her community-organizing superpower helped resurrect her block club after over 20 years of inactivity. As president of The Great 68th block club, she fosters community among her neighbors, curates safe activities for youth, and addresses public safety concerns in collaboration with law enforcement and local government officials. As a recognition of her heart work, Michelle was honored by the Chicago Foundation of Women as the recipient of their 2021 Pioneer Impact Award.
Michelle is most fulfilled by spending time with her family and being fun Auntie Chellee. She graduated from Howard University with a bachelor of arts in Telecommunication Management and Business Administration and is currently a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (Chicago Chapter). Michelle is a graduate of Black Bench Chicago and the Civic Leadership Academy fellowship at the University of Chicago.
And she’s at The Frunchroom this Thursday at 730pm at the Beverly Arts Center. Brought to you by The Beverly Area Arts Alliance.
A $5 donation is requested at the door, which benefits the Alliance and the BAC.
The Frunchroom is back at the Beverly Arts Center for its 8th Anniversary Show this Thursday, April 13th at 730pm.
Co-produced by the Beverly Area Arts Alliance, The Frunchroom features the best storytelling about the South Side of Chicago.
Hosted by Scott Smith, The Frunchroom features five stories about the South Side of Chicago.
They’re the stories that don’t often make headlines but represent the point of view of people who live here. The Frunchroom features writers, readers, artists, and performers who are from the South Side or have something to say about it through personal stories, sharp commentary or historical perspective.
(Clockwise from top left: Michelle “Chellee” Rashad, Tina Jenkins Bell, Erika L. Sánchez, Shermann “Dilla” Thomas, Megan Stielstra.)
A $5 donation is requested at the door, which benefits the BAC and the Beverly Area Arts Alliance.
The unique mix of art, cocktails, and stories is presented in partnership with The Beverly Area Arts Alliance, the organization responsible for local arts events like the Beverly Art Walk and the Uprising Craft Market.
The Frunchroom has played to packed houses since it began in April 2015 and has called the Beverly Arts Center home since October 2017.
Previous readers include local residents and business owners; radio and podcast hosts, teachers, poets, politicians and artists. In addition, the show has featured reporters and anchors from the Chicago Tribune, South Side Weekly, Bloomberg News, WBEZ-FM, and WGN-TV.
The Frunchroom 