Chicago Improv Festival changes artistic director—and direction
Jet Eveleth
The Chicago Improv Festival announced two major changes yesterday: The 13-year-old annual shindig is getting a new artistic director, and it's shifting focus away from 300+ person mainstage shows toward smaller improv venues with fewer people.
The first change is gradual. Mark Sutton, who's been a part of the festival for almost its entire run, will stay through the 2010 event (April 19-25), where he'll be joined by Jet Eveleth, a staple of iO improv team The Reckoning. In 2011, Eveleth will run things solo.
It'll be sad to see Sutton go. He's traveled the country and toiled for years to create festival schedules that celebrate the many facets of the art form. (Code Duello, for example, is a Sutton fave that involved Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr ending each improv show with a duel.) But Eveleth is a suitable replacement, having spent so many years as a local improv teacher, coach, and performer; her knowledge of the up-and-comers in the scene will come in handy.
CIF will need that knowledge for its new show direction, because the festival will likely have a tougher time bringing in star power without enough seats to recuperate the cost. Instead, the fest's success will have to be made on a smaller scale, relying on a curatorial eye for picking a smattering of top-notch groups from near and far. Executive Director Jonathan Pitts has a keen eye for international shows that expose Chicagoans to something new—he's flown in groups from places as far flung as Japan to play tiny houses like The Playground or Donny's Skybox—and this focus will continue in 2010. With Eveleth's help, CIF can apply the same endorsement to experimental local groups and under-the-radar U.S. ensembles. Chicago has always been known as the home of improv, but with this new CIF direction, it can cement its place as a trendsetter as well.
