The 2021 Chicago Humanities Festival (CHF), which kicked off on September 25th and runs through Thursday, December 9th, has plenty of unmissable events scheduled throughout the fall (click here for the full list of events). Unfortunately, the previously announced event in which Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard and fan-favorite actor Clint Howard were to be in conversation with film producer and RogerEbert.com publisher Chaz Ebert at 7pm CT on Wednesday, October 13th, at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St. has been cancelled.
The festival’s official statement reads, “Unfortunately, due to the speakers’ change in plans, this event has been cancelled. We hope to reschedule this event sometime next year. Your ticket transaction, including any books in the order, will be fully refunded automatically within the next few business days. Any books in your original order will not be shipped. Thank you for your understanding, and we apologize for any disappointment. Email us at tickets@chicagohumanities.org or call the box office at 312-605-8444, Monday through Friday, 10:00AM to 5:00PM (Central/Chicago).”
Yet there are still plenty of enticing events at CHF scheduled throughout this month, including a conversation with author Dawn Turner, moderated by former Chicago Tribune colleague Dahleen Glanton, about her new book, Three Girls from Bronzeville, which crafts a uniquely American, uniquely Chicago story of race, fate, and sisterhood. The event will take place at 1:30pm CT on Saturday, October 9th, at the Feinberg Theater, 610 S. Michigan Ave. (click here for tickets).
Later that same day at 6:30pm CT in the same venue, celebrated jazz vocalist Tammy McCann will perform as part of this year’s Graham Concert, celebrating the work of icons such as Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughn and Billie Holiday (click here for tickets).
The following day—Sunday, October 10th—at 5:30pm CT in the fifth floor event space of Columbia College Chicago’s Student Center, 754 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago novelist and creative writing professor Kyle Beachy (author of the essay collection, The Most Fun Thing) will join Oscar-nominated filmmaker Bing Liu for a conversation about the meaningful role that skateboarding has had in their lives (click here for tickets). At 4:30pm CT that same day at the Feinberg Theater, composer-performer Clarice Assad of Chicago’s Grammy award-winning Third Coast Percussion, will speak with the group’s Executive Director David Skidmore and University of Chicago comparative literature professor Haun Saussy, following a screening of “Archetypes,” a film based on the band’s album of the same name (click here for tickets).
Three highly anticipated CHF events will take place on Saturday, October 23rd: at 10:30am CT, multi-Grammy nominated Spektral Quartet will perform its 2018 commission Plain, Air (by composer Tonia Ko), inspired by Chicago’s lakeshore and hosted by plant ecologist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass), at the historic Great Hall of Cafe Brauer, 2021 N. Stockton Dr. (click here for tickets); at 1:30pm CT, Broadway star turned author Sutton Foster will speak with Marilynn Thoma Artistic Director Alison Cuddy at Columbia College Chicago’s Student Center about her new book, Hooked, in which she shares all the moments where crafting saved her life (click here for tickets); and at 4pm CT in the same venue, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges will discuss his latest book, Our Class, about the human toll of cyclical and systemic incarceration with human and civil rights lawyer G. Flint Taylor (click here for tickets).
Audiences are encouraged to support CHF at its annual benefit and celebration on Monday, October 18th, where internationally-renowned architect, MacArthur Fellow and past Festival presenter Jeanne Gang will receive this year’s Vision Award. She will also join Alison Cuddy for an insightful conversation on how the built environment connects us as communities. The evening will be MC’d and feature musical performances by festival favorites — Rob Lindley, Doug Peck and Bethany Thomas, along with an incredible line-up of Chicago’s finest talent, including the electrifying Growing Concerns Poetry Collective. All proceeds from the evening will help ensure CHF as Chicago’s home for critical civic and cultural conversations (click here for tickets).
For the full lineup of the 2021 Chicago Humanities Festival, click here.