Today we’d like to introduce you to Jill Valentine.
Jill, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I feel like I have been a comedian since being the 1st grade class clown. I have always been interested in the arts and started in grammar school plays, high school speech and shows, college speech and then after college went to Second City, iO Chicago and The Playground. I then, found The Cupid Players, which is an all musical sketch comedy group that became my comedy family in Chicago. From there, I started working for The Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, which will be in its 18th year. Our company built a board and a business plan and in 2010 took over the operations of a four theatre NFP complex in Lakeview called Stage 773. In 2012, we decided to produce The Chicago Women’s Funny Festival which hosts 80 shows, 400 women, all different art forms in four days.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There have been struggles and milestones throughout my artistic journey. One thing that stands out is that the first couple years of the Women’s Festival we kept getting the “are women funny” question from the press. That was ridiculous and exhaustingggggg. Now we have moved past that and on to better conversations!
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Stage 773 – what should we know?
Stage 773 is home to Chicago’s finest off-Loop talent. As a performance and tenant venue, our four stages provide entertainment for everyone: comedy, theatre, dance, musicals and more. We are a not-for-profit, connecting and catalyzing the theater community, while showcasing established artists and incubating up-and-coming talent.
Stage 773 is also known for producing great comedy festivals. We are home to The Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, The Chicago Nerd Festival and The Chicago Women’s Funny Festival.
I am most proud of Stage 773 for so many reasons. One reason is that most of our staff are art makers in some capacity so we understand and come from an artist’s perspective. Our Development Manager is an opera singer, our Rental Coordinator is a comedian and clown, our Managing Director a pianist. We find that artists care so much about the work and can use both sides of their brains to further the artistic experience.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Question: What are your plans for the future? What are you looking forward to or planning for – any big changes?
Stage 773 is always looking for growth opportunities and we have a couple of logs in the fire. We hope to start developing an educational branch of the business starting in 2019 which has a lot of potentials!
Contact Info:
- Address: 1225 W Belmont Ave, Chicago, IL 60657
- Website: www.stage773.com
- Phone: (773) 327-5252
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stage773/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Stage773/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/stage773?lang=en
Image Credit:
Stage 773
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