My dissertation is an autoethnography, tracking my experience creating the Great Chicago Fire Festival for and with the City of Chicago. The production was a nearly unprecedented collaboration between an arts organization and a major municipality. It involved 7 different city agencies and 3 federal departments; more than 6000 city residents assisted its construction and it drew over 50,000 spectators for its finale performance. As an historic document, I draw upon primary sources to track and reflect upon my personal experience balancing the needs of the many stakeholders. Special focus is given to the ways that the practical constraints imposed by our government partners presented themselves over time and how those forces and our responses to them ultimately exerted a powerful influence on the shape of the final production. In explaining the choices and how and why they were made, a literary apology takes form that illuminates the moral and aesthetic judgements upon which the festival was built. ', '\tThe 2014 Great Chicago Fire Festival was widely considered a spectacular failure and became a political flashpoint. Where the dissertation serves as a field guide is in its diagnosis of the causes of that failure and the nature of the media turmoil that followed it. Here the dissertation incorporates a series of secondary sources to provide an analytical framework and reveal very practical guideposts for future practitioners. Analyzing reporting structures within city government reveals counterintuitive paths to minimize regulatory impingement. J. Mark Schuster’s discussion of ‘urban ephemera’ helps illuminate the conflicts that surfaced between community stakeholders and city officials concerned with promoting a particular image of their city and ultimately provides a means of avoiding aspects of those inevitable conflicts. The extensive research of Yochai Benkler and Marshall Ganz about forms of social organizing illuminate the unseen consequences of early public positioning. In the end, my analysis of the failure of the Great Chicago Fire Festival serves as proof of the old adage that failure is our best teacher.

Last modified

• 10/28/2019

Creator

• Jim Lasko

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-4jdq-fa57

Keyword

• Theater

Date created

• 2018-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright