It has been a show-shopping year for the Theatre Conservatory through the leadership of Department Head, Lauren Wells-Mann, faculty, and the incredible work ethic of Theatre scholar-artists! This spring, Juan Popoca, ChiArts Acting ’24, advanced to the national August Wilson New Voices Competition. Scholar-artists also competed at the IHSA (Illinois High School Association) State Drama Competition. For the first time in ChiArts history, the Group Interpretation cast received an All-State Cast Award. 

On May 1, Broadway in Chicago’s Illinois High School Musical Theatre Awards nominated ChiArts’ spring musical Little Shop of Horrors for Best Production and Best Performer in an Actor Role. On May 22, Alex Weber (Theatre’ 24), who played ChiArts’ Seymour will perform at the Broadway Playhouse for the national Jimmy Awards alongside the 23 high school finalists from across Illinois. 

What a year! By the end of May, the conservatory will have produced nine productions, worked with local theaters like Lookingglass and Steppenwolf, and participated in regional and national competitions. Standing ovation to the entire conservatory for their outstanding work!
If we were to give the Visual Arts Conservatory’s school year a theme, it would be "community!" Through the leadership of Department Head Chris Lin Dao-Heng and Department Administrative Assistant, Patrick Lentz, Visual Arts launched an incredible amount of innovative programming in 2022-2023. From cross-conservatory collaborations, to the Visual Arts Curatorial Fellows debut group exhibition, the conservatory is continuously expanding opportunities for scholar-artists to grow and celebrate their work. 

On May 19, the Visual Arts Student Representatives will host ChiArts’ first PRIDE FEST to celebrate June’s Pride Month. The event will include ChiArts performances, scholar-artist vendors, art-making, and the conservatory's release of the third edition of their monthly zine (an independent magazine), CAVA (ChiArts Visual Arts). This edition of CAVA will be in honor of Pride Month and our APPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community.

Along with new conservatory collaborations this year, Visual Arts also welcomed arts partners such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Artist-in-Residence and Grammy Award-winning violinist, Hilary Hahn. In an experimental workshop in ChiArts' Gallery, Hilary performed excerpts from her repertoire, and scholar-artists created drawings in response to her music. As Department Head Chris Lin Dao-Heng shares, “A true collaboration is not easy, and what I observed when Hilary visited our Visual Artists is a genuine dialogue between two art forms. As a result, both of us gained a lot of perspectives on how to be creative in our own individual fields.”

April 27, 2023 was a night to remember for the many ChiArts community members who attended Kerfuffle!, the ChiArts Foundation’s annual fundraiser. With the help of its supporters, The Foundation raised more than $450,000 for ChiArts’ five arts conservatories and accessible arts education! 

For the first time, a ChiArts Alumni Auction was coordinated by Raven Smith (Visual Arts’ 18), and featured 16 original pieces from various alum artists and a wide range of mediums. The auction celebrated these rising artists and provided them an opportunity to sell their work while raising funds for the next generation of scholar-artists.

The ChiArts Foundation also announced The Susan McKeever ChiArts Dance Fund in honor of ChiArts founding board member Susan McKeever. The McKeever Family generously helped launch this fund to help ensure every dance student at ChiArts has access to all the opportunities that are important in a young artist’s life.
As the school year is coming to a close, ChiArts scholar-artists are preparing for the summer. Many have already signed up for summer training and learning programs throughout Chicago to continue their journey of establishing themselves as artists in today's industry.

These opportunities are possible thanks to arts partners like Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado. This year at Anderson Ranch, four rising seniors have received full-tuition scholarships to attend workshops in disciplines including Photography & New Media, Ceramics, Painting & Drawing, Furniture Design & Woodworking, Sculpture, Printmaking and Digital Fabrication. A highlight for last year’s scholar-artists included taking Visual Storytelling with Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist from the Washington Post, Salwan Georges. We're excited to share our scholar-artists' "summer happenings" with you, so get ready for a five-week social media series highlighting ChiArts' five arts conservatories.
With commencements around the corner, we proudly congratulate ChiArts alums who are graduating from undergraduate, graduate, and training certificate programs, and all who are taking the next step in their professional, academic, and artistic careers. 

SPOTLIGHT ON JOSUE HERRERA, VISUAL ARTS ’19
From Chicago, to New York, to Rome, Josue Herrera has been creating and studying art across the world. This spring, Josue is graduating with his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. At Cornell, Josue participated in the world-class program “Cornell in Rome” where he focused on architecture design, history, and theory. In his final semester, Josue is celebrating his time at Cornell by producing a collection of 30-minute exposure portraits of his graduating classmates.
The Chicago High School for the Arts (ChiArts) is Chicago’s first public arts high school and the only pre-professional arts high school in the nation that actively recruits novice students. ChiArts Proud is the ChiArts Foundation's seasonal bulletin that celebrates scholar-artist and the ChiArts Community, and connects you to events and productions. To learn more about ChiArts, visit chiarts.org and follow @ChiArtsHS on social media. 

To learn more about the ChiArts Foundation and how you can support access to pre-professional training in the arts, visit chiartsfoundation.org.