Usually at a live performance, the audience is encouraged to give the performers their undivided attention. But at Meanwhile Chicago – a variety show featuring storytellers, essayists, comics and dancers – the audience is encouraged to draw and doodle the whole time. 

“When you put a piece of paper and a pen in front of someone, almost everyone is going to grab it and start doodling,” said Megan Kirby, who created Meanwhile with her friend Catherine Eves in 2016. “We were trying to figure out how to channel that desire to make art, and also this idea that you can be writing and drawing and it's not necessarily taking your focus away.”

After the show, the artwork created by the audience is sifted through and stitched together into a zine, a small-run magazine, and then copied and distributed. 

In this episode of the Rundown podcast, Kirby talks with host Erin Allen about the inspiration for the project and why Chicago is a hub for this kind of creativity. 

You can follow Meanwhile on Instagram for information about their next performance and pick up a copy of their latest zine at Chicago Zine Fest on Oct. 5.

Read more about Dixmoor's Water Crisis, from WBEZ's Adora Namigadde

Think your lemon meringue pie could win an amateur baking contest? Well, you can put your baking chops to the test at the annual Chicago’s Best Baker Competition on July 20 in Uptown. 

“Chicago has a lot of baking competitions for people who are professionals,” said Genesis Winter, who started this contest back in 2018. “And so I wanted to do something that was just, you know, [similar to] a county fair. Your mom who's in the kitchen and she makes an amazing cookie and she wants to go show off and get the blue ribbon. That's what we're going for.”

Much like a county fair, winners go home with a ribbon and bragging rights. Non-baking attendees can taste what’s on offer in exchange for a donation to Cornerstone Community Outreach, a Chicago homeless shelter run by Winter’s husband, Andrew.

In this episode, Rundown podcast host Erin Allen sat down with Winter and last year’s overall winner, Alia Zander (a.k.a. Chicago’s reigning amateur “best baker”) to talk about the origins of the contest and what it looks and feels like to enter (and win).

Imagine dancing your heart out with your bestie like you used to, but still getting home by 10 p.m.

That’s the idea behind Earlybirds Club, according to creators (and high school friends) Susie Lee and Laura Baginski. 

“It’s a dance party for women that starts early and ends early because we all value our sleep,” Baginski said.

Lee and Baginski have been selling out Earlybirds Club dance parties since February, and have a handful more scheduled through the end of the year, including a Halloween party at Beauty Bar and a holiday party at Beat Kitchen. They’re also expanding outside of Chicago; they have an event in New York City in November and plans for a party in Los Angeles in January.

“We were so overwhelmed and surprised at the reaction,” Lee said. “The first one was just like two idiots throwing a party. And then after that, we were like, there clearly is a need for this.”

Lee and Baginski came on the Rundown podcast to explain the idea’s origin story, why it struck a chord with so many, and what’s coming next.

This episode was originally published on April 19, 2024. 

Sorry Papi is a popular all-female traveling DJ party co-founded by Miriam Paz.

“We were just thinking one day before COVID: ‘What if we throw an all-girls reggaeton party?” Paz said.

Paz, whose stage name is DJ Miriam, talked with Vocalo’s Nudia Hernandez about the genesis of the traveling party, the general prowess of female DJs, and why women feel safer partying with other women.

Sorry Papi’s next party is July 6 at the Ramova Theatre in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood.

Linney was the name of a loud and melodramatic house cat who stars in a new graphic novel titled “WOE: A Housecat’s Story of Despair.”

Linney’s owner, Evanston-based graphic novelist Lucy Knisley, said she originally based Linney’s comic-strip voice off the character Sister Monica Jones, a British nun from the long-running BBC series “Call the Midwife.”

“She was complaining about stuff that was just so silly to complain about, but she was so eloquent about it, so I wanted to give her this eloquent, stately manner,” Knisley said. 

In this episode of The Rundown podcast, Knisley tells host Erin Allen about her journey into comics – from her early love of “Calvin & Hobbes” to her education at both the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. 

Knisley also talks about the poignant comic strip she created following Linney’s death, one she says readers will still reach out to her about several years later.  

Do you remember the track ‘Mariposa’? It did significant rounds on TikTok during the pandemic lockdown. The group behind the song, Peach Tree Rascals, is about to wrap up a 19 show, 27-day tour. Ahead of their Chicago show last week, they spoke with Vocalo’s Nudia Hernandez about their deep friendship, what it’s like to create a viral music hit and how they’re making their immigrant parents proud.

Colombia’s influx of Venezuelan migrants has led to accusations the migrants are fueling crime and drawing resources needed by low-income Colombians. This resembles some responses to Venezuelan arrivals in Chicago.

WBEZ’s Chip Mitchell spent two weeks in Colombia – a country that’s received a much larger influx of Venezuelan migrants than Chicago – to discover how the conditions compare, how Venezuelan migrants in both countries are experiencing xenophobia and what lessons the city of Chicago can learn.

This episode is a part of the Democracy Solutions Project, a partnership among WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times and the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government.