Third Coast festival spins off, plans usual spring competition, but . . .
Third Coast International Audio Festival, which lost support from its fiscally challenged parent Chicago Public Radio this month, won’t hold its annual producers’ conference this fall but is working with other groups to hold some kind of get-together for producers.
Third Coast program host Macsai and staffers Shapiro, Zorn and Hall. (Photo: Steven Gross.)
However, the festival added a new feature to its year-round schedule on March 28 [2009], the Third Coast Filmless Festival for the general public, and will continue its annual springtime audio competition — this year adding web technology provided by Public Radio Exchange, says Johanna Zorn, its founding director. The competition will call for entries in May.
Changes were required by last fall’s spending cuts at the Chicago station, including layoffs of the three festival staffers among other station employees. The station always expected that the festival would spin off someday, Zorn says, but the recession determined the timing. The festival lost station support as of April 1 and will become an independent nonprofit Aug. 1, though it will have space at CPR for at least a year.
“We could not be more proud that the festival has found its wings, and we wish it even more success as an independent organization,” CPR President Torey Malatia said in a release.
The festival, which was created in 2000 and held its first competition in 2001, wouldn’t have survived without the renewed assistance from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, which gave annual support of $100,000, plus a $50,000 challenge grant, Zorn told Current. She aims to raise another $50,000 from individuals.
TCIAF keeps its three staffers, including Zorn and Julie Shapiro, artistic director, and Delaney Hall, producer of Re:sound, a weekly showcase of nonfiction audio now broadcast only in Chicago. Re:sound will continue airing on Chicago Public Radio, and adding broadcasts elsewhere may become a higher priority now that TCIAF is going indie from the station, Zorn says.
The fledgling nonprofit also has its starter Board of Directors, including Zorn; Merrill Smith, a past board chair of CPR; and Lisa Lee, director of the Jane Addams’ Hull-House Museum at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
Web page posted April 13, 2009
Copyright 2009 by Current LLC
