Free with museum entrance, which is free to Illinois residents on Tuesdays.
Homeroom presents “School Night: How to Politically Correct,” an info show about the awesome love, power, and freedom of political correctness. Comedian Tim Barnes, playwright Kristiana Rae Colon, multimedia artist Tim Jones-Yelvington, and poet H. Melt join School Night hosts Fred Sasaki and Seth Vanek to tease out doctrine, language politics, and stigma amid our burgeoning social landscape and evolving ideals. Topics include how to embody our best selves, respect our fellows, and confront inequities, violence, and demagogues in safe, constructive, and badass ways. Come exercise your civic duty by engaging as citizens of humanity.
Tim Barnes is a Los Angeles born Chicago based comedian and writer. He is a contributor to The AV Club, an occasional host of The Moth StorySlam’s and has written for the NPR quiz show, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! as well as Men’s Health. He is the host of the acclaimed interview/storytelling podcast, It’s All True! featuring conversations with prominent comedians and entertainers including Eddie Izzard, Wyatt Cenac, Greg Proops and more. Chicago Magazine named Tim one of the 16 Chicago Comics You Should Check Out… and The Chicago Tribune has described him as “a smooth wordsmith who is sharp, polished and confident…”
Kristiana Rae Colón is a poet, playwright, actor, educator, Cave Canem Fellow, and co-director of the #LetUsBreathe Collective. Her play but i cd only whisper had its American premiere at The Flea in New York. Her play Octagon, winner of Arizona Theater Company's 2014 National Latino Playwriting Award and Polarity Ensemble Theater's Dionysos Festival of New Work, had its world premiere at the Arcola Theater in London in September 2015. Her work was featured in Victory Gardens' 2014 Ignition Festival and in 2013, she toured the UK with her collection of poems promised instruments published by Northwestern University Press. In autumn 2012, Kristiana opened her one-woman show Cry Wolf at Teatro Luna in Chicago while her play but i cd only whisper had its world premiere at the Arcola Theater in London. Kristiana is apart of the Goodman Theater's Playwrights Unit, a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists and one half of the brother/sister hip-hop duo April Fools. She appeared on the fifth season of HBO's Def Poetry Jam.
Tim Jones-Yelvington is a Chicago-based writer, multimedia performance artist, and nightlife personality. He is the author of two collections of short fiction—"Evan's House and the Other Boys Who Live There" (in "They Could No Longer Contain Themselves," Rose Metal Press) and "This is a Dance Movie!" (forthcoming, Tiny Hardcore Press).
H. Melt is a poet and artist whose work proudly documents Chicago’s queer and trans communities. Their writing has appeared many places including Lambda Literary, The Offing, and Them, the first trans literary journal in the United States. H. Melt is the author of The Plural, The Blurring. They work at the Poetry Foundation and Chicago's feminist bookstore.
Homeroom’s School Night is an informal “101 lecture” and discussion series which typically takes place on occasional Tuesdays at venues across Chicago. Experts and enthusiasts explore popular and subculture in front of a relaxed crowd.