Player of the Moment: Roell Schmidt and Links Hall

Links Hall staff: Brett Swinney, Anna Trier, Roell Schmidt and Felicia Holman/Photo: Joe Mazza, Brave Lux

The first thing Roell Schmidt would like to make clear is that the story of Links Hall in the near-decade she’s served as director—a title that she explains technically encompasses both the executive and the artistic, though the latter feels weird when the artists are artistically directing themselves—is not about one person. It’s the story of artists, audiences, board members and committed staff “who bring each other cupcakes or find a song for a dance break because we’re under stress about something. This staff is amazing.”

Roell Schmidt, Links Hall director/Photo: Joe Mazza, Brave Lux

In the sunny back office of Links Hall, a half-eaten cake comprised of a bunch of individual cupcakes fused together with icing and “Pay the 40th Forward” written across the top, sits on a desk next to me, provided, Schmidt tells me, by Brett Swinney, Links’ production director. Schmidt sits opposite me in an office chair, a kind presence and eloquent spokesperson for Links’ mission and history, if not someone terribly comfortable at the center of attention. But then, one can’t tell the story of Links’ last few years without talking about a complex web of relationships—first and foremost with Constellation, the jazz and experimental music presenter that shares with Links Hall the vestibule, small bar, ownership of the building and now, thanks to all of those things, audience members. “People are mingling, there’s been a cross-pollination of people looking for live art experience and artists are collaborating like mad,” Schmidt says. Ironically, or perhaps naturally, the creative abundance in Links Hall at Constellation sprung from a time of famine. When Schmidt was hired in 2009, Links Hall was floundering to fill seats, strapped for cash and in need of a new home. The original location, while long on charm and history, wasn’t feasible any longer. Schmidt says, “The decades of all those people coming together to make it their home imbued the place with specialness, but getting civilians to take a risk and come to the old Links Hall wasn’t easy and the space wasn’t accessible. It didn’t help us meet our mission. We also had a very hostile landlord who kept raising the rent beyond what people should pay.” That rent, by the time the organization moved out of the building in Wrigleyville with the words “Links Hall” carved in the lintel above the entrance, was equivalent per square foot to office space in a Loop highrise. The recession wasn’t helping either. “It was 2009, everything was hemorrhaging, foundations were pulling out of the arts, Links was at the end of many multiyear grants. It was a perfect storm. We had swaths of empty weekends. Artists weren’t here because they didn’t have money.”

Then, at a meeting of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events advisory counsel, Schmidt met Mike Reed, musician and founding director of the Pitchfork Music Festival. Schmidt mentioned that Links was on the search for a new home, and Reed said the only building in Chicago he’d ever had his eye on was up for sale, but he could only afford the purchase if Links came in on the deal. Today, the one-story brick venue on an otherwise featureless block of Western Avenue is one of the city’s most vibrant incubators of groundbreaking performance. Says Schmidt, “This building, with all the musicians and the performing artists and the audience members mingling, the place really has a glow.”

Schmidt feels the location allows the organization to better meet their mission on a number of levels. “What I love about Links is that the artist and audience take equal risk, so everyone is on a level playing field. And I think there’s not enough of that,” she says. “The mission isn’t just about an artist working in a studio, but about public engagement. The move here has made that easier. I also think the move ratcheted it up for artists. The old Links was more of a failsafe space because it was hard to find. Generally, you knew the people in your audience. Here, the public engagement has more weight.”

Audience engagement guided how Schmidt and the Links staff approached their fortieth-anniversary season. “The goal was to not just throw a party and say, ‘Yay, we’re forty.’ The goal was: what would be the best way to thank forty years of artists for making Links their home, and audiences taking risks to see things they’re not sure what it’s going to be… because sometimes the artists don’t know what it’s going to be until it happens? What is the thing that would pay the fortieth forward? I do box-office reconciliations every week and I see how much goes to paying technicians and the rent here. The best way we could thank artists would be to suspend the rent and technician fees so they could keep their ticket sales and have seed money for their next project.”

Sponsoring productions in the fortieth season also helped Links connect with more marginalized artists, or those for whom working with a new venue would present a level of risk. “We’ve been working since 2009 to make sure Links better reflects the city of Chicago. We’ve always had artists of color at Links, but it was the exception, not the rule,” says Schmidt. “There weren’t a lot of artists of color finding their way to Links. That didn’t feel right for a city that’s majority people of color. The other goal was how can we reach out as an invitation to artists who have never made work at Links to try it out and not have a financial risk to testing our waters?”

And the concept of “Pay the 40th Forward” extends beyond Links Hall covering production costs and inviting new artists to participate. Responsibility to the larger community is part of the deal. “Artists have no financial obligation to participate, but we asked all artists to make a community investment—either house-manage for other artists or help sell raffle tickets or write for Performance Response Journal,” Schmidt says. “Everyone has jumped on doing this. We’re giving our artists free tickets to all the other shows. You can support the community with your presence.”

Performing artists and small presenters coming together for mutual aid and collaboration, sharing resources, ideas, audiences and creative energy has been a means of self-preservation, yes, but it’s also made Chicago’s live performance scene all the more rich and varied. Funding may be scarce, but boundary-breaking creative work abounds thanks to Schmidt, the Links staff and dozens of small presenters like them in the city, many of whom are named in this year’s list and together form a mycelium… a delicate, far-reaching web from which original, daring art springs. Schmidt sees this collaborative spirit as the only way for arts to thrive. “We cannot function if we are not mutually serving each other,” she says. “For the fortieth we wanted to re-emphasize that the arts has to be a partnership. Not this model that you have a work and we’ll pay you an artist’s fee and there will naturally be an audience and you will come in and do it and leave—transactional. It’s not sustainable at all. I don’t know if it ever was, but even more so when there’s a lot less resources going to the arts.”

But then, imaginative partnerships and alternative approaches to presenting are nothing new for a small, independent venue specializing in dance and performance art. “There’s nothing predictable about Links, except a grant won’t happen and we’ll have to figure out something else, or a grant will happen and we’ll have to figure out how to deliver on it,” Schmidt says when I asked what she saw in the future for Links Hall. “There’s never a given at Links. But I know if we ever get too far away from the artists we will get away from the mission and it will become about preserving the institution. How do we in this new version of arts support, which is not really support for the arts any longer, how do you continue to do what you do? And Links has been doing that since 1978. Now is no different.”