ML - Michigan Avenue

2013 - Issue 5 - September

Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!

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VIEW FROM THE TOP Lou Raizin with former Mayor Richard M. Daley, Roche Schulfer of Goodman Theatre, and former NEA chair Rocco Landesman. "The way I think about things, Chicago's number one. A critic in the UK called Chicago 'ground zero for new work.'" FROM LEFT: The Oriental Theatre, where Broadway in Chicago will host Evita; a scene from Kinky Boots, one of Raizin's biggest gets for the Windy City. BEHIND THE CURTAIN Lou Raizin shares some of his offstage passions. *the wheel deal: "I live in the Lincolnshire/Lake Forest area and bike to work every day, about 35 miles in each direction. My favorite weekend is riding downtown in the morning, having breakfast, and riding back up north before my wife wakes up." *reading material: "On my recent list was the book about the Mayor's family, Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family. And I love thrillers." *inspiring simon: "Seymour Simon was a member of the Illinois Supreme Court with a long list of political accolades. He died at 91, and his eulogy called it a premature death. That's somebody you want to aspire to —somebody who really took advantage of every moment." *on the playlist: "If I'm listening to music, it will most likely be a string quartet or something quiet and introspective. I also like to discover new music, and there's an app I've been using called Songza. I'll just tell it what mood I'm in or want to get into and let it take me on that journey. I like the unexpected." 60 PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMY BOYLE (RAIZIN); SEAN WILLIAMS (KINKY BOOTS); KATRINA WITTKAMP (ORIENTAL) continued from page 59 being about much more than theater—it's about putting the City of Chicago front and center on the world stage of tourism. As a member of the executive committees of Choose Chicago and Chicago Loop Alliance, Raizin feels that he's doing some of his most impactful work, including a Choose Chicago initiative that has committed to Mayor Emanuel to deliver 50 million visitors to the city per year by 2020. "There's a group of us that really believe we're about to change Chicago forever. You see what we've been able to do from a theater perspective, but I'm a firm believer that from a tourism perspective Chicago is a world-class city that the majority of the world doesn't know about. We're working on a number of out-of-the-box concepts that could really change and open the floodgates." Whether he's promoting Broadway in Chicago productions like this month's Evita at the Oriental Theatre or promoting —LOU RAIZIN Chicago as the ultimate visitor destination, Raizin knows that it's all about giving people a transformative experience. Says Raizin, "You think about Chicago, and its competition for conventions is between Orlando and Las Vegas. What distinguishes us is what we have from a cultural standpoint—and if we can continue to add to that, we can draw the rest of the world here. We can create more of those great things that keep all of us here in Chicago, and all of us energized every single day." MA MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 058-060_MA_SP_VFT_Sept_13.indd 60 8/7/13 1:10 PM

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