THE LAST DAYS OF CABRINI-GREEN

For almost two years, I led our team of producers and writers through the ambitious process of making an audio series that weaves together interviews with actor performances to tell the emotional story behind one of the most transformative periods in Chicago history: the 1990s and the fall of high-rise public housing. It’s a story filled with love and joy and tremendous sorrow and frustration.

“Enlightening, informative and dramatically compelling… Most podcasts I have listened to seem to me to consist of people enjoying the sounds of their own voices. Others aspire to more, and this one flat-out soars. - Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune

LISTEN

I was tasked with creating and implementing a production plan to bring Journalist Ben Austen’s decades plus reporting on Chicago public housing and Cabrini-Green into an immersive audio documentary, while managing a team of freelancers and staff producers across three production companies. I led this production from it’s earliest days through it’s release.

Throughout this production, I wore a lot of “hats” (not just the knitted ones while we recorded in subzero temperatures):

• Senior supervising producer: owning our production schedule; managing all team members (13+ people); and directing our editorial processes with all stakeholders from our internal team, and Campside and Audible executives

• Editor and script supervisor

• Director of original music composition and sound design

• And most importantly — I listened. Not just to all of the raw audio, nor to our core team of collaborators, but to the people who lived this story and who our show would affect the most — continually keeping their emotional needs and care at the forefront of our reporting plans. Looking back, that really trumped everything else on my plate.

We made this show with so much care and purpose, I hope you take a listen.