‘Lake Track’ audio drama imagines a futuristic Chicago the place water is all the things, delivered to life by solid of 23 Chicagoans

One would suppose inside the land of Make Imagine, something is feasible, even throughout the pandemic — Make Imagine being the Make Imagine Affiliation, a five-year-old Chicago-based storytelling firm that produces audio dramas. or “performs on your ears.”

However in response to founder and government producer Jeremy McCarter, it was when making ready to do the second season of manufacturing that the pandemic modified the trajectory of how Make Imagine informed tales. The interactive a part of telling tales — recording them in entrance of a stay viewers and having the viewers talk about the story — got here to an finish with the pandemic. However as a substitute of shutting down, McCarter stated the affiliation doubled down.

“The entire world modified in 2020,” he stated. “It felt like the one purpose to maintain going is to strive one thing that might be extra bold … attempt to discover a method to make one thing extra collaborative than what we thought we had been going to do earlier than.”

The result’s “Lake Track,” a 12-part episodic (four-hour) audio drama that intersects with poetry, music, science fiction and politics, and facilities on Chicago within the yr 2098. The Chicago panorama is now the Republic of Chicago; local weather change has altered the land to the purpose the place water is on the heart of every day life and residing. Threats nonetheless abound, however Chicago residents persist, as do cultural mainstays like artwork and music. The story unfolds via the eyes of South Facet siblings Dee and Wade, who’re coping with particular person rising pains and shared trauma. Episodes have come weekly since Oct. 12 and can finish Dec. 21.

“A lot of stuff lately is tailored from supply materials, this was the alternative of that. We had no story, all we had was one another — seven of us from our very completely different backgrounds, we’re going to attempt to inform a narrative collectively about Chicago and we’re going to set it someday sooner or later after which all the things that got here after that’s what the seven of us dreamed up over the past 2½ years,” McCarter stated.

To not give spoilers, however there’s references to the pandemic and quarantines, iconic landmarks, the late Harold Washington and Karen Lewis, a golden age within the 2040s, and the way the county jail was knocked down and was fields to feed town, a short finish to the lengthy historical past of town’s segregation, and a fictional poet named Esperanza that Chicago poet Nate Marshall has embodied along with his work. Marshall’s final work with Make Imagine was a Chicago-based model of the trickster people story character Brer Rabbit known as “Bruh Rabbit & The Implausible Telling of Remington Ellis, Esq.”

“I feel a variety of what we had been doing with the piece was actually attempting to consider and virtually pay ahead what’s necessary within the cultural lifetime of town now and what would these issues seem like sooner or later,” Marshall stated in regards to the fictional poet, Esperanza. “Maybe I’m biased, however I feel Chicago is a extremely necessary literary metropolis, particularly because it pertains to poetry. And eager about who would possibly that be, who would embody that? That’s the place that character got here out of.”

Marshall is one in every of “Lake Track’s” seven co-creators, together with McCarter, Laura Alcalá Baker, Sydney Charles (who voices the Dee character), Mikhail Fiksel (2022 Tony Award winner for sound design), WBEZ journalist Natalie Moore and Kristina Valada-Viars. The collection rating options Chicago blues harmonica legend Billy Department, a 2022 inductee to the Blues Corridor of Fame.

A solid of 23 Chicago actors spherical out the artistic group, together with Edgewater resident Marcus D. Moore, who performs Wade. He joined the venture for the camaraderie, the thought of overcoming one thing and discovering who you’re as a person and as a group.

“What drew me to Wade was he has some obstacles to beat himself. I can relate to that as a result of I’ve had to try this in my very own private life, extra particularly, as a result of Wade is queer, I’m bisexual in actual life, so having to search out my identification as a bisexual Black man, but additionally as a Black man, a Black grownup, a human being, all of these intersections that I’m presently going via myself,” Moore stated. “The performing I had on this explicit setting was new for me, and I’m actually happy with what we created in all of our closets.”

The world-building is detailed and the nuances intentional, in response to Marshall and McCarter, as was the sensation of hope despite ongoing every day challenges. Marshall stated the creators of the collection didn’t need the piece to be dystopian, however a futuristic drama couldn’t faux like local weather change shouldn’t be a difficulty.

“I feel our thought was that is how historical past occurs. Exhausting issues occur, people discover new methods to kind of navigate via it after which time sort of marches on and I feel that’s a variety of what we actually needed to do with this piece,” he stated. “Whether or not eager about issues like inequality and segregation and a variety of these structural ills that basically govern the best way that folks get to stay and who will get to really feel good inside the house of Chicago inside the house of the U.S., a variety of that stuff does discover some decision within the story, which I feel was thrilling for us.”

Moore thinks the discharge of the collection was good timing given the latest election cycle. A agency believer that issues occur for a purpose, Moore stated “Lake Track” exhibits folks have extra energy than they’ve been led to consider, and whereas we’re sturdy on our personal, we’ll at all times be strongest collectively.

“That’s what ‘Lake Track’ is about — chosen household and group coming collectively and overcoming obstacles,” he stated. “I feel this venture got here at a fully good time.”

Marshall agrees, saying he thinks this can be a time the place the temperature can break round some societal, cultural points and issues. He stated despite the fact that this can be a fictional Chicago, it’s rooted in actual issues that folks have in widespread, primarily town. McCarter stated the spirit of this venture is a lot about bringing voices into the room, principally Black and Latinx voices.

“There’s been a trajectory to Make Imagine, up to now,” McCarter stated. “It started as an experiment in collaboration to offer completely different sorts of individuals an opportunity to search out one another in a really divided metropolis that wishes to make that tough, and ‘Lake Track’ is simply the furthest that I feel we may consider to push that experiment. It’s good to really feel like there’s room on the market in podcast land for a narrative that could be a large swing in the best way that ours is. … This can be a story about folks attempting to save lots of their metropolis by coming collectively and I hope folks will stick round to Episode 12 to listen to the way it goes.”

“Lake Track” is on the market free on lakesong.fm, and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and different main podcast platforms. New episodes are launched Wednesdays.

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