(RE)GENERATION: A People’s Salon

Free Street Theater creates original, joyful, and thought-provoking theater by, for, about, with, and in Chicago’s diverse communities.

SK Kerastas (they/them) is a justice-driven live arts producer, community organizer, artist, and current Executive Director of Links Hall in Chicago. With roots in queer and trans youth performance, their work has spanned the realms of public art, theater, site-specific performance, and cultural strategy, primarily in Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. 

They have organized with the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective, East Bay Meditation Center, and Dhamma Dena Meditation Center. They received their B.A. in English-Theatre & Women’s Studies from McGill University in Montreal. They are a fierce competitor in the Chicago Park District tennis leagues, and they meditate a lot.

A native of Chicago, a University of Chicago Lab school brat, a Wisconsin Badger, and a Chicago Style Cohort member

Pitts graduated with a degree in mathematics from UW/Madison. After graduation, she dove into retail management at Sears in Louisville, Kentucky. She brought diversity in thought, word, and deed, along with consistent sales and profit increases year after year. Her most significant impact was motivating staff and peers to become the best they could be individually and collectively.

After her success in retail, Pitts returned to Chicago and transitioned into IT management with Sears, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, ABM AMRO, and Chicago City Colleges. She became an expert in aligning information technology with business strategies and objectives.

Today, she is an award-winning Realtor®. As a Broker, she helps people buy and sell Real Estate in the Chicago regional market.

She enjoys: gardening, jazz, art, cycling, swimming, and volunteering wherever her skills fit the need.

The South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP) is a research and archival initiative to collect, preserve, digitize, exhibit, and research small-gauge home movies made by residents of Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods. By asking owners of home movies to share their footage and describe it from their personal perspectives, SSHMP seeks to increase understanding of amateur filmmaking practices, and of the many histories and cultures comprising Chicago’s South Side. The project brings materials that are typically kept in private collections into public light and discussion. Unique in its focus on home movies from this region, SSHMP aims to build an alternative, accessible visual record, filling gaps in existing written and visual histories, and ensuring that the diverse experiences and perspectives of South Siders will be available to larger audiences and to future generations.