The North Shore Weekend, April 9th, 2022

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SATURDAY APRIL 9 | SUNDAY APRIL 10 2022

SUNDAY BREAKFAST

Northbrook resident and former Late Show with David Letterman intern Karen Firsel shares some of her Top Ten moments in the television industry P18

WEEKEND WEATHER

Saturday, Mostly cloudy, high 44 Saturday night, Partly cloudy, low 34 Sunday, Partly cloudy, high 52

NORTH SHORE FOODIE

This yummy carrot cake has a decadent cheesecake topper P16 FOLLOW US:

NO. 495 | A JWC MEDIA PUBLICATION

LAUGH OUT LOUD COMEDIAN LARRY BLOOM’S FUNNIER BY THE LAKE BRINGS LAUGHS TO THE NORTH SHORE BY HOSTING COMEDY SHOWS IN VENUES THROUGHOUT THE AREA.

Early access to live music— you give it by donating to Ravinia and our education programs; you get it with the ticket presale only for Ravinia supporters.

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STORY ON PG 10

Audiences enjoy a comedy show at Madame Zuzu’s in Highland Park.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LARRY BLOOM

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| SATURDAY APRIL 9 | SUNDAY APRIL 10 2022

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Engel & Völkers and its independent License Partners are Equal Opportunity Employers and fully support the principles of the Fair Housing Act.

THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

SATURDAY APRIL 9 | SUNDAY APRIL 10 2022 |

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INDEX

NEWS 12 show time A Lake Forest woman revives the Tower Players community theater for two productions later this month

John Conatser FOUNDER & PUBLISHER

ADVERTISING

LIFESTYLE & ARTS

16 north shore

foodie

Our carrot cake recipe has a cheesecake topper baked in with candied carrot threads to finish the presentation

Jennifer Sturgeon

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Dustin O'Regan, Sherry Thomas

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Mitch Hurst, Bill McLean, Monica Kass Rogers

DESIGN Linda Lewis PRODUCTION MANAGER GRAPHIC DESIGNER

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Barry Blitt ILLUSTRATOR Monica Kass Rogers PHOTOGRAPHY Robin Subar PHOTOGRAPHY Cheyanne Lencioni ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT

18 sunday

breakfast Storytelling continues to enthrall TV personality and lifestyle expert Karen Firsel's audiences

ALL ADVERTISING INQUIRY INFO SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO 847.370.6940 & JENNIFER@JWCMEDIA.COM FIND US ONLINE: DAILYNORTHSHORE.COM LIKE US ON FACEBOOK! © 2022 THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND A PUBLICATION OF JWC MEDIA 445 SHERIDAN RD., HIGHWOOD, IL 60040

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THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

SATURDAY APRIL 9 | SUNDAY APRIL 10 2022 |

9

NEWS LAUGH OUT LOUD

From PG 1

BY MITCH HURST THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

In 2014, Lake Forest resident and professional comedian Larry Bloom noticed there weren’t enough laughs on the North Shore.

With the closing of the closest comedy club in Vernon Hills, Bloom saw an opportunity to bring professional comedians to the area. He launched Funnier By The Lake to showcase national talent and help laughter seekers avoid a trip to the city for a funny night out.

“I started doing stand-up professionally about 10 years ago and before that I was doing a lot of public speaking,” Bloom says. “Back then, there were no venues for comedy on the North Shore, so I started producing shows locally then kind of adding venues along the way.”

With 10 years of successful experience under his belt, Bloom hosts some long-standing, ongoing shows and, even during the pandemic, was able to move outdoors to keep up and running. It currently hosts regular shows at Madame Zuzu’s in Highland Park, The Laughing Factory in Glenview, Spirit Water Distillery in Cary, and “The Comedy Nosh” at Max & Benny’s Restaurant and Deli in Northbrook.

He also puts on private and corporate shows.

“I’m a comedian so I get back to the city a lot and around the region but for people who want to go see comedy who are in the north suburbs what I really wanted to do is bring that classic Chicago comedy club with a lineup with real professional comedians who you might see at Zanies or Laugh Factory to the North

“One can enjoy the show without everything involved in going to the city, which takes a lot of planning. You’ve got to drive down there, and you’ve got to park, and then it's like, ‘Oh well, if we're going to the city, we should invite these people and we might as well go out to dinner’, and it just turns into this whole thing,” Bloom says. “I just wanted people to be able to go enjoy an eight o’clock show and be home by 10.”

Bloom emphasizes the importance of booking professional comedians who have proven track records of providing high quality entertainment at his and other venues. Presenting a diverse group of performers is also a goal.

“It’s an ongoing issue with comedy, not just in Chicago but everywhere, If you look at the lineups of my shows, my goal is always to make it extremely inclusive and diverse, not just

Sarah Perry gets laughs at The Laughing Academy in Glenview.

“I think every show we've done, even the outdoor shows during the pandemic, we’ve sold every one of those out. The Zuzu’s shows I think we started back up about a year ago in 2021 and I think every show has sold out,” Bloom says. “There's a huge, huge appetite, I notice other venues and restaurants doing comedy nights and I'm just going to accept that.

What is it they say? Copying is the greatest form of flattery.”

Sharup Karim performs at The Other Side in Crystal Lake.

Mike Atcherson entertains the crowd at The Laughing Academy in Glenview.

Shore,” he says Bloom says he wanted to provide an experience where people could have a night out listening to quality comedy without the hassle of having to go into the city.

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white guy comics,” he says. “Not that I have anything against white guy comics, but what actually sets Funnier By The Lake apart is we book people of all different races and cultures and genders.”

Bloom says there’s been a standard practice at some venues to hold one spot for a “female comedian”—a term female comedians dislike— but he doesn’t operate that way.

“They know that if they reach out to get booked, assuming they're funny and their clip is good, they’ll get booked. It’s not like we have to squeeze them in,” he says. “I've never found that we’ve had a shortage of really funny, talented women to book on our shows. I’d say we're making an effort but to me it's not that much of an effort because there's just a ton of great talent out there.”

Success hasn’t come without its serendipitous moments. Years ago, Bloom reached out to staff at the old Madame Zuzu’s in Highland Park, the tea shop owned by Smashing Pumpkins front man Billy Corgan, to inquire about hosting shows there. It wasn’t until he ran into Corgan at a music show there and explained to him what he was wanting to do that the relationship kickstarted. His relationship with the new Zuzu’s continues to this day.

One thing Bloom has learned during his near 10-year run with Funnier By The Lake is that people on the North Shore have a sense of humor. Finding an audience for the acts he books for his shows has not been a challenge.

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Larry Bloom does his stand-up act at Maggiano's in Vernon Hills.

Kevin Kellam leans in for a joke at The Laughing Academy in Glenview.

For more information and tickets to shows, visit funnierbythelake.com.

THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

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THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

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NEWS

SHOW TIME MARY MICHELLE SCALISE REVIVES A NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY THEATER GROUP WITH HER NEW PRODUCTION OF AGATHA CHRISTIE’S “AND THEN THERE WERE NONE,” SLATED TO OPEN APRIL 29.

BY MITCH HURST THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

Last summer, Mary Michelle Scalise was restless. The Lake Forest resident was done with COVID-19 and looking for an outlet for her creativity. She recalled that there once was a theater group—The Tower Players—that had staged productions in the gym at Sacred Heart School in Winnetka.

“When I was growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s, it was your classic amateur community theater where it was families that were doing it,” Scalise says. “Your dad was building the sets, and nobody was making too much money. There was no budget, and it was something for young people and their parents to do together.”

Tower Players eventually disbanded and was succeeded by Tower Junior Players, a feeder program for drama students at Sacred Heart School.

Subsequent efforts to keep community theater alive were led by more professionally minded theater companies with actors who had day jobs but also a fair amount of professional acting experience.

“I noticed that what used to be community theater faded away and morphed into something that was much different,” Scalise says. “People who auditioned for the plays were actually, if you look at their resumes, professional people who perhaps had a job at Allstate or Motorola, but always really wanted to be a professional actor and it didn't work out.”

Scalise envisions her revival of Tower Players to be a return to its community roots. Her first pro-

duction, a staging of “And Then There Were None”

by Agatha Christie, is set to run April 29 and 30 and includes an all-amateur cast of 11 performers all from communities on the North Shore.

“I'd been like thinking about the fact that I wish I could just do a classic—a drama that people would enjoy doing and really just attract people

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who want to do this for fun, like being in a book club,” she says. “To do it because they like being in place and they want to have camaraderie with the other cast members.”

“And Then There Were None” happens to be the best-selling mystery of all time so Scalise bought a copy and decided the play would be perfect for the rekindled group’s first production.

Casting the production came together via phone calls to friends Scalise knew who had prior acting experience in community theater or in high school or college productions, and through word of mouth. The cast ranges in ages from 23 to 71, and included Scalise’s husband, Craig Scalise.

“I started just calling people telling them I'm thinking about doing the play and asking if it

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would be of interest,” Scalise says. “It was so easy to attract people who are also looking for an outlet that didn't sound too stressful. It didn't sound like too much of a commitment and everyone could really enjoy the experience.”

While the cast are all amateurs at the moment, some members have acting chops in college and also other community theater productions. It includes theater majors from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, as well as Notre Dame.

“The intention of this is to revitalize theater of the community, by the community, and for the community, and that's being done through people who are primarily just like a lot of us—working families,” Scalise says. “People who happen to have some talents that at some point of their lives they were able to use on stage, but it's been a little while and here's an opportunity for people to revitalize their interests in a true community theater package.”

Tower Players will stage two productions of “And Then There Were None” at 7 p.m. on April 29 and 30 at Divine Mercy Parish Center in Winnetka. Tickets are $15 and will be available at the door.

THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

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THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

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THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

SATURDAY APRIL 9 | SUNDAY APRIL 10 2022 |

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LIFESTYLE & ARTS

NORTH SHORE FOODIE

CARROT LAYER CAKE WITH CHEESECAKE TOPPER

BY MONICA KASS ROGERS THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

I’m a carrot top who loves carrot cake!

I’ve made many over the years, never quite

INGREDIENTS

as unusual as this one which has a cheesecake top baked right with the batter. I got the idea from the New York Times, although they did theirs as a sheet cake.

My version uses a favorite batter recipe— not too sweet, with pineapple and carrot

• ¼ of a nutmeg, finely grated on a microplane OR ¼ tsp ground nutmeg

in the mix, and has toasted pecans on the sides of the cake.

For fun and whimsy? I’ve included little candied carrot threads to put on top of the frosting doodles. After the party guests have gone, this cake keeps well wrapped

FOR THE CHEESECAKE TOPPER:

• 1 cup light brown sugar

• 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

• 1 cup pure cane sugar

• 1 large egg

• 1 cup vegetable oil

• ½ cup full-fat sour cream • 2/3 cup powdered sugar, sifted

• 1 tsp baking soda

• ¾ cup canned shredded pineapple, juice drained, and shreds pulsed just a bit in a food processor, or with an immersion blender

• ½ tsp salt

• 4 large eggs

• 2 tsp ground cinnamon (Saigon cinnamon is my favorite for potency)

• 2 tsp vanilla extract

• 1 cup sugar

• 3 cups grated carrots, medium to fine shredded

• ½ carrot, peeled, cut into two chunks

FOR THE CAKE:

• 2, 9-inch cake pans, greased well with vegetable shortening, and lined with parchment paper circles • 2-½ cups all-purpose flour, sifted • 2 tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp powdered ginger

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• Pinch of salt FOR THE CANDIED CARROT THREADS:

• 1 cup water

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and chilled. (I often slice and individually wrap the extra pieces.) One tip: To make the cake easier to slice cleanly, lightly pulse the drained crushed pineapple with a hand-held immersion blender or food processor before adding to the batter.

and very carefully shredded into very thin shreds FOR THE FROSTING:

• 2, 8-oz blocks of cream cheese to make 16 oz.

• 1/2 cup butter, softened • Pinch of salt • 5 ½ cups powdered sugar, sifted to ensure no lumps • 2 tsp vanilla extract • For the sides of the cake: 1 cup finely and freshly chopped toasted pecans THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

LIFESTYLE & ARTS METHOD MAKE CAKE: With oven rack in center position, preheat oven to 350°. Grease pans with vegetable shortening and line with parchment circles; grease parchment a bit as well. Combine flour, baking powder and soda, salt, and spices in a sifter. Sift into a bowl and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer with paddle attachment on medium low speed, mix sugars, vegetable oil, eggs, pineapple, and vanilla until blended well. With mixer on low, add dry ingredients half cup at a time, scraping sides of bowl and mixing just until no flour streaks remain. Stir in carrots. Set aside while you make cheesecake topper.

one of the prepared baking pans, and the rest of the batter into the other. Carefully pour/spoon all of the cheesecake mixture over the batter in the little-less-than-half pan. Place both pans in oven and bake for 40 to 43 minutes until the layer without cheesecake topping is baked to a golden brown and springs back at the touch. Remove this cake layer from oven and continue baking the remaining layer for 10 more minutes. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out with bits of the topping, but no cake batter. Remove second pan from oven. Cool cake layers in their pans on a rack.

MAKE CHEESECAKE TOPPER: Using an

MAKE CANDIED CARROT THREADS:

immersion blender or blender, blend softened cream cheese with egg and sour cream until smooth. Pour into a bowl. Sift in sugar and salt, whisk until smooth. Set aside.

Combine sugar and water in pan over medium heat until sugar has dissolved and begins to bubble. Turn heat to medium low; Stir in carrot threads and simmer for 15 minutes. Using a fork, lift threads from syrup and spread on a piece of parchment paper to dry a bit

ASSEMBLE CAKE FOR BAKING: Spread

a little less than half of the batter into

while you make the frosting.

MAKE FROSTING: In the bowl of a stand

mixer with whisk attachment, beat softened cream cheese with butter and pinch of salt until smooth. Sift in powdered sugar and vanilla. Note: For a stiffer, sweeter frosting, you can add more powdered sugar.

ASSEMBLE CAKE: Once cool, insert a

knife around the rims of the cake pans to ensure a clean release. Remove un-topped cake layer and invert onto serving platter first, removing parchment. Spread with frosting.

Remove parchment from second, cheesecake topped layer and place cover the frosted layer. Using an offset spatula, spread frosting around the sides of the cake, reserving a bit to pipe decorative dollops on top of the cake. Press chopped toasted pecans over the sides of the frosted cake. Pipe dollops of remaining frosting on top of the cake. Decorate each with candied carrot threads. Serve.

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SATURDAY APRIL 9 | SUNDAY APRIL 10 2022 |

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S U N D AY B R E A K FA S T

FIRSEL AND FOREMOST NORTHBROOK RESIDENT KAREN FIRSEL—WHO WORKED WITH OPRAH WINFREY, PETER JENNINGS, AND DAVID LETTERMAN, AMONG OTHERS—CONTINUES TO THRIVE WHILE BALANCING LIFE AS A TV PERSONALITY, LIFESTYLE EXPERT, AND MOTHER OF TWO.

BY BILL MCLEAN ILLUSTRATION BY BARRY BLITT

When Karen Firsel was an associate producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2004, she came up with an idea that she hoped would punctuate the latter part of the show’s “Great Car Giveaway.”

You remember the episode. Winfrey gifted Pontiac G-6s to 11 audience members and then informed the rest that one more would get to leave the set with a new set of wheels.

Show staffers distributed small boxes, each adorned with a red ribbon, to more than 270 audience members.

“Inside one of these boxes is a key,” Winfrey told them. “If your box has a key, you will be the last person today to get one of those cute G-6s.”

Everybody got a car that day.

The box idea was Firsel’s.

“I remember thinking, ‘If my idea didn’t work, I’d get fired,’” says Northbrook’s Firsel, now 46 years old, a mother of two (Emma, 14, and Eli, 11), and a TV personality and lifestyle expert who creates segments for WGN’s Daytime Chicago, NBC Chicago’s Tech Trends, and Canada-based Breakfast Television, among other shows.

Her idea worked sensationally 18 years ago. Bedlam, the good kind, ensued, as new car owners popped out of their seats, danced, and unleashed piercing, happy screams.

Winfrey’s Harpo Productions kept Firsel, who had started working for the show in 2003, on its payroll.

But she shifted gears to embark on a new career path about a year after the memorable auto show.

“I needed my life back—that’s exactly what I told my husband (Adam),” Firsel recalls. “So, I left The Oprah Winfrey Show. Friends of mine wondered, ‘Why would you do that?’ It was time.

“I’d been going 100 mph for too many years.”

What a ride it was for the Buffalo Grove native and go-getter-sincebirth—the daughter of David, a lawyer, and Maureen, a teacher. Firsel truly loved being a Stevenson High School student (Class of 1993) in Lincolnshire every day and played goalkeeper for the Patriots’ varsity soccer team for several seasons. Early in her senior year she declared, “I want to be the next Katie Couric,” to her guidance counselor.

Had the counselor had reins that

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day, she would have used them gently on Firsel while blaring, “Whoa!” The advice Firsel received was to temper her ambition.

“My guidance counselor was great, and I liked her, but I wanted to prove her wrong,” Firsel says.

Firsel majored in broadcast journalism at the University of Illinois in Champaign and, in the summer before her junior year, worked as an intern at ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings in New York.

Sorority sister

Karen Firsel

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I had to learn how to build stories. I had to pound the pavement and make a ton of phone calls. No Google back then. No email.

Robyn Kaplan introduced Firsel to her father, Rick Kaplan, who was serving as the executive producer of the newscast.

“I made sure to let my guidance counselor know about that opportunity,” a smiling Firsel says. “I remember calling my parents up and telling them, ‘Guess what? I’m going to New York for the summer.’ I did research. I observed. The employees loved to eat pretzels and drink orange juice before the newscast each day.

“It was there,” she adds, “where I fell in love with behind-the-scenes work.”

The next summer found her answering the phones in New York as an intern for Executive Producer Rob Burnett of CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman.

A security guard dubbed Firsel “Chicago.”

A William Murray called often to speak with Burnett.

“I finally met William Murray in person one day,” Firsel says. “It was (actor/comedian and Wilmette native) Bill Murray.”

Firsel returned to New York after graduating from college and dropped off her resume “everywhere, even on tables in coffee

shops, hoping someone would pick one up and contact me.”

The syndicated newsmagazine Inside Edition hired Firsel as a story coordinator in the mid1990s, when she made $500 a week.

“I had to learn how to build stories,” Firsel says, adding she covered the Clinton-Lewinsky saga and the Columbine High School massacre, among other stories. “I had to pound the pavement and make a ton of phone calls.

No Google back then. No email.”

Next up was a 1999-2001 stint as an associate producer for MSNBC News. Her first day was an eventful one, to say the least. John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren, died in a plane crash. Firsel also produced documentaries for the cable channel.

“After Harpo Productions called and arranged to fly me to Chicago for an interview, I wanted to come up with a presentation that would differentiate me from the other candidates,” says Firsel, who worked with Connie Chung and Anderson Cooper at CNN from 2001-2003. “So, I shared the documentaries that I’d produced.

“I wanted to showcase my storytelling abilities. Storytelling—writing, actually—has always been my core. Keys to effective storytelling are authenticity, relevancy, and timeliness; I certainly keep those in mind as I put together my local segments and my segments for shows in Canada (Firsel also creates content for Cityline, a daytime talk show in Canada).”

The other gifted writer in her family is daughter Emma, who penned a cookbook for her Bat Mitzah project. Whenever Firsel reads Emma’s prose, she hears Emma’s voice.

“I want my TV segments to be conversational, like I’m talking to an audience of my friends,” Firsel says. “But, again, the segments have to be real, with an aspect of problem-solving included. It’s also important to me that I leave the decision-making to each viewer.”

The paramount time in the Firsel household is dinnertime. All four eat together, always, often after watching TV news together. They sit at the table. They look at each other. They breathe. They dig in.

And they talk.

“My husband and I are raising children who aren’t entitled,” Firsel says. “We want them to be organized and to show leadership, empathy, sympathy, kindness—executive skills. As parents, to sit down with Emma and Eli for dinner and discuss our days as well as hear all about their days, to converse with them and enjoy their company over a meal … that’s a win every night.”

Visit karenfirsel.com for more information about the TV personality and lifestyle expert. Firsel, 312-909-0355, can be found on Instagram: @ KarenFirsel.

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