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Saya Hillman
Called “Accessible Oprah,” Saya Hillman was fired in 2004 and has been blissfully self-employed since via her lifestyle business Mac & Cheese Productions℠.
Mac & Cheese creates virtual and in person spaces that build connection: to others, to opportunities, and to self.
A Chicago native and proud Montessori and Boston College alum, Saya was one of Brazen Careerist’s Top Twenty Young Professionals to Watch, has been featured in Forbes and The New York Times, and is a TEDx speaker. She’s married to someone she met at one of her own events and they pulled off an almost 100% bartered wedding.
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Carly Ballerini
Carly Ballerini is a working Chicago comic. She travels all over the country featuring and MCing at clubs like Comedy on State and Comedy Corner. In the last year, she has been asked to participate in Cream City Festival, Thunderfest, WICF, 10,000 Laughs, Beast Village, Let's Fest and is set to co-star in a web series in 2018.
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Briavael O'Reilly
Bri the Barefoot DJ can regularly be heard Monday nights at 8pm on CHIRP Radio. She can occasionally be seen onstage, but more often in the booth, with the Curious Theater Branch (29th Annual RhinoFest coming January 2018 to the Prop Thtr!). After ten years of telling people on the east coast she was "from Chicago" even though she actually grew up in Crystal Lake, Bri finally moved to Edgewater in 2011, where she still lives with her wife, Nico, and their two thumbcats.
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Lawrence Peters
Lawrence Peters is a country singer, songwriter, drummer, bandleader, DJ, and America’s preeminent electric washboard player, with a music career spanning thirty-plus years.
He is best known for his involvement in the watershed Songs: Ohia/ Magnolia Electric Company album, singing lead on the track "The Old Black Hen”.
He was a key player in the Lawrence, Kansas music scene before moving to Chicago in 1992. Since then, he has recorded and performed with dozens of bands, including current projects The Lawrence Peters Outfit, The Golden Horse Ranch Band, and “future funk” group, The Velcro Lewis Group.
He is an enthusiastic collector and curator of country records, many of which he spins on his radio show "Country, My Way", on Chicago's WLPN 105.5 FM, every Wednesday from 4 to 6pm, and at The Sportsman's Club, the first Wednesday of every month. -
Clarence Browley
Clarence Browley is a producer, storyteller and all around nerd. He co-hosts a show called, the stoop. Every last Thursday of the month at Rosa's blues lounge.
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David Manilow
David Manilow is the Creator and Executive Producer of the Emmy Award and James Beard Award-winning television series “Check, Please!”, celebrating its fifteenth season on PBS stations throughout the country. David has interviewed more than 500 chefs and restaurateurs and been named one of the top ten most important people in the Chicago restaurant scene.
David was born and raised Chicago and lives on the north side with his wife, four kids and dog, Fredo.