Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Arthaus Vigil. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

ArtHaus, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The ArtHaus Vigil team is currently working on their debut theatrical production: The Saga of Lady Miss. Written by co-founder Magdalena Pogue, and directed by co-founder Cléo Flores (aka Cléo la Muñeca), this project is a labor of love, and an exciting new chapter in the ArtHaus Vigil journey.

The Saga of Lady Miss is a multi-media theatrical experience. The audience enters the dressing room of Lady Miss Past (Magdalena Pogue), Lady Miss Present (Dougie Maes), and Lady Miss Future (Cléo Flores), as they are preparing for a performance. A man’s voice is heard over the loud speaker; connecting the fates of the Ladies Three.
The second act deconstructs the dressing room and the rigorous performance aspect of the show, and instead, invites the audience to join Lady Miss Future in her Club of the Great Beyond – where DJs, Drag Artists, and the event team will all be waiting to welcome them in and dance the night away.

The script was written by Magdalena Pogue after a year of working with the ArtHaus Vigil team. She states, “There is such an excitement about these characters. They are timeless, yet they cannot be removed from their relationship to time-passing. Each of the roles was written for the actor playing them.” Pogue often develops her characters by workshopping them with actors for years at a time in various performance settings. ArtHuas Vigil’s monthly cabarets – Diva Night! – were perfect opportunities to make Past, Present, and Future seem alive and fully personified.

Pogue’s classically-informed performance training, Flores’s cutting-edge stage design – inspired by her night-life performing, and Maes’s keen eye for the absurd makes way for an exciting creative process that pays homage to our roots, where we are, and where we are going.

Together, the Evoke Gallery team and ArtHaus Vigil team are working together to create an immersive experience that goes beyond the proscenium stage, and elicits a sense of performance as self-expression, autonomy, community, and the shifting nature of how we keep that truthful expression going in an oppressive environment.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

The ArtHaus Vigil Collective began in a living room in Garfield Park, Chicago, IL in 2022. Magdalena Pogue and Cléo Flores were working towards their BAs in Theatrical Directing from Columbia College Chicago. After 3 years in Chicago, they still felt an element of connection missing from their lives. There weren’t many spaces available for expression and performance aside from professional playhouses and clubs as COVID-19 had halted operations of smaller scale workshop spaces. ArtHaus Vigil was craving something outside of the industrial theatre business model, so a creed was created:

ArtHaus Vigil is an artistic community that promotes sustainable work and radical healing.
– We recognize the individual’s need to feel special.
– We recognize the collective’s need for support and safety.
– We remember those before us.
-We encourage and make way for those after us.
– We are a shelter from the storm.
– A place to tend to your wounds.
– A place to share stories. Meet friends. Meet strangers.
– A place to rage like the chaotic heavens above.
– Here, if you love, you are lauded.
– Here, if you come as you are, the party can begin.
– Light a candle and stay for a while.

This resonated with a community of artists who would gather to the same Garfield Park apartment every month for a show that was dubbed – Diva Night! With a new theme every month, we encouraged the audience to arrive, as if they are the star of the show. This produced some fantastic outfits, as well as, allowed people to find confidence in themselves and each other. Our intimate performances, personal invitations, and consistent show calendar, allowed all Haus members to feel that “VIP experience” often reserved for celebrity and capital culture. We wanted to showcase that fame can come and go, with its illustrious lifestyle and attached complications, but being a DIVA is separate, and absolutely necessary to maintain one’s sense of self in this world.

After 5 Diva Nights in the apartment, we realized we were going to need a bigger venue, as our crowd size was growing significantly each month. We received a grant from Phantom Moon Productions in January of 2023, so we were able to rent a warehouse space. Our Technical Director – Trin Reyes – was able to buy sound equipment, and we then hosted our first public event. We hired drag performers from our previous shows, as well as, performers who are active pillars in the Chicago nightlife community. This made for a special night that gave us opportunities to form connections and grow the collective.

In the following months, we hosted 11 more Diva Nights across 3 different venues, and worked with 50+ performers and practitioners.

As our collective is changing, and the needs of its members are changing, we have taken this time to pause our monthly programming and hone-in on our separate crafts, as well as provide production support for companies that have supported ArtHaus in the past. We believe that the natural wants of the collective should be followed, and sometimes that means a change in direction. Working with other companies, providing equipment loans, set-up and event staffing, and advertisement help gave us the opportunity to find the right space and team to begin our structured theatrical endeavors.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Our hope is that we can create a net of artists around the world; connecting through our work.

We want this collective to be a communication center. We all have talents and passions that could align with that of our neighbors, peers, larger artistic body, and humanity as a whole. We want to cohesively share our ideas, so tangible work can be produced. So healing can begin.

Art does not belong to capital and mammon. It is too precious. It is as precious as any of the pillars of life, and we believe that there is infinite space in this haus for that work.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A dangerous lesson we have encountered, to most, is a familiar line:

“The show must go on!”

On its own, it is not a harmful statement, it bears no malicious intent, or ill-will. However, when paired with speed and intensity of a capital world, it can become a harrowing mindset. We are all for making the impossible come to be, and working through obstacles here at ArtHaus, but not one of us will utter that phrase, especially as a show approaches. Most of our team is made-up of theatre practitioners and performers, so we have heard the statement time and time again. This left us in a chaotic position as young creators. It elicits many questions: “Why must it?” “Who is demanding that it does?” “Where is my say in this?” If these points are not discussed, power imbalances and dangerous practices can begin to form. We encourage these kinds of questions, as they help us focus on our mission, and promote autonomy among team-members.

In “check-in” conversations like this, we look back to our original creed – sustainable work and radical healing. It is always a difficult call to make a change in plans, or try something new, but it is a method we practice in order to keep ourselves, and our community healthy and energized. These turns-of-phrase for our industries past are the exact thing we are look to challenge and reshape as a collective.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://arthausvigil.com/
• Instagram: @arthausvigil

Image Credits

Photos by

Nathaniel Smith / 2023-2025
Brandon Vargas / 2024
Catie Mitchell / 2022