Kim Clark

Clark serves on the Board of Writers in the Heartland— a residency program in Central Illinois founded to nurture emerging and established writers. Their mission is to provide a tranquil environment conductive to artistic production and intellectual exchange. Using retreats, sabbaticals and paid stays, candidates may be selected to complete work of merit at little or no cost to themselves. Writers in the Heartland is currently funding scholarships to develop the work of talented writers on an annual basis.

He has created numerous comedic shorts with the Second City team, co-writing and directing with many contributors including director Gail Mancuso whose recent webisodes featuring "30 Rock" star Jane Krakowski feature a modern take on two of Hollywood's most iconic romance films — Gone with the Wind and King Kong. Gail's direction includes on-camera comment as a part of the comedic fun.

Over the past few years, the Acorn has presented many musicians, acts and troupes, including: Nathan Gunn [12] (Preeminent Baritone/ Barahunk - latest CD "Just Before Sunrise"), Jefferson Airplane (beginning their "Woodstock Reunion Tour"), Peter Yarrow, Dan Tyminski (Grammy winner, of Alison Krauss, Union Station, and O Brother, Where Art Thou?), Judith Owen (Comedic Songstress - latest CD - Mopping Up Karma), Cowboy Junkies (Alternative – Double Platinum Albums include The Trinity Session – Natural Born Killers), Todd Snider[13] ("Todd Snider's compressed story-songs are so vivid and knowing that they seem completely plausible" - Rolling Stone), Anne Harris [14], Steve Evans [15], Bela Fleck [16], The BoDeans, Autumn Defense, Richie Havens, Poi Dog Pondering, The Guitars of Spain, Pacifica Quartet, Tom Wopat, Howard Levy, Tom Dreesen, and many others.

In 2012, Clark and his partner David Fink were invited to speak and participate at the five-day Renaissance Weekend held at the Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colorado.

Clark is also a member of the Advisory Board for Southwest Michigan College, which is active in the development of a new degree program in contemporary Theater and Performing Arts Technology. As planned, the school has announced that the degree will begin in 2011.

In 2010, Clark partnered with Patricia Werhane, formerly the Ruffin Professor of Business Ethics at Darden, to plan a new venture. She now holds a joint appointment at Darden and at DePaul University, where she is Wicklander Chair in Business Ethics and Director of the Institute for Business and Professional Ethics. Her latest book is Alleviating Poverty Through Profitable Partnerships with Routledge. This team is creating global poverty awareness and preparing to send a team to produce and direct documentary film projects to raise public awareness of micro-lending in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh segment of the project begins with IIRD (Institute of Integrated Rural Development), an NGO with a stated mission to create a model of rural development that can be replicated in any area of the Bangladesh - one that will facilitate the creation of the strong society.

Clark is also a frequent speaker at international ethics conferences. Recent presentations include: "Video and Pedagogy" for the International Society of Business, Economics and Ethics, in Warsaw, Poland, "The Many Facets of Trust" with Patricia Werhane, Laura Hartman, and David Bevan for the European Business Ethics Network in Trento, Italy, and "Documenting Solutions to World Poverty" at the 10th EABIS Colloquium (hosted by the Graduate School of Management, St. Petersburg University).

In 2010, Clark was awarded the Wicklander Fellowship, which is given to full-time DePaul faculty for the application of professional ethics as the topics relate a particular field of research.

Clark is the president of Harbor Arts, a Michigan Not-for-profit which has been responsible for dozens of public performances every year, and has featured new artists as well as some of the most popular performers in the world. Baritone Nathan Gunn, arguably the most in demand male singer in the world (Newsweek) sang under the Harbor Arts organization in 2008. In Spring 2009 they featured New York Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Isola Jones, who has often been paired with Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo.

The Chicago Tribune featured Clark and Fink in a story entitled "From the ground up at The Acorn Theater, big-city acts thrive in small-town Michigan" on November 2, 2008. [17]. The pair have been featured in Rick Kogan's popular weekly column in the Chicago Tribune Sidewalks, which has since been collected in two hardcover books. Clark and Fink are also frequent guests on Kogan's Sunday morning WGN-AM radio show, The Sunday Papers.

For more than ten years, Clark and his partner David Fink have executive produced the Chicago Improv Festival [6] only revealing their financial support in 2007 at the annual CIF Masters Award Ceremony. The Chicago Improv Festival was co-founded by Frances Callier and Jonathan Pitts in 1998 as an educational forum. Over the years it has given voice to performers around the world, including writer/performers Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch (performing Dratch and Fey), Seth Meyers, Frances Callier and scores of other new creative comedy voices. The festival continues and grows annually.

The New York Times authored a full-page profile of Clark and his longtime partner David Fink in a story entitled "A Getaway That Happens to Include a Theater" (Published: December 21, 2007). When asked about creating a small, influential theater project that has now set world class innovation standards, Clark said "It's like the first time you fall in love. You flip, through fear that you're doing it wrong, and confidence that no one else has had this feeling before in real life." Once in a lifetime lightning does strike twice in the same place, as they were profiled again in a second article entitled "Our Town Stage for the Creative Set" also written by the New York Times. (Article referenced below.) "We're living our dream life," he said. "It is just impossible anywhere else."

On April 5, 2006, Clark announced his candidacy for Michigan's 6th congressional district, running as the Democratic challenger to Republican Congressman Fred Upton of St. Joseph, Michigan. Clark focused his campaign on improving education and jobs in southwest Michigan, as well as calling for a responsible withdrawal of troops from Iraq. In the general election, Clark lost to Upton, earning 39 percent of the vote.

An avid traveller for much of his life, Clark held a longtime interest in the Galapagos Islands, culminating in a residency on San Cristobal Island beginning in the summer of 2005. Invited by the Galapagos Marine Ecology team at the University of Arizona, Tucson, Clark, along with a group of 12 secondary and post-secondary teachers, worked with residents of several island communities to teach English to local school children. Clark and Karen Ford-Manza Tompson, former Executive Director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Kansas and current Executive Director at Arizona Family Planning Council, co-authored a work regarding tectonic plate movement which was later reviewed by Rice University Staff (Linked below) The paper was entitled "The Geology and Vulcanology of the Galapagos Islands".

In 2005 Clark directed Tops or Bottoms, a play by Todd Logan featuring Judy Blue and Richard Shavzin. This new work went on the explore the interchanges of marriage and love over years if tune.

In 2004–05 Clark directed a successful, significant and extremely ambitions presentation of Washington Irving's classic American Folk Tale, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the story of a restless ghost, a scheming schoolmaster, an apprehensive heiress and a teenage girl who thinks demons are delightful.

In 2003 Clark produced and developed The Grouch (based on Menander's The Dyskolos) with the creators of Urinetown, winner 2002 Tony Award for Best Original Score and Best Director, and nominee for Best Musical. Later renamed Wild Goat, composer Mark Hollmann and Chicago playwright Jack Helbig (both alumni of Musical Theatre Writers' Workshop at the Theatre Building Chicago) collaborated on the new musical set on the outskirts of ancient Athens, Greece. In Wild Goat, sparks fly when romance inflames two of the most dysfunctional families this side of the Oedipus clan. Composer Mark Hollman had previously won the 2002 Tony Award, the 2001 Obie Award and received two Drama Desk nominations for his music and lyrics to Urinetown and has helped to create some of Chicago's favorite musical theatre, such as Jack the Chipper, I Think I Can and KABOOOOOM!

Clark was a featured speaker at the Chicago Tribune's Printer's Row Book Fair (2001) along with Sheldon Patinkin and Saturday Night Live cast member Tim Kazurinsky. The trio were described by the Chicago Sun Times columnist Bill Zwecker as "Second City Improv Comedy Legends."

From 2001-2003, Clark served as Artistic Director and Educational Director at the Chicago Center for Performing Arts. While there, he contributed to the Players Workshop masters classes, teaching Writing, Directing, On-Camera Technique and other classes.

Clark has written two plays, Binding Arbitration and Girl Talk, both of which have been produced. In 2000, Clark premiered the original stage play "Girl Talk" at the Other Side Stage Festival on a co-bill with young monologist David Sedaris. The premiere fell in the same week Sedaris' book "Naked" hit the New York Times best seller list for the first time.

In 2000, Clark and his partner David Fink purchased the old Featherbone factory [7] in Three Oaks, Michigan, which once produced corset stays, and renovated it to house the Acorn Theatre. The name Featherbone stems from the Warren Featherbone Company—a turn of the century American family owned corporation that has far reaching effect on American culture, nature and arts. [8]

Clark was producer of the Emmy Award nominated television series Oh, Grow Up (1999), and executive producer of the film All Good Things (2002).

Kim Clark (born April 6, 1959) is a creative professional active in film, television, and live performance. He is a businessman and community leader in Three Oaks, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois where he has lived for the past 15 years with his partner David Fink, their Michigan-based creative efforts having been featured in The New York Times. Clark is an ethicist who specializes in poverty and documentary filmmaking, an expert pipe organ builder, and full-time teacher at DePaul University.