From the block to the big screen

It’s easy to generalize what makes Chicago’s theater and film scenes unique: Steppenwolf-style ensemble mentality, City of Big Shoulders work ethic, midwestern authenticity over everything. It’s another thing to prove it, tucked away and toiling on a quiet block in Bowmanville, with an improbably self-funded and locally crewed indie rom-com.

After 25 years in theater, playwright Hallie Palladino went back to school for screenwriting during the pandemic and began dabbling at A Red Orchid Theatre’s Studio, a burgeoning open arts forum for developing new work. Her vision: a Gen X rom-com set at a quintessential Chicago block party. The Studio crew loved it, and she completed a draft in December 2025.

Block Party’s IMDb logline reads, “Returning to Chicago for his father’s funeral, Julian alienates the tight-knit block his dad once captained—then impulsively agrees to run the annual party the very next day, convinced it’s his best shot at winning back his first love.”

Palladino describes it as a popcorn rom-com with indie quirks, where substantive storytelling coexists with silliness.

“I’ve spent decades in theater trying to get my work in front of audiences,” she says. “I realized that I’m 46 years old. I want to see if we can do this.” With her husband, Rocco, she founded Hiffclanger Productions with the plan to self-finance their feature debut, leveraging the state’s 35 percent tax credit. “This is a moon shot for us,” she says.

As a SAG-AFTRA film in the Ultra Low Budget category, Block Party’s budget could not exceed $300,000. The producing team decided on a “most favored nations” structure for paying cast and crew, meaning everyone on the film—from the director to the production assistants—earned the SAG day rate of about $250. This equitable approach made it easier to sign on crew members, and a scrappy team coalesced around the project, feeding off Palladino’s tenacity.

The assembly of cast and crew brings to mind a line from 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven: “You’re gonna need a crew as nuts as you are.” I had a chance to see these creatives in action during a couple of set visits in July.

An inexhaustive intro:

The unlikely romantic lead
Actor Lawrence “Larry” Grimm

One of Red Orchid’s founding ensemble members, Grimm created the Studio in 2023. “I didn’t think I would be a lead in a film, let alone a rom-com, ever,” says the 58-year-old, who plans his own block’s annual party.

The emotional architect
Director John Mossman

Palladino met Mossman through his creative partner (and Block Party producer) Jennifer Jelsema. A screening of their summertime comedy Line Cooks (release date forthcoming) sealed the deal. Mossman came to film and theater young as a means of “finding flow and being mentally at rest,” and in 1998, he cofounded the Artistic Home.

The guidance counselor
Producer Grace Hahn

A film production veteran, Hahn is eager to pass along her knowledge about how “indie film is like bedlam in great and terrible ways.” Weekly meetings with Palladino evolved into a role focused on budgets, connections (need a guy for traffic barricades?), personnel, and most importantly, cheerleading.

The aesthetic eye
Director of photography Herman Asph

The Line Cooks alum’s 15-plus years in the industry were instrumental in procuring crew and equipment to make this feel like a multimillion-dollar film. A major coup: He snagged a 27-foot-long Technocrane in a trade with Midwest Camera Car, making shots of waterslide drops and water balloon fights look slick.

The immersive artist
Production designer Lola Selby

This is the Northwestern University film school grad’s second feature after Line Cooks. Her resourceful team pulled set pieces from neighbors, small businesses, and even a fire sale by recently wrapped The Chi. She credits Palladino’s hustle for lucky scores including a kayak, a cotton candy machine, and a motorcycle.

The titular block
Exterior set: 2100 block of W. Summerdale Street

“Unofficial mayor of Bowmanville” Jeff Graves delivered Palladino her outdoor set, as the block party planner easily built street-wide consensus. They rented homes; neighbors, kids, and dogs were excited extras. What amazed the Chicago Film Office? Zero complaints were filed, because everyone had a blast.

Credit: Asher B. Gudsen

Paskal Rudnicke Casting, who famously cast The Bear, lined up a who’s who of theater standouts, many of whom played roles in early Studio and SAG script readings. My question was, what does it look like for theater people to make a movie?

Actress Shariba Rivers, fresh off The Chi, says she learned that a full-throated stage voice isn’t needed when you’re miked up. She felt the “amazing chaos” of a theater camp, with people off their phones, riffing on lines, and breaking into song. Grace Steckler, playing Grimm’s daughter in her first film outing, learned to change her “robot settings” from theater to film and act with built-in pauses, critical to the edit.

In film, “we only speak when we fail to communicate,” says Mossman, who’s always killing darlings in favor of visual representation. As a director, he prefers actors with a strong point of view. Film needs reactions to advance the story; in theater, they risk pulling focus. Asph guides theater actors toward more contained, subtle movement, since not hitting your mark means you’ll fall out of focus. He doesn’t forget the vulnerability of a camera in an actor’s face, and prioritizes empathy and positive feedback to build trust.

Witnessing lengthy coverage and setups showed Palladino why they shot just five pages a day. Time ticks away. So does the sun. Filmmaking requires the director to be both “the foreman of a barn raising that has to be done by sundown . . . and also the village shaman,” Mossman says with a laugh. In one example of ritualistic team building, he and Asph let the cast bombard them with water balloons—a trial by water, if you will. The hardest lesson to learn? Leave room for playfulness, those happy accidents that have people belly laughing or brought to tears.

Beth Lacke and Lawrence Grimm as Melissa and Julian, the central pair in the rom-com
Credit: Asher B. Gudsen

The Block Party shoot was a master class in MacGyver-style problem solving and the maxim that “constraints breed creativity.” Asph had to contend with Grimm’s towering 6’4” height and what that meant for filming, given the director of photography himself was . . . not 6’4”. “Camera language” in mind, Asph pulled a taller teammate to shoot Grimm straight-on earlier in the story to reinforce the character’s unlikability. As he moved along his emotional arc, camera operation flipped to Asph, now viewing him heroically from below. Over in props, Palladino marveled at a wheel of Brie made out of 20 pounds of butter and the unmeltable mashed potato ice cream for the extras.

Murphy’s Law happens, of course, but the show goes on in sickness, health, and Canadian wildfires when you’re in it for the love of the game (they pivoted indoors to keep everyone safe). For an intimate scene in the main character’s childhood bedroom, Selby’s team painstakingly created a transportive 1996 time capsule. “With theater people, the physical experience of the set becomes quite important versus painting frame for frame,” Selby says. The credibility of the set led Grimm to comment, “I don’t have to act in that bedroom,” making the long night worth it.

The night shoot of the pivotal dance party exemplified beauty in constraints, thanks to Selby’s eclectic toolbox of accumulated art supplies. They danced sans music given the late hour, with just a thumping backbeat, creating a blissfully surreal backdrop for the main character to find love, Grimm reminisces. “Art, music, visuals, all the sensory elements come together in a really magical moment.” Everyone held their breath watching.

Why not now, for a wave of investment in John Hughesian, homegrown Chicagoland films?

I had the opportunity to visit the Block Party set twice, once for the block-wide water balloon fight and again on the last day for the feel-good final shots. It’s hard to play it cool on a film set while hearing classic phrases like “action” and “cut” and sitting glued to the monitor thinking, “I’m really in video village!” I quickly realized the zippy pacing of Apple TV’s The Studio is decidedly not true to life, given the amount of waiting filmmaking requires. Airplanes have to pass (not to mention trains and barking dogs), crane choreography must be practiced, extras must be wrangled, and light must be harnessed. But it was perfect—the neighborhood extras were buzzing, and I eagerly listened to their debates about outfit changes and film continuity.

Walking into Palladino’s house on wrap day, I nearly entered a crucial shoot in her backyard, and the immersion of it all felt thrilling. Once firmly ensconced in that day’s garage video village, I felt the tension of a golden hour shoot (“We’re chasing the sun!”) punctuated by a bug spray run by Rocco, Selby strategically rearranging plants for a more balanced composition, and Grimm demonstrating his lauded range with a surplus of nuanced takes.

Mossman tells me he dissociates into a flow state on film sets, and I felt it, sitting behind his heady mix of precision (diagrams, binders, etc.) and embodied absorption in the performances. The scene: Grimm’s character, Julian, is hugging his daughter, who is wearing Julian’s estranged father’s jacket, then sees his departed father anew in his mind’s eye. And suddenly, a crisis. Steckler’s character was not wearing the jacket throughout the scene, compromising the continuity and eventual catharsis. While Mossman was saddled with “momentary despair,” I watched every crew member within earshot step up, share ideas, and improvise a path forward that made the jacket’s symbolic journey make sense. Tears and fist pumps followed those final takes, most enthusiastically from Mossman and Palladino.

Postproduction begins: editor’s cut from Journeywork Entertainment, director’s cut from Mossman, and then producer input prior to locking the picture for scoring. Palladino’s goal is to hit spring submission deadlines for major festivals. Meanwhile, she and Rocco are boning up on music licensing and film distribution.

In today’s relatively bleak landscape that favors the distributors, they’ll try to get on streamers, but they’ll also explore creative models where they retain the theatrical rights and use Palladino’s producer hat to put up screenings at independent cinemas around Chicago and the midwest. She hopes to host a screening for the Summerdale block by late spring or early summer.

From right: Director of photography Herman Asph films Lawrence Grimm and Kelli Simpkins on an interior set, with lighting by Eon Mora and production design by Lola Selby and Ian Machuca.
Credit: Asher B. Gudsen

People are hungry to find their artistic voice with others, Grimm says, and everyone I spoke with remarked on the significance of a production made about Chicago, by Chicago, and for Chicago. Why not now, for a wave of investment in John Hughesian, homegrown Chicagoland films? The key might just be welcoming places like Orchid Studio, where “having a fleshed out resume and tons of experience doesn’t have to be the calling card to inclusion,” Grimm says.

Both Palladinos are already dreaming up ways Hiffclanger Productions can champion the projects of their growing filmmaking tribe—their screenwriting-curious daughter and cast member Serena included. First, though, maybe a two-hander play in a single room. Something more producible, Hallie says with a laugh.

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