Creativity comes in many forms. There is inspiration, that flash of insight that comes in a single Ohmygod! moment, making connections previously undreamt of. There is vision, the ability to nurture and sustain ideas and allow them to develop into a great masterpiece or a body of work that rocks the world. Wagner's slow, methodical, decadeslong composition of the Ring Cycle is an example of this kind of creativity.

And then there is adaptability, the gift some people and institutions have to reinvent and transform themselves to fit the times. This kind of creativity is less often praised than its flashier cousins but it is at least as important for survival in the arts as inspiration and vision. Actually, adaptability may be more important.

Joanne Zielinski's career is a case in point. Zielinski spent 12 years as the producer of what was arguably Chicago's best outdoor Shakespeare theatre, Shakespeare on the Green. For more than a decade the shows, performed on the gently landscaped front lawn of Barat College, were highlights of Chicago's summer theatre season.

Today Zielinski is a producer for Blue Light Productions, an independent film production company specializing in filmmaking that takes full advantage of the recent revolutions in digital technology.

How does someone leap from theatre to film? From producing Othello to producing an original screenplay?

Zielinski has always been adept at making transitions in her life. Trained as an actor at Illinois State University, Zielinski found herself in Chicago in the early 80's, after an unsuccessful assault on New York, working in the Lincoln Park restaurant, Carlucci, and pursuing acting gigs on the side. As it happened Joe Carlucci, working with Michael Cullen and Fred Strauss, needed help with a Medieval Faire that was then held every summer in Oz Park. Zielinski was interested and became a defacto assistant, major domo and associate producer all rolled into one.

The job involved many of the people skills that would come in handy at Shakespeare in the Green and, lately, at Blue Light Productions: arranging sponsors, contacting merchants, communicating with the scores and scores of people needed to pull off the event.

To this day she credits Carlucci, Cullen and Strauss with teaching her invaluable skills. "They were my producing mentors," she says.

Zielinski enjoyed her work, but she increasingly felt the tug of the academic life. "I enjoy academic environments," she notes, "the people, the atmosphere, the ideas." When a job opened up teaching in the theatre department at Barat College in 1990 she took it.

At the time she joined the faculty, Karla Koskinen and Steve Carmichael were already planning a free, outdoor theatre modeled on the New York Shakespeare Festival but Koskinen and Carmichael needed someone with expertise on the business end. Zielinski, with her experience helping put together the Medieval Faire of Oz Park, completed the team.

Using some of the contacts she made in Lincoln Park, Zielinski lined up sponsors. She also helped put together a budget and worked to persuade Barat College's administration. As Zielinski explained in a 2002 interview with PerformInk: "We approached the president and we were very tenacious in our desire to make this happen. Our initial budget was $34,000, and we were able to get in-kind services from the college, like housekeeping, parking and security, as well as assistance from [Barat's Drake Theatre's] box office and development office."

The subsequent success of Shakespeare on the Green is well known to anyone who followed theatre in the 90's. And when Barat College was purchased by DePaul University in 2001, dreams for the by then well-established theatre went into the stratosphere. A new stage was planned, including new landscaping for the front lawn for better sight lines. The idea of a major fundraising initiative was floated to grow the theatre into major Shakespeare Festival along the lines of the one in Ashland, Oregon, including what Zielinski called "a full-tilt rotating rep."

The first season (Summer, 2002) Shakespeare on the Green performed under the auspices of the Theatre School nearly did Zielinski in as producer.

"Things ran much more smoothly." Zielinski notes. "We had so much more institutional support. But with that kind of a structure comes much more work. I was really exhausted by the end of the summer. Just burnt out. I thought it's time to transition out of this."

Zielinski resigned as producer for Shakespeare on the Green at the end of the 2002 summer season. "I am very driven by my creativity and my passion. And if I am not getting a certain kind of fulfillment I don't think I should be part of that process."

Shakespeare on the Green ran for one more season without Zielinski as producer. In February of this year, DePaul University announced it was closing the Barat College campus. As part of this closure it was pulling the plug on Shakespeare on the Green.

By the time of the official announcement, Zielinski was already in the process of transitioning into a new phase of her life. When DePaul purchased Barat, all of the faculty members of Barat's theatre department, including Zielinski, became defacto faculty members in The Theatre School at DePaul.

Zielinski saw change as an opportunity. "I was not in a position to move," she notes, "My family is here. My husband's business is here." At Barat Zielinski had taught voice. DePaul offered the possibility for something more.

She found something more in a new interdisciplinary department being created at DePaul: The Digital Cinema Program.

"The Program started last fall." Zielinski tells me, "It was a brand new program, it was founded by two faculty members in the communication department in liberal studies, Matt Irvine, the director of the Digital Cinema program, and Gary Novak, who is also a screenwriter."

They approach Helmut Epp the dean of CTI—Computer Science Telecommunications and Information Systems–with the idea of developing a school for digital filmmaking. Digital films offer a real opportunity for independent filmmakers working with minuscule budgets because a digital film can be shot and edited for only a fraction of the cost of celluloid films. Digital's low cost also made it an excellent teaching tool for students.

There was another reason why DePaul seemed like a good place to teach digital filmmaking: The Theatre School. According to Zielinski, Epp saw the conservatory program at DePaul and wondered, "Why not tap into the talents of the actors, the designers, the playwrights, why not tap into all the talent the school has to offer?"

To do this, though, Epp and company would need a liaison between the Digital Cinema Program and the Theatre School.

"This is where I came into the picture," Zielinski laughs. Around the same time that the world was hearing about the demise of Shakespeare on the Green, Zielinski was being offered the liaison position.

What the new job entails is still evolving. "My full time position is split between the theatre school and the digital cinema position. I will be teaching a couple of courses with the digital studies program, teaching different techniques of acting." Zielinski will also be responsible for helping shepherd the remaining Barat College theatre students through the program to graduation. One of the first things Zielinski learned was that the Digital Cinema Program was producing a film in the summer of 2004. A professional production company, Blue Light Productions, had been set up. They had a screenplay in hand, Last Call, written by Novak. They had a budget – an astoundingly low $20,000 – which included fees for rental of equipment, craft services, actors fees, truck rental, location fees and editing costs.

What they did not have yet was a cast. Zielinski joined the team working on the film and was given the title of producer.

"My first job was to cast the movie," Zielinski laughs, adding, "and I turned immediately to my Shakespeare on the Green actors."

Zielinski also helped with finding locations and making other arrangements for the film. "Independent filmmaking," Zielinski explains, "is just like making low budget theatre. You have next to nothing in the budget and you have to try to get whatever you can for next to nothing."

I spoke with Zielinski a few days after they had completed shooting in Long Grove, IL. She sounded like she had had a blast: "I really like working with talented people. I love quality projects. I like people who work fast with a lot of energy and a common vision."

Does Zielinski have a guiding philosophy that has helped her make her often fortuitous transitions? "I have always followed my bliss," she explains. "I have always tried to live with an open mind and an open heart. When one door closes another door opens."

And when that door closes yet another door opens. And yet another after that.

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