UPDATE 10/23/2025

We did it! We reached our goal with a little over a week left, and we cannot thank you enough for your support. To everyone who donated, shared, or told their friends and family about it, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We are still accepting donations if you have the funds or still want to give. Everything beyond our goal will be a safety net as we navigate the new year with more productions, more collaborations, and hopefully new grants. All the perks listed below will still apply for any donation given before the campaign ends on October 31st. THANK YOU!!!

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You know us, you love us, we are Corn Productions, and since 2000, we have called 4210 N Lincoln Ave our home. Appropriately named the Cornservatory Theater. 25 years later, we are at risk of losing our home and our space where we share our original comedy with you. You can help save us from closing our doors and help us continue our mission to entertain Chicago and bring new voices to the stage. Our mission centers around being a place for new actors, writers, and directors to come together to put on the shows they want to perform.

As a non-profit theater, we work hard to bring that mission to life every day. We have no full-time staff and rely on a company of volunteers. From the person checking your tickets at the door to the Artistic Director, we do this from a passion for comedy. We do this to keeo our ticket prices low, to remove any barriers for artists to have a stage to create, and we do this so our actors and stage managers can be compensated for their hard work to create, rehearse, and perform.

After we were able to return to performing following the Covid-19 pandemic, we lost our grants and generous state and federal funding that made up a good portion of our operating costs. We have relied on ticket sales and small fundraising events to keep our doors open, but now we find ourselves at a place where we need to ask for the public's help to cover that gap left open by our previous grants revenue.

We know the world is in an interesting place right now, and we know that not everyone who wants to support us financially may have the means to do so. Even a few dollars can help, and spreading the word about this could help even more. If you are someone with the ability to give a little more, we want to acknowledge that generosity. In the same way we did a few years ago, we are offering seat dedications and some naming rights.

For $500, you can dedicate a seat to you or someone you know. Their name or your message will be engraved on a plaque and fixed to one of our seats for all to see. We have 30 seats available for this reward.
For $1,000, you can name our fridge. That's right, the thing that holds all our beer and take-out food. We will plaster your selected name for the fridge on it in letters so big that everyone checking in for a show will be like "what?". One reward available.
For $1,500, you can name one of our two bathrooms. Right on the door, in big, bold, beautiful letters, your chosen name on our bathroom. Finally, we can stop referring to them as the bathroom on the left and the other one. Two rewards are available.

In addition to those big-ticket items, anything over $200 will get a Corn Productions t-shirt, over $100 will get a ticket to any show in 2026, and any donation, big or small, will get a message of thanks directly from one of us here at Corn.

Our goal is to simply continue to exist in our current space. Money will go directly to our rent so we can keep producing affordable and original comedy for a long time coming.

Thank you for your consideration and your donations. We love you all.

Justin Oliver Lance
Artistic Director
Corn Productions

Save Corn Save Comedy!

Keep Corn at the Cornservatory!