In this series, Windy City Times will profile some of its past 30 Under 30 honorees.
Windy City Times started its 30 Under 30 Awards in 2001, honoring individuals through 2019. This year, the media outlet resumed honoring Chicagoland LGBTQ+ individuals and allies who have made substantial contributions to the LGBTQ+ community in the fields of entertainment, politics, health, activism, academics, sports or other areas. Many honorees have gone on to great success in their professional and educational endeavors. One past honoree became the mayor of a major U.S. city, and many others have achieved success in the arts, law, academia and other areas.
One such individual is Kristen Kaza. As creative director of No Small Plans, Kaza—a 2009 30 Under 30 honoree—has been the architect of hundreds of “parties with a purpose,” collaborating with everyone from HBO to Howard Brown Health. In a recent conversation that took a very personal turn, she talked about event planning, queerness and motherhood.
NOTE: This conversation was edited for clarity and length.
Windy City Times: Do you remember being honored in 2009?
Kristen Kaza: I do! I remember and I have a photo of [co-honoree] Cameron Esposito and I together. It was at Center on Halsted, and I think it may have just opened recently.
WCT: Looking at your resume, one would say that you’re pretty much the event coordinator for the local LGBTQ+ community. Tell me about what you do.
Kaza: In the last 15 years, I’ve had a few different parties. When I received the Windy City Times’ 30 Under 30 Award, I was producing a documentary and we used parties as a way to fundraise so my first party was called “Role Play,” at the Holiday Club. That was my first true nightlife party and that was, 2007-09.
Then I started [the inclusive event] Slo ‘Mo, which launched in 2011; it has evolved from a monthly party at The Whistler to a monthly party at The Sleeping Village, and it’s expanded to events that have been everywhere—from Millennium Park to the MCA. There have been daytime events, club nights and a lot more. There have been many events but I’ve been very consistent in my mission to activate joy through LGBT and queer connections.
WCT: How did you get involved in this? You seem to be one of the few people I’ve encountered who’s doing something they enjoy.
Kaza: [Laughs] I do love what I do. It’s challenging—and, in some ways, it’s become even more challenging, which is really sad. [Regarding] minorities and marginalized communities, I think there are even more threats now than when I started doing this because of our cultural climate and a variety of other things. There are challenges between threats with spaces where people gather but also with fentanyl and party drugs making their way around. And with the ever-shifting impact of COVID, there are factors to consider when gathering people.
But it all started with Fresh Out of Water, the Ky Dickens documentary that I produced that was about homosexuality. With “Role Play,” it was $5 to get in and all the money went toward the film. The party had a different theme every month. It was really silly and I was really young. I had a little point-and-shoot camera and I took the pictures myself. It was short-lived in comparison to Slo Mo; it was only about two years. Then I started Slo Mo and I was also with the Chicago Reader for a while, so I developed my event-organizing skills.
WCT: It’s a good thing you’re in Chicago. I don’t know if organizing events would be as easy if you lived in a more conservative area.
Kaza: Yeah… It’s really interesting because in smaller cities and towns, there isn’t the same abundance, obviously—but I think there can be a kind of unity because of the urgency and lack of access. I think that sometimes in the larger cities there are more opportunities and access, and that we take that for granted, But, yeah, I think being in Chicago—such a beautiful, expansive city—has allowed me to create all sorts of opportunities for people to come together in different parts of the city and in different environments. I just hope that we continue to see spaces for LGBT people, both inside and outside of clubs. And I think that will also help with the pressure put on nightlife spaces to accommodate what is a really unique array of identities and experiences.
WCT: With you involved with so many public events, how did the COVID pandemic affect you?
Kaza: I think I was in one of the industries that got impacted the most severely because of spaces and gathering. We pivoted really early and I saw what was coming before the governor shut things down. We moved our monthly party at The Whistler so it became virtual, and it was called “Slo ‘Mo from Homo.” We had DJs set up and we did dance lessons. We live-streamed from Zoom, Facebook Live and Instagram—and those were tools that really weren’t used that ubiquitously back then. We had something like 5,000 people tune in each time, and we were in Time Magazine and Forbes. We did that for a few months but then people got Zoom burnout, and we found our own ways of connecting with community.
Our first in-person event was for the Summer Concert Series in Millennium Park. That was our “Divas Through the Decades” show in 2021. It was a feature with almost 20 musicians covering women from the ‘70s through today. It was a beautiful, immense undertaking—but it was tough because we had the delta surge that came right after that. Things undulated and we didn’t come back in a regular way until the spring of 2022, and that’s when I was just entering my second trimester with twins. When we came back with the monthly party at Sleeping Village, I was pregnant and running around.
WCT: I didn’t know you’re a mother. Congratulations!
Kaza: Thanks! That’s a whole other story. I gave birth at 28 weeks. My wife had to go in my place to the Pride Party, and I gave birth the very next day. I had pneumonia, got very sick and went into heart failure. The twins were born very early; were in NICU [the neonatal intensive care unit] for three months; and were one pound 14 ounces and two pounds five ounces. I was in heart rehabilitation shortly thereafter and in recovery for about a year. I’ve just fully recovered after two years—but I never stopped the parties.
WCT: So you have many reasons to be grateful.
Kaza: Yes—but there’s a mixed bag of emotions because there’s Pride but it’s also the time when my twins were born and when I became very sick. The last two years have been about balancing these amazing babies coming home with my own recovery.
WCT: Usually, I ask people what it’s like to be part of the LGBTQ+ community in today’s America. However, in light of what you just told me, I’d like to ask you what you hope for your children in terms of inclusion and diversity in today’s America.
Kaza: That’s a beautiful question. I don’t want my children to feel limited; I want them to feel that they can express themselves and are not limited by their imaginations, creativity, and self-expression. They should know that they not only have a village of support around them but the internal confidence to shine brightly, no matter how things may feel at times. They’re special kids—identical girls—who came into this world in a very dramatic fashion, and they’re incredible fighters. I just want them to know that they’re supported and cared for.