Chicago StART
PROOF-OF-CONCEPT SERIES IN DEVELOPMENT
TELEVISION SERIES
Genres: Drama – Ensemble
Themes: Ambition vs. Reality / Friendship as Infrastructure / The Cost of Persistence
Logline: In Chicago’s creative underground, a group of six twenty-thirty-year-old emerging artists struggles to build real careers while navigating dreams, ego, friendship, money, and the quiet fear that talent alone may not be enough.
Tagline: “Making art. Making rent. Ambition has a Chicago address.”
Summary:
Most stories about artists begin after success. Chicago StART lives in the uncertainty before it.
The series follows a network of Chicago creatives trying to transition from “aspiring” to “working.” Projects fall apart, collaborators clash, relationships evolve, and the line between personal and professional life dissolves. Progress rarely comes as a breakthrough. Instead, it arrives as a series of fragile steps: a casting, a screening, a connection, a near-miss, a small victory.
At its core, the series is about identity under pressure. When art becomes livelihood, passion gains consequences. Choices that once felt creative become strategic, and every opportunity asks a personal cost.
Chicago StART is not about making it big.
It is about deciding what “making it” actually means.
Materials Completed:
- Six episode screenplays completed
- One episode fully produced
- Two additional episodes partially produced
- Series continuing development and production planning