Rick Karlin

Rick Karlin is a playwright (“Spin Cycle”, “As Time Goes By”, “Greece!”, “Scrapbook”, “Women at Large”, “Full of Beenes” and “Seuss on the Loose”), novelist (Tales of the Second City, Death on the Rocks), free-lance journalist (Chicago Free Press, Bay Area Reporter, Windy City Times, Chicago Tribune’s Metromix and Out.com) and was the Entertainment Editor for Gay Chicago Magazine for 10 years.

A community activist, he was inducted in the City of Chicago’s Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1997 for his charity work with Horizons Community Services, Equality Illinois, AIDS Foundation, Test Positive Aware Network, Stop AIDS, Names Project and Open Hand, among others. He founded the popular charity fundraisers, “Night of 100 Drag Queens” and Gay Chicago Magazine’s “After Dark Awards.”

In his stage personae, Charity Case and Helen Highwater, he is renowned for his quick wit and snappy repartee as a performer and emcee for charity events and shows,

He is also a teacher and was recognized as Illinois’ “Most Talented Teacher” in 1993. Karlin is the father of a son, Adam, and lives in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood with his spouse, the award-winning poet and writer, Gregg Shapiro, and their dogs Dusty and k.d.