August 22 | 6-8 PM
The Ragdale Ring Summer Performance Series
Saturday, August 22nd, 2026
From 6-8PM
A special evening of conversation and performance highlighting the relationship between poetics, place, and musicality.
Ragdale’s August Ragdale Ring begins with an open mic hosted by poet and performer Marty McConnell, author of several books and co-founder and co-editor of “underbelly,” an online magazine focused on the art and magic of poetry revision.
A featured dialogue between Jamila Woods, musician, poet, and multidisciplinary artist from the South Side of Chicago, and Adrian Matejka, editor-in-chief of Poetry magazine and author of seven books who grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, follows the open mic.
The night closes with a musical performance by Chicago-born writer and musician Tasha, now based in New York and hot off the release of her fourth album You Are Spring!
Campus opens at 4pm; open mic sign up begins at 5pm; performances are 6-8pm.
Program:
Saturday, August 22nd, 2026, from 6-8PM
An evening of poetry, lyricism, and the creative process
4:00 PM Campus opens. Enjoy a picnic and self guided tour the Ragdale grounds and gardens
5:00 PM Open mic sign up begins
6:00-6:25 PM Poetry open mic with Marty McConnell
6:25-7:00 PM Poetry and Place, a conversation with Jamila Woods and Adrian Matejka
7:00-8:00 PM Tasha musical performance
Tickets
Adult General Admission - $25
Student, Senior, Artist, Veteran - $15
Children 12 and under- FREE
Event, venue and transportation details
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The Ragdale Ring Summer Performance Series will be held outdoors behind Ragdale House, a historic Arts and Crafts style home designed in 1897 by renowned Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw. The area of the Ragdale Ring is mowed lawn and includes some uneven terrain.
Additional activities may take place at other locations on campus, and Ragdale staff and volunteers can help direct you. Pathways between buildings include paving, crushed limestone, and stone. Ramps are installed at the buildings’ points of entry and exit. Building restrooms are available.
Smoking and vaping are not permitted anywhere on the Ragdale campus, including all buildings and outdoor spaces.
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To request an accessibility service please email info@ragdale.org a minimum of 72 hours before the event.
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Parking in downtown Lake Forest or taking Metra is highly recommended and convenient.
Ragdale provides a complimentary shuttle service between downtown Lake Forest (Forest Avenue Lot at 690 Forest Avenue, Lake Forest, Illinois) and Ragdale’s campus (1230 N Green Bay Road, Lake Forest, Illinois). There is no public parking on Ragdale’s campus for this event.
The free shuttle will operate between downtown Lake Forest and Ragdale during these times:
Saturday, August 22nd, the shuttle will run every 15 minutes from 4-9 pm
Shuttle service will also be available to Metra riders and local residents.
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Metra riders should use the Union Pacific North service (UP-N) between Chicago and Kenosha and ride to the Lake Forest stop (691 N. Western Ave., Lake Forest). Visit Metra.com for current schedule.
Metra riders are welcome to use the free shuttle operating from the Forest Avenue Lot (690 Forest Avenue, Lake Forest, Illinois), which is a 5-minute walk from the train station.
Walking to Ragdale from the Metra station takes about 25 minutes.
About the artists
Jamila Woods is a musician, poet, and multidisciplinary artist from the South Side of Chicago. Her three solo albums HEAVN (2017), LEGACY! LEGACY! (2019) and Water Made Us (2023) were released by JagJaguwar Records to critical acclaim. Jamila has been featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk, CBS This Morning, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She has shared stages with Corinne Bailey Rae, Rafael Saadiq, Bonobo, Common, Chance the Rapper, Brittany Howard, Macklemore, and many others. An award-winning poet, Jamila’s work often blurs boundaries between poem and song. As cultural critic Doreen St. Felix writes, “It makes you wish all singers were poets.”
Adrian Matejka grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana and is the author of seven books including The Big Smoke (Penguin, 2013), which was awarded the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. His most recent collection of poems, Somebody Else Sold the World (Penguin, 2021), was a finalist for the UNT 2022 Rilke Prize and the 2022 Indiana Authors Award. His first graphic novel Last On His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century was published in 2023 by Liveright. Last On His Feet was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the ten best books of 2023 and was a finalist for the 2024 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work. His selected poems, Be Easy: New & Selected, was published by Liveright in May 2026. He lives in Chicago and is editor-in-chief of Poetry magazine.
Tasha is a writer and musician born in Chicago and based in New York City. Her fourth album You Are Spring! will be released on Bayonet Records on June 26. On this resplendent new work, Tasha spirits us away from dull, gray winter into a world replete with images and sensations of new life. Think: a riot of bell shaped blooms; blush and citrine and butter yellow; the sky a clear, lungful of blue; warmth, everywhere, kissing skin overwintered and longing for touch; ease after suffering; a deep breath after suffocating. Recorded and produced in L.A. with her frequent collaborator Gregory Uhlmann, You Are Spring! follows 2024’s All This and So Much More, an album released on the heels of Tasha’s involvement in the Tony-award winning Broadway musical Illinoise. You can find her music at your local record store, or wherever you listen to music.
Marty McConnell is the author of “Gathering Voices: Creating a Community-Based Poetry Workshop,” (published by YesYes Books) and “when they say you can’t go home again, what they mean is you were never there,” which won the Michael Waters Poetry Prize. Her first poetry collection, “wine for a shotgun,” published by EM Press received the Silver Medal in the Independent Publishers Awards, and was a finalist for both the Audre Lorde Award (Publishing Triangle) and the Lambda Literary Awards. She is also a seven-time National Poetry Slam team member, the 2012 National Underground Poetry Individual Competition (NUPIC) Champion, and appeared twice on HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam.” She is co-founder and co-editor of “underbelly,” an online magazine focused on the art and magic of poetry revision. She is the host of the Chicago Poetry Center’s monthly Blue Hour poetry series, and recently debuted her multi-media immersive performance “Days of Wonder” at Elastic Arts in Chicago.
About the Ragdale Ring
The Ragdale Ring is a celebrated annual outdoor performance and design competition that draws on the rich tradition of artistic gathering at Ragdale, bringing artists, architects, and community audiences together for live performance, public art, and creative exchange.
Front of House by Gluten, a Virginia-based interdisciplinary design studio, is on view in 2026 as part of Ragdale's 50th Anniversary, re-imagining elements of the historic Ragdale House façade as an immersive landscape of forms where performance, gathering, and architecture converge. Rather than a traditional stage, the installation creates an environment of wonder and direct experience, inviting visitors to engage, explore, and gather in equal measure.
Thank you to our sponsors!
Founded in 1956, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society
50th Anniversary Benefactor Sponsor
50th Anniversary Sponsors
