While most people may know the Riverside Arts Center as a place for visual art, Executive Director Ann Filmer said the organization is venturing out of its niche to welcome other forms of art — namely, scriptwriting.
“We are holding a playwriting workshop March 21 and 22. It’s a pretty big deal. Will Dunne is an award-winning playwright and a teacher of writing for 40 years,” Filmer told the Landmark. “He is holding a two-day workshop. It’s called ‘It Happened One Weekend,’ and in that workshop, you come on the first day, and you write a short play,” around 10 minutes in length, “and then the next day when you come, you will have it performed by actors. It’s incredible.”
Filmer boasted the workshop as the RAC’s newest program for 2026.
“Will Dunne lives in Riverside. I used to run a professional theater in Berwyn called 16th Street Theater, and he was one of the first playwrights we produced,” she said. “When I first started working at RAC, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is where Will Dunne lives. I should reach out. He does all these workshops across the country; maybe he would do one right here in his town.’ He said yes.”
Tickets for the workshop are available online, starting at $225.
In the more immediate future, the Center is hosting its third annual Creativity Fest event on Feb. 7 and 21, both Saturdays, where anyone can drop in from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and work on their own 10-inch-by-10-inch canvas. After, the canvases, with the creators’ permission, will be included in a community exhibit at Riverside Township Hall from March to May.
“Last year, when we did it, we had like 60 canvasses. We hope to get 80 this year,” Filmer said.
With one eye on the future, Filmer also kept one eye on the past. In 2025, the RAC served about 5,000 people, with an average of 125 students enrolled each month in classes and workshops, including the free and open Art Jam on Tuesday evenings.
“Anyone can drop in and create using our supplies, or supplies they bring,” she said. “It’s like an open gym, except it’s open arts.”
The center also held 19 exhibitions and 20 art openings, artists talks and workshops, exhibiting the work of 184 artists.
Filmer, who was hired in December 2024 as the Center’s first full-time staff member, said 2025 was a major year for RAC.
“The biggest growth we’ve seen is in our arts education for all ages, youth and teens, adults, which grew by 250% from the previous year. It’s been so exciting to have so many people of all ages in our studio spaces,” she said.
Filmer attributed the growth to Karen Nelson, the RAC’s education director who joined the team last year.
“The sharp rise in attendance was due to attention on education … Having her expertise and attention on listening to the community,” she said. “We hadn’t bounced back from the pandemic, even four years in, it’s been such a struggle for arts and organizations. It was programming classes in ceramics, in painting, and also giving attention to adult education. We’ve always done pretty well with our art camp, but adults need creativity, too, and time and space to use their imagination and create something beautiful or fun or meaningful.”
To that end, the Center partnered with Riverside’s parks and recreation department over the summer to create a Senior Art Club, which Filmer in August called “a perfect collaboration” with the village.
Aside from its new playwriting workshop, Filmer said the organization’s goal for 2026 is to seek stability.
“A nonprofit organization, as I’m sure you know, being a nonprofit newspaper, needs financial stability,” she said. “We want to make sure RAC is here for a long, long, long time. I’ve been paying a lot of attention to our financials, and, of course, fundraising. We have great community support in Riverside, thank goodness, so [our goal is] stabilizing. It’s repeating things that work well and getting rid of anything that doesn’t work so well.”
