Kamala's Party - Producing Chicago The DNC covered nearly impossible ground to raise up Harris as the new hero.

Producing Chicago The DNC covered nearly impossible ground to raise up Harris as the new hero. At a political convention, power is rendered as geography. The rank and file are stuck in the rafters of the arena; the delegates jostle on the floor. Donors and VIPs are positioned up in a ring of luxury suites, their status-conferring badges and passes flapping from their many lanyards. The staffers toil down in the bowels, harried and molelike, their eyes on their phones. But at last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, maybe the most important piece of real estate was a narrow space up metal gangway stairs at the back of the United Center, where Ricky Kirshner worked in front of a bank of a half-dozen flat-screens. The Democrats in the hall were extras in a televised event, and Kirshner was producing the show.

- By Andrew Rice - Photography by Mark Peterson

At a political convention, power is rendered as geography. The rank and file are stuck in the rafters of the arena; the delegates jostle on the floor. Donors and VIPs are positioned up in a ring of luxury suites, their status-conferring badges and passes flapping from their many lanyards. The staffers toil down in the bowels, harried and molelike, their eyes on their phones. But at last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, maybe the most important piece of real estate was a narrow space up metal gangway stairs at the back of the United Center, where Ricky Kirshner worked in front of a bank of a half-dozen flat-screens. The Democrats in the hall were extras in a televised event, and Kirshner was producing the show.

At 7:45 p.m. Chicago time on the convention’s third night, Kirshner took off his headset to talk for just a moment. “I’ve got Stevie Wonder coming,” he said. A veteran producer of awards shows like the Tonys and the Golden Globes, Kirshner had been tasked with creating compelling entertainment out of a four-day speech marathon, making the most of the precious hours of prime time that the television networks had committed to the Democrats each night. He was coordinating, chiefly through nods and signals, with two directors at his table, who were running the stage and the house cameras, while communicating what was coming next to the networks through his headset.