Community Corner

Highland Park Declares May 13 Bitter Jester Day

The city celebrates a local production company.

Aside from horror movie fans, not many people look forward to Friday the 13th. But when heard that Highland Park would proclaim May 13, 2011 Bitter Jester Day to celebrate the 10-year-old production company he runs with Daniel Kullman, he started getting pretty excited for the day to arrive.

"It's unbelievable when people hit you with an honor like that that you weren't expecting," DeGrazia said. 

The small production company located in Highland Park does a variety of work from corporate videos to has become known throughout the city for the video it does annually for the . After the 2011 dinner, , former approached DeGrazia about getting his company some recognition for the work its done for the city.

Find out what's happening in Highland Parkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"Afterwards Terri came up to me and mentioned she'd like to have a mayoral proclamation written," DeGrazia said, adding that he was surprised. "It's not like it was even on our radar."

read the proclamation at Monday's City Council meeting. It was one of the last things he did before passing his gavel off to the city's .

Find out what's happening in Highland Parkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The proclamation reads that the city extends its heartfelt appreciation "for the valuable service and dedication of Nicolas DeGrazia and Daniel Kullman to the citizens of our community."

Though DeGrazia said he and Kullman will be working Friday as they gear up for a trip to Los Angeles for a , an email from Bitter Jester sent Friday morning advised others not to follow suit.

"It's official," the email read, "We're giving everyone the day off today! Now go have some fun."


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here