Alderman Shiller is one of only one or two alderman from whom "you'll likely get a sympathetic, even passionate argument for the value of a storefront theater," wrote the Chicago Tribune in December of 2003. 

Alderman Shiller has been at the forefront of cutting the regulatory tape that often constrains the growth of live theaters.

Among other things she:

• wrote and passed a law in 1992 allowing small live theaters to sell alcohol.

• wrote and passed a law that allowed Public Places of Amusement to increase parking in 1993.

• again eliminated some restrictions for the selling of liquor at live theaters in 2003.

• rewrote the zoning ordinance to allow live theaters to operate in areas where they once could not.

Alderman Shiller's 2005 legislation made it "so much easier for small neighborhood theaters to thrive and stay alive and give the opportunity for the next great Chicago company to start up in some small venue," explained P.J. Powers of the Time Line Theater Co. in a Chicago Tribune story.