Theatre in Chicago - History

History

Hull-House, the social settlement house of Chicago, had from the 1890s a theater program under Laura Dainty Pelham which performed the Chicago premiers of numerous of the new plays of Galsworthy, Ibsen, and George Bernard Shaw. In 1912 Maurice Browne founded the Little Theater in Chicago, crediting Pelham's Hull House influence. This, along with the founding of the Toy Theatre in Boston the same year, is credited with starting the American Little Theatre Movement.

The Second City, founded in 1959, by Paul Sills and Bernie Sahlins is the country's premiere improvisational theatre, and its method of developing material has strongly influenced such playwrights as David Mamet (who was a dishwasher there), Jules Feiffer, Lanford Wilson, Jeffrey Sweet, James Sherman, David Auburn, Mark Hollmann, Greg Kotis and Alan Gross. In 1968 Paul Sills left Second City to open The Body Politic Theater where he creatred Story Theater. The Kingston Mines Theater, where the musical "Grease" premiered, began shortly afterwards, the two theaters across the street from each other on Lincoln Avenue. In 1970 Sills invited Stuart Gordon and his Organic Theater Company to move to Chicago and begin what he termed "a scene." The success of these three theaters inspired the creation of other small troupes that grew, notably the Steppenwolf Theatre and the Victory Gardens Theater, both of which, along with the Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and Lookingglass Theatre Company, were honored with regional theatre Tony Awards, the only city in the country to have five theatres so honored.

The Goodman Theatre had existed for a number of years with a reputation as a home for revivals, but the arrival of artistic director William Woodman and his assistant Gregory Mosher changed its profile. When Mosher took over as artistic director he enhanced the Goodman's reputation largely due to the work of David Mamet whose play "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" had been Mamet's first success at the Organic Theater Company in 1974. Mosher later produced and directed American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross at the Goodman. The Goodman Theatre also was where Hurlyburly by David Rabe premiered under the direction of Chicago improvisational theatre alum Mike Nichols.

After Mosher moved to New York, the artistic directorship went to Robert Falls, former director of the Wisdom Bridge Theatre. Falls is particularly known for his ongoing collaboration with actor Brian Dennehy, including productions of Death of a Salesman and Long Day's Journey Into Night that went to Broadway and won Tony Awards for both of them.

Briefly, The Goodman Theatre is known as the house of directors; Steppenwolf Theatre is known as the house of actors, Victory Gardens Theater as the house of writers; The Second City as the house of improvisation, and Organic Theater Company and later Lookingglass Theatre Company as the home of original image-based productions. Several leading directors associated with these troupes -- Dennis Zacek, Mary Zimmerman and Frank Galati -- are alumni of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago. In addition, writers such as Richard Christiansen of the Chicago Daily News and later the Chicago Tribune,Newcity's senior editor Nate Lee and Hedy Weiss of the Chicago Sun-Times helped encourage Chicagoans to come out and appreciate live theater.

Since 1990, Performink has been an industry newspaper for Chicago theatre, including show openings and reviews, audition listings, and industry and union news for Chicago actors, directors, dancers, designers, and other theatre professionals.

The Drury Lane Theatres were a group of six theatres in the Chicago suburbs founded by Tony DeSantis. He began producing plays in 1949 in a tent adjacent to his Martinique Restaurant to attract customers, then built his first theatre in 1958.