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31-514: In 1953 Paul Sills, David Shepherd, and Eugene Troobnick founded the Playwrights Theatre Club in Chicago . The theatre was noted for its bohemian treatment of classic plays as well as presenting and premiering original works. The theatre's first known production was Bertolt Brecht 's " The Caucasian Chalk Circle ." In only two years, the company presented close to 30 full productions. During

62-632: A fire eater and ventriloquist , Mr. Brown. In 1837, the first resident theater company, the short-lived Chicago Theater, opened in the Sauganash Hotel . One of the players was then a boy named Joseph Jefferson , who grew to become a very successful comedic actor. Chicago's main theater prize, the Joseph Jefferson award , is named after this pioneer. New theaters, including Rice's Theater, owned by an empresario and future mayor, and McVicker's Theater began booking nationally prominent acts beginning in

93-656: A dozen resident playwrights and most of the productions there are premieres of their plays, a number of which have gone on to productions elsewhere. Some of these include James Sherman 's Beau Jest , Jeffrey Sweet 's The Action Against Sol Schumann , Kristine Thatcher 's Voice of Good Hope , Charles Smith 's Jelly Belly , Steve Carter 's Pecong , Claudia Allen 's Deed of Trust , and Douglas Post 's Earth and Sky . Stage Left Theatre 's Downstage Left program has cultivated nationally known playwrights Mia McCullough , David Rush, Margaret Lewis and David Alan Moore. Theatre Building Chicago formerly had an ongoing program for

124-614: A group of artists ( actors , directors , designers , playwrights , etc.) who work collaboratively to create each production. Chicago theater has a long record of introducing new plays and playwrights. Many of the theaters in Chicago have new play workshop programs to cultivate work from current playwrights. Chicago Dramatists , which was begun by a group of ex-students of a playwriting workshop at Victory Gardens Theater , has an ongoing program of developing new writers, most notably Rebecca Gilman . The Victory Gardens Theater plays host to

155-762: A group of six theaters 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 theater in 1958. Chicago is home to more than 200 small theatre companies such as A Red Orchid Theatre , Lifeline Theatre , Remy Bumppo Theatre Company , Redtwist Theater , Trap Door Theatre , The Conspirators and TUTA Theatre . Some have their own performance venues, while many perform in untraditional theatre spaces such as storefronts or bars, or any number of studio or black box theatres around Chicago. Many of Chicago's larger theaters both profit and non-profit originate or tryout shows for Broadway . Touring productions also visit

186-944: A shift towards realism on the European stage in the late 19th century, and again with the arrival of television after World War II . Toy theatre has seen a resurgence in recent years among many puppeteers , authors and filmmakers and there are numerous international toy theatre festivals throughout the Americas and Europe. The original toy theatres were mass-produced replicas of popular plays, sold as kits that people assembled at home, including stage, scenery, characters and costumes. They were printed on paperboard, available at English playhouses and commercial libraries for "a penny plain or two pence coloured." Hobbyists often went to great pains to not only hand-colour their stages but to embellish their toy theatre personae with bits of cloth and tinsel; tinsel print characters could be bought pre-tinselled, or

217-406: A wide range of supplies for home tinselling could be bought. Just as the toy-sized stages diminished a play's scale, their corresponding scripts tended to abridge the text, paring it down to key characters and lines for a shorter, less complicated presentation. In the first half of the 19th century, more than 300 of London's most popular plays saw the issue as toy theatres. Publishers sent artists to

248-462: Is a form of miniature theater dating back to the early 19th century in Europe. Toy theaters were often printed on paperboard sheets and sold as kits at the concession stand of an opera house , playhouse , or vaudeville theater . Toy theatres were assembled at home and performed for family members and guests, sometimes with live musical accompaniment. Toy theatre saw a drastic decline in popularity with

279-554: 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

310-452: Is the country's premiere improvisational theater, 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 created Story Theater . The Kingston Mines Theater , where

341-663: 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 theater, including show openings and reviews, audition listings, and industry and union news for Chicago actors, directors, dancers, designers, and other theater professionals. The Drury Lane Theatres were

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372-552: The Goodman Theatre , Chicago Shakespeare Theatre , Court Theatre (Chicago) and Lookingglass Theatre Company , were honored with regional theater Tony Awards, the only city in the country to have six theaters 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

403-414: The 20th century toy theater became a tool for the avant-garde , messed with by futurist founder F.T. Marienetti as well as Pablo Picasso . Film directors like Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles would use toy theaters as staging grounds for their cinematic masterpieces, and Laurence Olivier even made a toy theater of his film version of Hamlet , mass-produced with a little paper cutout of himself in

434-1092: 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 . A postwar stage renaissance emerged via the Hull House through efforts by Viola Spolin and Robert Sickinger . From this an indigenous Chicago style of ensemble theater arose, with examples including The Second City , Steppenwolf Theatre Company , St. Nicholas Theatre Company (founded by playwright David Mamet and actor William H. Macy ) and The Goodman Theatre . The Second City, founded in 1959 by Paul Sills and Bernie Sahlins ,

465-747: The Compass Players was the forerunner of The Second City . Compass launched the careers of Mike Nichols , Elaine May , Jerry Stiller , Alan Alda , Alan Arkin , Barbara Harris , and Shelley Berman (to name a few) and started a revolution in the entertainment industry. Other members and participants of the Playwrights Theatre Club included Elaine May , Sheldon Patinkin , Rolf Forsberg , Mike Nichols , Joyce Piven , Josephine Forsberg , Ed Asner , Barbara Harris , among others. Theatre in Chicago Theater in Chicago describes not only theater performed in Chicago , Illinois , but also to

496-579: 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 theater alum Mike Nichols . After Mosher moved to New York,

527-458: The United States. As many as 100 shows could be seen any given night from 200 companies as of 2018, some with national reputations and many in creative "storefront" theaters, demonstrating a vibrant theater scene "from the ground up". According to American Theatre magazine, Chicago's theater is "justly legendary". The young settlement of Chicago in 1834 saw its first commercial production by

558-481: 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

589-523: The city regularly, mainly playing at the big theaters in the Chicago Theatre District in the Loop . Following in the tradition of The Second City and Steppenwolf, many of these companies, including American Blues Theater , Stage Left Theatre , The Factory Theater , Organic Theater Company , Strawdog Theatre Company and Lifeline Theatre , are ensemble-based. An ensemble-based company is formed of

620-531: The development of new musicals until being taken over by Stage 773 in 2010. Chicago dell'Arte is local company currently creating and producing new works of Commedia dell'arte. The company also sponsors and in-house troupe known as Le Corone Rosse . Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park . Oracle Theatre offers public access theater in Chicago sustained by

651-463: The donations, where the seats are free and open to anyone. Chicago is home to both non-union and union theater companies. Union shows adhere to strict contracts for all artists involved. Artistic trade unions such as Actors' Equity , commonly known simply as "Equity," and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society bargain for contracts guaranteeing minimum wages and other rights involved with

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682-564: The form's limits, adapting the works of Isaac Babel and Italo Calvino , as well as that of unsung storytellers, friends, neighbors, relatives, and themselves. Contemporary toy theater may use any available technology and cover any subject, and numerous international toy theater festivals occur regularly throughout the Americas and Europe, attracting many well-known actors, musicians and authors to their stages. Mass-produced toy theaters are usually sold as printed sheets, either in black and white to be colored as desired, or as full-color images of

713-442: The format of toy theater. Toward the end of the 19th century, European popular drama had shifted its preference to the trend of realism , marking a dramaturgical swing toward psychological complexity, character motivation and settings using ordinary three-dimensional scenic elements. This trend in stage theater did not make an easy conversion to its toy counterpart, and with the fanciful dramas of fifty years prior being out of fashion,

744-474: The late 1840s. After the devastation of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Scottish-American producer David Henderson gave Chicago a national theater reputation at his Opera House and other theaters. Lively foreign-language theaters patronised by new immigrants also sprang up. Hull House , the social settlement house of Chicago, had from the 1890s a theatre program under Laura Dainty Pelham which performed

775-408: The movement in Chicago that saw a number of small, meagerly funded companies grow to institutions of national and international significance. Chicago had long been a popular destination for touring productions, as well as original productions that transfer to Broadway and other cities. According to Variety editor Gordon Cox, beside New York City, Chicago has one of the most lively theater scenes in

806-569: 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

837-448: The playhouses of Georgian and early- Victorian London to record the scenery, costumes and dramatic attitudes of the greatest successes of the day. The theatre management often provided these artists with a free seat, as the toy theatre sheets were excellent free advertising. Stage theater of the early 19th century had been based more on spectacle than on depth of plot or character, and these characteristics lent themselves effectively to

868-613: The rehearsal and production process. Shows may run for a varying number of weeks, depending on ticket sales. Musicals tend to have longer runs than do stage plays. The majority of theaters in Chicago are located on the city's North Side and in the Loop . Both Actor's Equity and non-Equity productions in the Chicago area receive honors from the Joseph Jefferson (Jeff) Awards , awarded by a panel of volunteer judges. Toy Theatre Toy theater , also called paper theater and model theater (also spelt theatre , see spelling differences ),

899-473: The rehearsal period, the company members engaged in numerous improvisational theater games that were originally created by Sills' mother, Viola Spolin . The Playwright's Theatre Club led to the creation of the Compass Players and later The Second City. In 1955, the Playwrights Theatre Club was later renamed the Compass Players, concentrating on improvisational theater. Also founded by Shepherd and Sills,

930-528: The starring role. But after its second wave boom, toy theater fell into a second recession, replaced in the 1950s, by a different box in people's sitting rooms that needed no live operator and whose sets, characters, stories and musical numbers were beamed in electronically from miles away to be projected on the glass of a cathode ray tube: television. Toy theater has been enjoying a revival in recent decades. Collectors and traditionalists perform restored versions of Victorian plays while experimental puppeteers push

961-657: The toy theaters that remained in print fell into obsolescence. Despite its fall in popularity, toy theater remained in the realm of influential artists who championed its resurgence. In 1884 British author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote an essay in tribute of toy theater's tiny grandeur entitled "Penny Plain, Twopence Coloured" in which he extolled the virtues of the dramas supplied by Pollock's . Other children's authors like Lewis Carroll and Hans Christian Andersen also dabbled in toy theater, as did Oscar Wilde . The brothers Jack and William Butler Yeats both used toy theaters as mock-ups for their work in art and stagecraft. In

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