Chicago Theater Scene
   HOME
*



picture info

Chicago Theater Scene
Theater in Chicago describes not only theater performed in Chicago, Illinois, but also to 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 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". History The young settlement of Chicago in 1834 saw its first commercial production by a fire eater and ventriloquist, Mr. Brown. In 1837, the first resident theater ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Chicago Theater
The Chicago Theatre, originally known as the Balaban and Katz Chicago Theatre, is a landmark theater located on North State Street in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1921, the Chicago Theatre was the flagship for the Balaban and Katz (B&K) group of theaters run by A. J. Balaban, his brother Barney Balaban and partner Sam Katz. Along with the other B&K theaters, from 1925 to 1945 the Chicago Theatre was a dominant movie theater enterprise. Currently, Madison Square Garden, Inc. owns and operates the Chicago Theatre as a performing arts venue for stage plays, magic shows, comedy, speeches, sporting events and popular music concerts. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 6, 1979, and was listed as a Chicago Landmark on January 28, 1983. The distinctive Chicago Theatre marquee, "an unofficial emblem of the city", appears frequently in film, television, artwork, and photography. History Grand opening, growth, and decline ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Galsworthy
John Galsworthy (; 14 August 1867 – 31 January 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include ''The Forsyte Saga'' (1906–1921) and its sequels, ''A Modern Comedy'' and ''End of the Chapter''. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932. Life Galsworthy was born at what is now known as Galsworthy House (then called Parkhurst) on Kingston Hill in Surrey, England, the son of John and Blanche Bailey (''née'' Bartleet) Galsworthy. His family was prosperous and well established, with a large property in Kingston upon Thames that is now the site of three schools: Marymount International School, Rokeby Preparatory School, and Holy Cross Preparatory School. He attended Harrow and New College, Oxford. He took a Second in Law (Jurisprudentia) at Oxford in 1889, then trained as a barrister and was called to the bar in 1890. However, he was not keen to begin practising law and instead travelled abroad to look after the family's trans-European shipping ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Bernie Sahlins
Bernard Sahlins (; August 20, 1922 – June 16, 2013) was an American writer, director and comedian best known as a founder of The Second City improvisational comedy troupe with Paul Sills and Howard Alk in 1959.Sahlins, Bernard (2001)Days and Nights at the Second City.via SCTV Guide Sahlins also opened the Second City Theatre in Toronto in 1973. Biography Born in Chicago, Sahlins graduated from University of Chicago in 1943. His brother is anthropologist Marshall Sahlins. When Sahlins received an honorary doctorate from Columbia College Chicago in 2006, theatre department professor Sheldon Patinkin wrote: In 1986, Sahlins co-founded both The University of Chicago's Off-Off Campus Off-Off Campus is an improvisational and sketch comedy group at the University of Chicago. It was founded in 1986 by The Second City co-founder Bernie Sahlins, who is also an alumnus of the University of Chicago. Off-Off Campus stems from a tradi ... and The International Theatre Festival of Chic ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Paul Sills
Paul Sills (born Paul Silverberg; November 18, 1927 – June 2, 2008) was an American director and improvisation teacher, and the original director of Chicago's The Second City. Life and career Sills was born Paul Silverberg in Chicago, Illinois, to a family who believed in the teachings of modern-day Judaism. His mother was teacher and writer Viola Spolin, who authored the first book on improvisation techniques, ''Improvisation for the Theater''. Spolin in turn was the student of play therapy theorist Neva Boyd. In 1948, Sills enrolled in the University of Chicago, where he established himself as a director, co-founding Playwright's Theater Club. There, with fellow actors Edward Asner, Byrne Piven and Zohra Lampert, they blended Spolin's improvisational techniques with established theater training. In 1955, Sills and David Shepherd founded the Compass Players, the first improvisational theater in the United States, where he directed Shelley Berman, Mike Nichols and Elaine Ma ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Goodman Theatre
Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of the Chicago theatre scene, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization. Part of its present theater complex occupies the landmark Harris and Selwyn Theaters property. History The Goodman was founded in 1925 as a tribute to the Chicago playwright Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, who died in the Great Influenza Pandemic in 1918. The theater was funded by Goodman's parents, Mr. and Mrs. William O. Goodman, who donated $250,000 to the Art Institute of Chicago to establish a professional repertory company and a school of drama at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The first theater was designed by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw (in the location now occupied by the museum's Modern Wing), although its design was severely hampered by location restrictions resulting in poor acoustics and lack of space for scenery and effects. The opening ceremony on October 20, 1925 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


William H
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of England in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will, Wills, Willy, Willie, Bill, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie or the play ''Douglas''). Female forms are Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the given name ''Wilhelm'' (cf. Proto-Germanic ᚹᛁᛚᛃᚨᚺᛖᛚᛗᚨᛉ, ''*Wiljahelmaz'' > German ''Wilhelm'' and Old Norse ᚢᛁᛚᛋᛅᚼᛅᛚᛘᛅᛋ, ''Vilhjálmr''). By regular sound changes, the native, inherited English form of the name shoul ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




David Mamet
David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony Award, Tony nominations for his plays ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and ''Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first gained critical acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway 1970s plays: ''The Duck Variations'', ''Sexual Perversity in Chicago'', and ''American Buffalo (play), American Buffalo''. His plays ''Race (play), Race'' and ''The Penitent (play), The Penitent'', respectively, opened on Broadway theater, Broadway in 2009 and previewed off-Broadway in 2017. Feature films that Mamet both wrote and directed include ''House of Games'' (1987), ''Homicide (1991 film), Homicide'' (1991), ''The Spanish Prisoner'' (1997), and his biggest commercial success, ''Heist (2001 film), Heist'' (2001). His screenwriting credits include ''The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981 film), The Postman Always Rings Twice'' (1981), ''The Verdict'' (1982), ''The Untouchables (film), ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theatre company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Unitarian church on Half Day Road in Deerfield, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on Halsted Street. The theatre's name comes from Hermann Hesse's novel '' Steppenwolf'', which original member Rick Argosh was reading during the company's inaugural production of Paul Zindel's play, '' And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little'', in 1974. After occupying several theatres in Chicago, in 1991, it moved into its own purpose-built complex with three performing spaces, the largest seating 550. A recipient of the Regional Tony Award, several of its productions have transferred to Broadway. History The name Steppenwolf Theatre Company was first used in 1974 at a Unitarian church on Half Day Road in Deerfield. The company presented '' And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little'' by Paul Zindel, ''Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead'' by Tom Stopp ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

The Second City
The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise and is the oldest ongoing improvisational theater troupe to be continually based in Chicago, with training programs and live theatres in Toronto and Los Angeles. The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959, and has since become one of the most influential and prolific comedy theatres in the English-speaking world. In February 2021, ZMC, a private equity investment firm based in Manhattan, purchased the Second City. The Second City has produced television programs in both Canada and the United States, including '' SCTV'', ''Second City Presents'', and '' Next Comedy Legend''. Since its debut, The Second City has consistently been a starting point for many comedians, award-winning actors, directors, and others in show business, including Del Close, Alan Alda, Alan Arkin, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, John Candy, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Chris Farley, Tim Meadows, Colin M ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Little Theatre Movement
As the new medium of cinema was beginning to replace theater as a source of large-scale spectacle, the Little Theatre Movement developed in the United States around 1912. The Little Theatre Movement served to provide experimental centers for the dramatic arts, free from the standard production mechanisms used in prominent commercial theaters. In several large cities, beginning with Chicago, Boston, Seattle, and Detroit, companies formed to produce more intimate, non-commercial, non-profit-centered, and reform-minded entertainments. History Conventional theater in 19th-century America Sensational melodramas had entertained theatre audiences since the mid-19th century, drawing larger and larger audiences.Watt, Stephen and Richardson, Gary (ed.), ''American Drama: Colonial to Contemporary''. Cambridge, MA: Heinle & Heinle, pp. 147–150. . These types of formulaic works could be produced over and over again in splendid halls in big cities and by touring companies in smaller ones. Durin ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Toy Theatre
Toy theater, also called paper theater and model theater (also spelt theatre, see spelling differences), 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 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. History Late 18th and early 19th century The original toy theatres were mass-produced replicas of popular plays, sold as kits that people assembled at home, inc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Little Theater In Chicago
Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt * ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film * The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John Peterson ** ''The Littles'' (TV series), an American animated series based on the novels Places * Little, Kentucky, United States * Little, West Virginia, United States Other uses *Clan Little, a Scottish clan * Little (surname), an English surname * Little (automobile), an American automobile manufactured from 1912 to 1915 * Little, Brown and Company, an American publishing company * USS ''Little'', multiple United States Navy ships See also * * *Little Mountain (other) * Little River (other) *Little Island (other) Little Island can refer to: Geographical areas Australia * Little Island (South Australia) * Little Island (Tasmania) * Little Island (Western Australia) Canada * Little Island (Lake Kagawong), ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]