Goodman Theatre is a professional
theater
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
company located in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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's
Loop
Loop or LOOP may refer to:
Brands and enterprises
* Loop (mobile), a Bulgarian virtual network operator and co-founder of Loop Live
* Loop, clothing, a company founded by Carlos Vasquez in the 1990s and worn by Digable Planets
* Loop Mobile, an ...
. A major part of the
Chicago theatre
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 a ...
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
The Harris and Selwyn Theaters are twin theatres located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. They were built by Sam H. Harris and Archie and Edgar Selwyn. They were designated a Chicago Landmark on March 31, 1983. They have been ...
property.
History
The Goodman was founded in 1925 as a tribute to the Chicago
playwright Kenneth Sawyer Goodman
Kenneth is an English given name and surname. The name is an Anglicised form of two entirely different Gaelic personal names: ''Cainnech'' and '' Cináed''. The modern Gaelic form of ''Cainnech'' is ''Coinneach''; the name was derived from a b ...
, who died in the
Great Influenza Pandemic
The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...
in 1918. The theater was funded by Goodman's parents, Mr. and Mrs.
William O. Goodman
William Owen Goodman (1848–1936) was an American lumber tycoon. He was born in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania to Owen and Susan (Barber) Goodman in 1848. His parents died at an early age and he was raised by various members of his family living in d ...
, who donated $250,000 to the Art Institute of Chicago to establish a professional
repertory company
A repertory theatre is a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation.
United Kingdom
Annie Horniman founded the first modern repertory theatre in Manchester after withdrawing ...
and a school of
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...
at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...
. The first theater was designed by architect
Howard Van Doren Shaw
Howard Van Doren Shaw AIA (May 7, 1869 – May 7, 1926) was an architect in Chicago, Illinois. Shaw was a leader in the American Craftsman movement, best exemplified in his 1900 remodel of Second Presbyterian Church in Chicago. He designe ...
(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, featured three of Kenneth Sawyer Goodman's plays: ''Back of the Yards'', ''The Green Scarf'', and ''The Game of Chess''. Two nights later the theater presented its first public performance,
John Galsworthy's ''The Forest''. The company mainly performed student productions with the addition of professional players through to the 1950s. In 1969 under artistic director, John Reich, it finally became a fully professional company. In 1978, the drama school became part of
DePaul University
DePaul University is a private, Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th-century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul. In 1998, it became the largest Ca ...
.
In 2000, the company moved into its new facility at 170 North Dearborn in Chicago's theater district. The project was designed by
KPMB Architects
KPMB is a Canadian architecture firm founded by Bruce Kuwabara, Thomas Payne, Marianne McKenna, and Shirley Blumberg, in 1987. It is headquartered in Toronto, where the majority of their work is found. Aside from designing buildings, the firm a ...
, DLK Architecture Inc., McClier Corporation, associated architects. It has two fully modern auditoriums, named the Albert and the Owen, after two members of the Goodman family who continue to be major donors. In August of that year, Associate Artistic Director Michael Maggio died and the company established the ''Michael Maggio Emerging Designer Award'' in his honor which is bestowed alongside the ''Michael Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration''.
Awards
In 1992, the theatre company received the
Regional Theatre Tony Award
The Regional Theatre Tony Award is a special recognition Tony Award given annually to a regional theater company in the United States. The winner is recommended by a committee of drama critics.
Background
Initially presented in 1948 to Robert ...
, joining
Steppenwolf Theatre as Chicago-based recipients of the award. Since then, three other Chicago-based companies,
Victory Gardens Theater
Victory Gardens Theater is a theater company in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to the development and production of new plays and playwrights. The theater company was founded in 1974 when eight Chicago artists, Cecil O'Neal, Warren Casey, Stuart Go ...
(in 2001),
Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) is a non-profit, professional theater company located at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois. Its more than six hundred annual performances performed 48 weeks of the year include its critically acclaimed Shakespeare s ...
(in 2008), and
Lookingglass Theatre Company
Lookingglass Theatre Company is a non-profit theater company in Chicago, Illinois.
History
Lookingglass was founded in 1988 by David Schwimmer, David Catlin, Eva Barr, Thom Cox, Lawrence DiStasi, Joy Gregory, David Kersnar, and Andy White. The co ...
(in 2011) have also received the award, making Chicago the most recognized city in the country by this prestigious live theater award. The Goodman has also won many
Joseph Jefferson awards
The Joseph Jefferson Award, more commonly known informally as the Jeff Award, is given for theatre arts produced in the Chicago area. Founded in 1968, the awards are named in tribute to actor Joseph Jefferson, a 19th-century American theater sta ...
.
Productions
With the production of ''
Radio Golf
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
'' in 2007, the Goodman became the first theater to mount a production of each of the ten plays in
August Wilson
August Wilson ( Frederick August Kittel Jr.; April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of ten plays, collectively called ' (or ...
's ''Pittsburgh'' cycle.
The theater has presented ''
A Christmas Carol'' annually in December since the 1970s.
Other productions the Goodman has staged over the years include ''
Hay Fever'', ''
Lady Windermere's Fan
''Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman'' is a four-act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first performed on Saturday, 20 February 1892, at the St James's Theatre in London.
The story concerns Lady Windermere, who suspects that her husband is ...
'', ''
The Little Foxes
''The Little Foxes'' is a 1939 play by Lillian Hellman, considered a classic of 20th century drama. Its title comes from Chapter 2, Verse 15 of the Song of Solomon in the King James version of the Bible, which reads, "Take us the foxes, the lit ...
'', ''
You Can't Take it with You'', ''
Born Yesterday'', ''
Pal Joey'', ''
To Be Young, Gifted and Black (play)
''To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in her Own Words'', is a play about the life of American writer Lorraine Hansberry, adapted from her own writings. Hansberry was best known for her 1959 play ''A Raisin in the Sun'', the first sh ...
'', ''
Guys and Dolls
''Guys and Dolls'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" (1933) and "Blood Pressure", which are two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also bo ...
'', ''
Talley's Folly
''Talley's Folly'' is a 1980 play by American playwright Lanford Wilson. The play is the second in ''The Talley Trilogy'', between his plays '' Talley & Son'' and ''Fifth of July''. Set in an boathouse near rural Lebanon, Missouri in 1944, it i ...
'', ''
A House Not Meant to Stand
''A House Not Meant to Stand'' is the last play written by Tennessee Williams. It was produced during the 1981–82 season at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago by Gregory Mosher and published for the first time in 2008 by New Directions. '', ''
A Soldier's Play'', ''
Fences
A fence is a barrier enclosing or bordering a field, yard, etc., usually made of posts and wire or wood, used to prevent entrance, to confine, or to mark a boundary.
Fence or fences may also refer to:
Entertainment Music
* Fences (band), an Amer ...
'', ''
Sunday in the Park with George'', ''
The Visit'', ''
Dancing at Lughnasa
''Dancing at Lughnasa'' is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Eva ...
'', ''
Arcadia
Arcadia may refer to:
Places Australia
* Arcadia, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
* Arcadia, Queensland
* Arcadia, Victoria
Greece
* Arcadia (region), a region in the central Peloponnese
* Arcadia (regional unit), a modern administrative un ...
'', ''
Floyd Collins
William Floyd Collins (July 20, 1887 – February 13, 1925) was an American cave explorer, principally in a region of Kentucky that houses hundreds of miles of interconnected caves, today a part of Mammoth Cave National Park, the longes ...
'', ''
Hollywood Arms
''Hollywood Arms'' is a play by Carrie Hamilton and Carol Burnett. It ran at the Goodman Theatre and on Broadway in 2002. The play is adapted from Carol Burnett's memoir '' One More Time''.
Background and productions
The dramedy is set in Hollyw ...
'', ''
Dinner with Friends
''Dinner with Friends'' is a play written by Donald Margulies. It premiered at the 1998 Humana Festival of New American Plays and opened Off-Broadway in 1999. The play received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Plot
Gabe and Karen, a happily m ...
'', ''
The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?
''The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?'' is a full-length play written in 2000 by Edward Albee which opened on Broadway in 2002. It won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play, the 2002 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, and was a finalist for the 2003 ...
'', ''
The Light in the Piazza'', ''
I Am My Own Wife
''I Am My Own Wife'' is a play by Doug Wright based on his conversations with the German antiquarian Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. The one-man play premiered Off-Broadway in 2003 at Playwrights Horizons. It opened on Broadway later that year. The p ...
'', and ''
Rabbit Hole''.
[
]
Community Outreach
In addition to the Goodman's many productions, the theater also hosts many different education programs. Partnering with community organizations, schools, and juvenile detention programs. During the school year, the Goodman hosts the Cyndie Bandle Young Critics (CBYC) and the Goodman Youth Arts Council (GYAC). CBYC creates opportunities for young people to grow their writing skills through critical and analytical works. Participants have the opportunity to critique every show at the Goodman for their neighborhood and school papers. Participants of the GYAC volunteer in workshops for young children, nursing homes, clothing and food drives, and march with striking public-school teachers. Summer programs are focused on youths ages fourteen to twenty-four. Playbuild is a seven week devising workshop where a group of eighty teens throughout Chicago collaborate through several different applied theatre exercises to express themselves with artistic choices. The Goodman hosts a Musical Theatre Intensive (MTI) that runs alongside Playbuild. With a more traditional approach to theatre education, teens audition with a monologue and song, and they will learn to be more confident and mature in their artform.
See also
*Goodman School of Drama
The Theatre School at DePaul University, previously the Goodman School of Drama (also known as TTS and GSD, respectively) is the drama school of DePaul University. Founded with its first class conducted at the Art Institute of Chicago on January 5 ...
References
Further reading
* Appler, Gilbert Keith. "Chicago’s Goodman Theatre: Plays and Cultural Work in an Institutional Theatre." PhD dissertation, University of Illinois-Urbana. 1994
*Medgyesy, Laura Louise. "Chicago's Goodman Theatre: the transition from a division of the Art Institute to an independent regional theatre." PhD dissertation, American University. 1981
* Teague, Anna Dean. "Thomas Wood Stevens' Contributions to American Art Theatre With Emphasis on the Kenneth Sawyer Goodman Memorial Theatre, 1922-1930," PhD dissertation, The Louisiana State University, 1973.
External links
Official website
*
Kenneth Sawyer Goodman Papers
an
Goodman Family Papers
at The Newberry Library
The Newberry Library is an independent research library, specializing in the humanities and located on Washington Square in Chicago, Illinois. It has been free and open to the public since 1887. Its collections encompass a variety of topics rela ...
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Theatre companies in Chicago
Theatres in Chicago
Regional theatre in the United States
Central Chicago
League of Resident Theatres
Tony Award winners
1925 establishments in Illinois
Theatres completed in 1925