Theater in Chicago has been for so many years a here-and-now, gone-and-forgotten art that both the artists who create it and the audiences who see it sometimes forget that it is part of a long line of their cultural history. At least in part, this is because of the essentially ephemeral nature of theater productions-particularly fragile in this city-in which a production is mounted, runs for a few weeks in a small house and is soon replaced by the next show. Often, the company that presents the production is so busy trying to survive in the present that its members have little time to worry about preserving the record of their show for the future. Occasionally, a dedicated pack rat at an individual theater will save snapshots, memos, letters and other sentimental reminders of past glories; but on the whole, our attention to the history of theater here has been limited.
Yet Chicago does have a rich history of theater, a history that extends as far back as 1837 and has become particularly prolific in its last three decades of phenomenal growth.
Until recently, the preservation of Chicago`s accomplishments in theater has been confined to relatively small-scale efforts. Second City, which began without any idea that it would some day become a world-famous center of comic acting, was fortunate, because even its earliest shows were taped by radio station WFMT and are still broadcast to this day by the station. For the last few years, Second City also has taken advantage of new technology and videotaped each of its shows.
Other, larger institutions, such as Goodman Theatre, have for years as a matter of course sent posters, programs and other memorabilia to the special collections division of the Chicago Public Library. Newspapers and other publications also have their reviews and production photos on file. And, of course, there are the memories of individual audience members who can still recall that first production of Tennessee Williams` ”The Glass Menagerie” at the Civic Theater in 1944, or the original cast of David Mamet`s ”American Buffalo” at the Goodman Stage 2 in 1975.
In general, however, these historical records have been kept in scattershot fashion, without focus. Now, however, the move to keep a record of the city`s significant legacy of theater has dramatically increased in several important ways. These include the diligent acquisition of company archives, the videotaping of specific shows and interviews with native son playwrights and the planned exhibition of a major celebration of Chicago`s theaters of the last 30 years.
You can see a hint of this through Jan. 30 in an exhibit in the Grand Army of the Republic Museum in the library`s Cultural Center at Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue. Placed amid a larger exhibition devoted to 115 years of collecting by the library is a small glass case containing a few samples of the Chicago theater arts and history collection. Here are selected programs, posters, scrapbooks and designs from two of the most important parts of the collection, the archives of Goodman Theatre and the old St. Nicholas Theatre.
A poster of and a scene sketch by designer Michael Merritt for Mamet`s
”The Woods,” first presented at St. Nicholas in 1977, are prominently featured; but these are among only the first fruits of the special collections division`s recently intensified efforts to keep a record of theater in Chicago.
The St. Nicholas archives, donated to the library in 1983, are especially valuable because they help chronicle a seminal aspect of the Off Loop theater movement in Chicago in the 1970s. Founded by Mamet and headquartered at 2851 N. Halsted St. (now the home of Steppenwolf Theatre) in 1975, the Nick lasted only until 1981, when it caved in under a burden of debt; but in that time it had a star-studded history of productions of Mamet premieres and other important works.
The triumphs and defeats of the company are on the record in the archives, which include Mamet`s letter of resignation as artistic director in 1976 and, most poignantly, the plans for a never-realized production of Eugene O`Neill`s ”Anna Christie” in 1981.
The Goodman archives, containing correspondence, photos, programs, posters and production and administrative files, have been supplemented by 20 working scripts of productions supervised by director John Reich during his time at Goodman, from 1957 to 1972.
In addition, the library`s theater collection also has more than 40 theater scrapbooks, including those of critic Claudia Cassidy, that help record the production history of theater here. Some of these scrapbooks from private collections date back to the late 19th Century.
Through this collection, one can find such early bits of history as an 1855 handbill, broadsides for the many touring productions that featured such popular actors of the day as Joseph Jefferson and Edwin Boothe, and playbills for Maurice Browne`s important, and now almost forgotten, Chicago Little Theatre, founded in 1919.
But the most exciting development in the special collection`s surge of activity comes in its efforts to keep the relatively recent history of Chicago`s bustling Off Loop theaters.
Time is an enemy here, because many of the groups that were seminal organizations-such as the Kingston Mines Theatre, which presented the original production of the musical ”Grease,” have folded, and their founders have long since scattered.
However, some welcome progress in preservation has been made just within the last few weeks. To the Goodman and St. Nicholas archives, the library is adding archives recently acquired from Steppenwolf, Victory Gardens and the Body Politic theaters. All are major contributors to the nationally acclaimed work done by theaters here since the early 1970s.
Body Politic, founded in 1969, is among the earliest of the surviving theaters that laid the groundwork for resident theater work in Chicago. It was the original home of director Paul Sills` Story Theatre and it housed some of the first, most spectacular achievements of director Stuart Gordon`s Organic Theatre.
Victory Gardens, founded in 1974, has a 13-year history of production focusing on homegrown talent in every aspect of the theater; and Steppenwolf, founded in the mid `70s, has provided Chicago with much of its international fame as a center for the development and nurturing of acting talent.
This year, with the help of funds from a grant of the federal Library Service and Construction Act awarded by the Illinois State Library, the Chicago Public Library`s special collections division has started videotaping productions of plays by Chicago authors. E. Eugene Baldwin`s ”Moonlight Daring Us to Go Insane,” a presentation of the Body Politic, already has been recorded, and soon to be videotaped by two cameras for the historical record is Victory Gardens` current production of Dean Corrin`s touching family drama ”Expectations.”
These tapes follow a pattern established by the Performing Arts Library of the New York Public Library in Lincoln Center, which, by the way, recorded Goodman Theatre`s innovative production of ”She Always Said, Pablo” last season as part of its tape collection of resident theater productions in the United States. The tapes are not for commercial presentation, but they are for use by historians, scholars and other interested persons. They aren`t specially staged for television presentation, but, strictly as a matter of record, they do give some indication of the qualities that made the production special in the first place.
