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Chicago, That Towering Theater Town: Raw Energy Generates World-Class Drama
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# : |
14087 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1988 |
2,544 Words |
| Author
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Nicholas Rudall
Nicholas Rudall is artistic director of the Court Theatre,
Chicago, and professor of classics at the University of
Chicago. |
Within the past decade, Chicago has acquired not only a national but an international reputation as a city overflowing with theatrical energy. After the first successful exports electrified the nonregional theater world, the East Coast media created, then perpetuated, their own myths about this midwestern phenomenon. One of these myths held that Chicago possessed over one hundred flourishing theaters. This number was taken from a local compilation of all functioning theatrical programs, almost all of them literally amateur and including many that belonged to small colleges and churches. But the myth persisted and continues to persist.
In actual fact there are only about a dozen not-for-profit professional Equity theaters in the city. The largest of these, the Goodman, seats a little less than seven hundred; the remainder hover around two hundred or less. There are, indeed, at any given time, at least an equal number of aggressive and exciting theaters that are technically not professional (i.e., non-Equity, and certainly nonprofit), but the truth is that the one hundred-plus figure is a distortion of reality. But when Mel Gussow wrote in the New York Times in June 1985, "What is the current state of American Theater? One word, Chicago," was this a distortion? In its oversimplicity, yes. In its comprehension of theatrical courage, no.
Anger and Euphoria
I write, in a sense, from the trenches. I am artistic director of one of the small professional theaters, the Court Theatre at the University of Chicago. I cannot therefore profess an outsider's objectivity. Nor would it be proper for me to pass critical judgments on the success or failure
... (2000 of 15005 Characters)
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