Edward Franklin Albee III was an American playwright known for works such as The Zoo Story (1958), The Sandbox (1959), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), A Delicate Balance (1966), and Three Tall Women (1994). Some critics have argued that some of his work constitutes an American variant of what Martin Esslin identified as and named the Theater of the Absurd. Three of his plays won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and two of his other works won the Tony Award for Best Play.
Suzan-Lori Parks is an American playwright, screenwriter, musician and novelist. Her play Topdog/Underdog won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002; Parks was the first African-American woman to receive the award for drama. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.
West Town, northwest of the Loop on Chicago's West Side, is one of the city's officially designated community areas. Much of this area was historically part of Polish Downtown, along Western Avenue, which was then the city's western boundary. West Town was a collection of several distinct neighborhoods and the most populous community area until it was surpassed by Near West Side in the 1960s. The boundaries of the community area are the Chicago River to the east, the Union Pacific railroad tracks to the south, the former railroad tracks on Bloomingdale Avenue to the North, and an irregular western border to the west that includes the city park called Humboldt Park. Humboldt Park is also the name of the community area to West Town's west, Logan Square is to the north, Near North Side to the east, and Near West Side to the south. The collection of neighborhoods in West Town along with the neighborhoods of Bucktown and the eastern portion of Logan Square have been referred to by some media as the "Near Northwest Side".
J.B. is a 1958 play written in free verse by American playwright and poet Archibald MacLeish, and is a modern-day retelling of the story of the biblical figure Job. The play is about J.B., a devout millionaire with a happy domestic life whose life is ruined. The play went through several incarnations before it was finally published. MacLeish began the work in 1953 as a one-act production, but within three years, had expanded it to a full, three-act manuscript.
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".
Megan Cavanagh is an American actress.
Senn High School is a public four-year high school located in the Edgewater neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Senn is operated by the Chicago Public Schools system and was opened on 3 February 1913. The school is named in honor of surgeon, instructor, and founder of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States Nicholas Senn. Senn has advanced placement classes, an International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, a fine arts program, and a Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. It formerly housed the public but administratively separate, Hyman Rickover Naval Academy. The architect for the Senn High School building and campus was Arthur F. Hussander, who was the chief architect for the Chicago Board of Education; the contractor was Frank Paschen.
Wilbur Wright College, formerly known as Wright Junior College, is a public community college in Chicago. Part of the City Colleges of Chicago system, it offers two-year associate's degrees, as well as occupational training in IT, manufacturing, medical, and business fields. Its main campus is located on Chicago's Northwest Side in the Dunning neighborhood.
Tracy S. Letts is an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter. He started his career at the Steppenwolf Theatre before making his Broadway debut as a playwright for August: Osage County (2007), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. As an actor, he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for the Broadway revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2013).
Marin Theatre is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and professional LORT D regional theater located in Mill Valley, California. Lance Gardner is the company's Artistic Director
Blair Kamin was the architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune, for 28 years from 1992 to 2021. Kamin has held other jobs at the Tribune and previously worked for The Des Moines Register. He also serves as a contributing editor of Architectural Record. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1999, for a body of work highlighted by a series of articles about the problems and promise of Chicago's greatest public space, its lakefront. He has received numerous other honors, authored books, lectured widely, and served as a visiting critic at architecture schools including the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Frank Joseph Galati was an American director, writer, and actor. He was a member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company and an associate director at Goodman Theatre. He taught at Northwestern University for many years.
Polonia Triangle, or the Polish Triangle, is a plaza located in West Town, in what had been the historical Polish Downtown area of Chicago. A single-tiered fountain made of black iron with a bowl about nine feet in diameter is installed at its center. Polonia Triangle derives its name from the Polish word Polonia, which itself comes from the Latin name for Poland. Polonia Triangle was considered to be the center or town square of Chicago's Polish Downtown, the city's oldest and most prominent Polish settlement. In many ways it functioned as the capital of American Polonia, with the headquarters for almost every major Polish organization in the United States clustered in its vicinity.
Bruce Norris is an American character actor and playwright associated with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago. His play Clybourne Park won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
The Hypocrites is a Chicago storefront theater company founded in 1997 by Sean Graney, Brandon Kruse and Christopher Cintron. The company is currently run by Sean Graney and Kelli Strickland. One of Chicago’s premier off-Loop theater companies, The Hypocrites specializes in mounting bold productions that challenge preconceptions and redefining the role of the audience through unusual staging and direct engagement. The company has a reputation in Chicago for creating exciting, surprising, and deeply engaging theater as it re-interprets well-known works for contemporary audiences, reveling in the absurd while revealing the core of what makes classics classic.
“The Hypocrites, who with each new production, continue to rise not just to the rank of one of our city’s best storefronts but one of Chicago’s best theaters period.” – Newcity Stage
Culture Coast Chicago is a collection of artistically vibrant neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Known for its high concentration of museums, music and theater ensembles, performance venues, cultural nonprofits, and arts education opportunities, the region spans from just south of McCormick Place to the South Shore Cultural Center and is bordered by Lake Michigan to the east and the Dan Ryan Expressway to the west.
Christopher Nigel Jones is a British-American journalist and academic. He is the chief theater critic and Sunday culture columnist of the Chicago Tribune. Since 2014, he has also served as director of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Critics Institute. Jones has appeared on the news broadcast of CBS-2 Chicago as a weekly theater critic.
Fat Ham is a dramatic stage play written by American playwright James Ijames. It is a modern-day adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet.
