Playwrights Theatre Club

Last updated
Playwrights Theatre Club
Genre Sketch comedy
Improvisation
Date of premiere1953
Location Chicago, Illinois, United States
Creative team
Co-founder Paul Sills
Co-founder David Shepherd
Co-founderEugene Troobnick

The Playwright's Theatre Club was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1953 by Paul Sills, David Shepherd and Eugene Troobnick. The theatre was noted for its original treatment and productions of classic plays as well as premiering original works, and was credited for the creation of The Compass Players and The Second City. [1]

Contents

History

Sills, Shepherd, and Troobnick

In 1953 Paul Sills, David Shepherd, and Eugene Troobnick founded the Playwrights Theatre Club in Chicago. [2] The theatre was noted for its bohemian treatment of classic plays as well as presenting and premiering original works. [3]

The theatre's first known production was Bertolt Brecht's "The Caucasian Chalk Circle." In only two years, the company presented close to 30 full productions. During the rehearsal period, the company members engaged in numerous improvisational theater games that were originally created by Sills' mother, Viola Spolin. [4]

The Playwright's Theatre Club led to the creation of the Compass Players and later The Second City. [1] [3] [4]

Compass Players

In 1955, the Playwrights Theatre Club was later renamed the Compass Players, concentrating on improvisational theater. Also founded by Shepherd and Sills, the Compass Players was the forerunner of The Second City. [5] Compass launched the careers of Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Jerry Stiller, Alan Alda, Alan Arkin, Barbara Harris, and Shelley Berman (to name a few) and started a revolution in the entertainment industry. [6] [7]

Famous alum

Other members and participants of the Playwrights Theatre Club included Elaine May, Sheldon Patinkin, Rolf Forsberg, Mike Nichols, Joyce Piven, Josephine Forsberg, Ed Asner, [8] Barbara Harris, among others. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Improvisational theatre</span> Theatrical genre featuring unscripted performance

Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted, created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, action, story, and characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written script.

The Compass Players was an improvisational theatre revue active from 1955 to 1958 in Chicago and St. Louis. Founded by David Shepherd and Paul Sills, it is considered to be the first improvisational theater in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elaine May</span> American screenwriter, film director, actress, and comedian (born 1932)

Elaine Iva May is an American comedian, filmmaker, playwright, and actress. She first gained fame in the 1950s for her improvisational comedy routines with Mike Nichols, before transitioning her career as a groundbreaking film director and screenwriter. She has received numerous awards, including a BAFTA Award, a Grammy Award, and a Tony Award. She was honored with the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013, and the Honorary Academy Award in 2022.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viola Spolin</span> American academic and acting theorist

Viola Spolin was an American theatre academic, educator and acting coach. She is considered an important innovator in 20th century American theater for creating directorial techniques to help actors to be focused in the present moment and to find choices improvisationally, as if in real life. These acting exercises she later called Theater Games and formed the first body of work that enabled other directors and actors to create improvisational theater. Her book Improvisation for the Theater, which published these techniques, includes her philosophy and her teaching and coaching methods, and is considered the "bible of improvisational theater". Spolin's contributions were seminal to the improvisational theater movement in the U.S. She is considered to be the mother of Improvisational theater. Her work has influenced American theater, television and film by providing new tools and techniques that are now used by actors, directors and writers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zohra Lampert</span> American actress

Zohra Lampert is an American actress, who has had roles on stage, film and television. She performed under her then-married name of Zohra Alton early in her career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Harris (actress)</span> American actress (1935–2018)

Barbara Densmoor Harris was an American actress. She appeared in such movies as A Thousand Clowns, Plaza Suite, Nashville, Family Plot, Freaky Friday, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Grosse Pointe Blank. Harris won a Tony Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. She also received four Golden Globe Award nominations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theater in Chicago</span> Theater performed in Chicago, Illinois

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".

Sheldon Arthur Patinkin was a chair of the Theater Department of Columbia College Chicago, Artistic Director of the Getz Theater of Columbia College, Artistic Consultant of The Second City and of Steppenwolf Theatre and Co-Director of the Steppenwolf Theatre Summer Ensemble Workshops.

Bernard Piven was an American stage actor, director, and co-founder of the Playwrights Theatre Club, a forerunner of The Second City. He was known as Byrne Piven.

Bernard Sahlins 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 also opened the Second City Theatre in Toronto in 1973.

Paul Sills was an American director and improvisation teacher, and the original director of Chicago's The Second City.

David Gwynne Shepherd was an American producer, director, and actor noted for his innovative work in improvisational theatre. He founded and/or co-founded the Playwrights Theatre Club, The Compass Players, the Canadian Improv Games, and the ImprovOlympic.

Joyce Hiller Piven is an American director, teacher, and actress. She and her late husband, Byrne Piven, were actors in the Compass Players. Later, they founded the Piven Theatre Workshop in Evanston, Illinois and became teachers to a generation of stars such as John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Aidan Quinn, Adam McKay, as well as their son Jeremy Piven and daughter Shira Piven.

Eric Forsberg is an American writer. He wrote and directed the feature film Mega Piranha, as well as the writer of the feature film Snakes on a Train, one of the first mockbusters produced and released by The Asylum. He also wrote the screenplays for 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea and War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave, also for The Asylum. He directed the film Alien Abduction which aired on Sci Fi Channel, as well as Night of the Dead which aired on Chiller TV. Other writer and director credits include the political thriller Torture Room, and the stoner comedy Sex Pot as well as Monster, Almighty Thor, Arachnoquake, and Age of the Hobbits. He also worked as a Co-Producer and assistant director on numerous films for Christopher Coppola and Alain Silver, including White Nights, Bel Air, and Palmer's Pickup. In his early years Forsberg was an improvisational comedy instructor at The Players Workshop and The Second City Training Center in Chicago.

Created in 1971 by Josephine Forsberg, The Players Workshop was Chicago's only official school of improvisation for over a decade. Although it was never officially a part of The Second City cabaret theater, The Players Workshop was often referred to as Players Workshop Of The Second City, due to the school's close affiliation with the famous sketch comedy stage. From 1971 through the mid-1990s, performers flocked to The Players Workshop to study improv with Josephine Forsberg, Linnea Forsberg, Martin de Maat, or one of the school's many other instructors, in the hopes of eventually getting onto The Second City mainstage.

Howard Alk was a Chicago, Illinois-based filmmaker, and an original co-founder of The Second City theater troupe. In the 1960s he began to work in film with the Chicago Film Group, filming and directing documentaries, completing American Revolution 2 (1969) and The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971). He also collaborated for years with singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, producing films with him through 1981.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nichols and May</span> American comedy duo

Nichols and May was an American improvisational comedy duo act developed by Mike Nichols (1931–2014) and Elaine May. Their three comedy albums reached the Billboard Top 40 between 1959 and 1962. Many comedians have cited them as key influences in modern comedy. Woody Allen declared, “the two of them came along and elevated comedy to a brand-new level".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Practical Theatre Company</span>

The Practical Theatre Company was a Chicago-based theatre company founded by Northwestern University students and active throughout the 1980s. Its productions included new plays, satiric agitprop, rock and roll events, and a series of successful improvisational comedy revues. The PTC, whose motto was "Art is Good", is notable for the fact that the entire cast of its 1982 improvisational comedy revue, The Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee was hired by Saturday Night Live.

References

  1. 1 2 Adler, Tony. "Hyde Park & Kenwood Issue: The Cradle of Chicago-Style Theater | Performing Arts Feature". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2013-10-13.
  2. The Second City Celebrates Playwrights Theatre Club’s 60th Anniversary, Second City, May 22, 2013.Retrieved February 8, 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 Spiselman, Anne (June 17, 2020). "Hyde Park and the Chicago theater movement". Hyde Park Herald. No. Arts & Entertainment. Hyde Park Herald. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  4. 1 2 Doug, George (May 22, 2013). "Reunion for 60th birthday of Playwrights Theatre Club". Chicago Tribune. No. Entertainment. Tribune Company. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  5. The 50th anniversary of the founding of The Compass Players was celebrated in 2005 by a re-enactment of a Compess-like show by a group of students at the University of Chicago; see http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050818/compass.shtml
  6. See Stephen Kercher's book "Rebel With A Cause: Liberal Satire in Postwar America", University of Chicago Press, 2006. See also a review of this book by Warren Leming at http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_6.3/leming.htm.
  7. This formative time in the history of American improvisational theater is the subject matter of a 2011 documentary "Compass Cabaret '55; see http://siskafilms.com/ and http://www.outofboundscomedy.com/compass-cabaret-55-film/.
  8. Staff Writer (August 30, 2021). "Ed Asner, the early years". Chicago Tribune. No. Entertainment. Tribune. Retrieved 21 February 2022.