Since Chicago's founding, theater has blossomed in the city's
makeshift spaces, from taverns to parks, living rooms to
storefronts. Makeshift Chicago Stages brings together leading
historians to share the history of theater and performance in the
Second City. The essays collected here theorize a regional theater
history and aesthetic that are inherently improvisational,
rough-and-tumble, and marginal, reflecting the realities of a
hypersegregated city and its neighborhoods. Space and place have
contributed to Chicago's reputation for gritty, ensemble-led work,
part of a makeshift ethos that exposes the policies of the city and
the transgressive possibilities of performance. This book examines
the rise and proliferation of Chicago's performance spaces, which
have rooted the city's dynamic, thriving theater community.
Chapters cover well-known, groundbreaking, and understudied
theatrical sites, ensembles, and artists, including the 1893
Columbian Exposition Midway Plaisance, the 57th Street Artist
Colony, the Fine Arts Building, the Goodman Theatre, the Federal
Theatre Project, the Kingston Mines and Body Politic Theaters,
ImprovOlympics (later iO), Teatro Vista, Theaster Gates, and the
Chicago Home Theater Festival. By putting space at the center of
the city's theater history, the authors in Makeshift Chicago Stages
spotlight the roles of neighborhoods, racial dynamics, atypical
venues, and borders as integral to understanding the work and
aesthetics of Chicago's artists, ensembles, and repertoires, which
have influenced theater practices worldwide. Featuring rich
archival work and oral histories, this anthology will prove a
valuable resource for theater historians, as well as anyone
interested in Chicago's cultural heritage.
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