A Brief History of the Goodman Theatre
The Goodman Theatre, recipient of the Special Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, is a leader in the American theater and is internationally recognized for its artists, productions and educational programs. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Robert Falls and Executive Director Roche Schulfer, the Goodman is committed to producing classic and contemporary works, giving full voice to a wide range of artists and visions.
The Goodman Theatre was established in July, 1922, by a gift of $250,000 from William and Erna Goodman to the Art Institute of Chicago for the purpose of building a theater to memorialize their son, Kenneth Sawyer Goodman. Before his death at the age of 35 in the influenza epidemic of 1918, Kenneth Sawyer Goodman had written, published and produced a number of plays in non-commercial productions in Chicago, and had expressed his vision of an ideal theater, one that would combine professional training with the highest possible performance standards.
The Art Institute began construction of the new theater four months after the gift was received on the northeast corner of the Institute's property, at Monroe and Columbus Drive. They soon hired the theater's first artistic director, Thomas Woods Stevens, a former colleague of Kenneth Sawyer Goodman's and a noted educator, having established the first theater degree-granting program in America at Carnegie Mellon University.
The new theater, encompassing a drama school and a professional acting company, opened its doors on October 20, 1925. Three of Kenneth Sawyer Goodman's one-act plays were presented at the theater's dedication ceremony. Two nights later the Goodman began its first regular season with John Galsworthy's The Forest Thomas Woods Stevens built the new theater's repertory with a mix of classics, contemporary hits, and experimental and new plays, a formula that the theater has generally adhered to ever since.
Stevens led the Goodman for five years before resigning in 1930 over a dispute about the deficit the theater had accumulated. The Art Institute replaced him with Hubert Osbourne, a former student of Stevens', who ran the theater for a year until the Art Institute decided that the professional acting company would prove too costly to maintain. The professional acting company was disbanded, but the Art Institute kept the doors of the drama school open.
Maurice Gnesin, whom Stevens had hired during the 1929-30 season, had stepped in as the new head of the Goodman School of Drama when Stevens had resigned. A scholarly Russian, Gnesin ran the school for the next 27 years, aided by his colleague and fellow Russian, the actor David Itkin. The Goodman School built a formidable reputation over the following decades and graduated many stellar theater artists, including Karl Malden, Sam Wanamaker, Geraldine Page, Shelley Berman, Harvey Korman, Jose Quintero, Linda Hunt, and Joe Mantegna. The school was also noted for its children's theater, run for many years by Charlotte Chorpenning, whose many adaptations of children's stories made her the most produced playwright in Goodman history. Thousands of Chicagoans got their first taste of theater at the Goodman's weekend matinees.
In 1957 Maurice Gnesin died and David Itkin retired. The Art Institute offered the artistic directorship to John Reich, a native Austrian who had trained with legendary director Max Reinhardt. Reich accepted the position under the condition that the theater commit to re-establishing the professional acting company. Over the next decade, Reich slowly rebuilt the Goodman's subscribership, bringing in stars to lead casts of student actors and attracting new attention to the theater. In the fall of 1969, the Goodman opened the new season featuring the first fully professional acting company at the theater in nearly forty years. But maintaining a resident company of professionals proved expensive and led to the largest deficits in the theater's history. Two years later the theater began hiring actors on a show by show basis. In 1972 John Reich was asked to resign. A new managing director, Ken Myers, brought in during Reich's last year to oversee the theater's business side, ran the theater for a year before resigning himself.
In 1973, William Woodman, a director with considerable experience in regional theaters, was appointed artistic director. Woodman saw the theater through a period of restructuring. In 1976 the Goodman separated itself from the Artistic Institute, incorporating as the Chicago Theatre Group, Inc. This allowed it to pursue fundraising independently. In 1978, the theater divested itself of the Goodman School, which was acquired by DePaul University. Woodman also instituted Stage 2, a venue for new work within the Goodman framework. Gregory Mosher, Woodman's assistant, and Roche Schulfer, a young business office assistant, were placed in charge of Stage 2, which became a proving ground for up and coming Chicago actors, directors, and writers, one of whom was David Mamet, whose American Buffalo premiered at Stage 2 in 1975.
After running the Goodman for five seasons, William Woodman resigned in 1978 and Gregory Mosher was appointed artistic director. A year later Roche Schulfer was appointed managing director. Mosher led the theater through the 1984-85 season, bringing much new work to the Goodman, including plays by Nobel Prize winners Wole Soyinka and Derek Walcott, and new plays by American masters Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams, including Williams' last produced play, A House Not Meant to Stand. In 1985 Mosher left the Goodman to take over Lincoln Center Theater in New York City.
The Goodman replaced Mosher with Robert Falls, a young director who was a product of the Off-Loop theater boom of the 1970s. Falls, who was born in downstate Illinois and grew up in the Chicago suburbs, left the University of Illinois and immediately began directing in Chicago. At the age of 23 he was appointed to lead Wisdom Bridge Theater, where he stayed eight years before being named as the Goodman's artistic director. Falls brought with him to the Goodman two colleagues from the Off-Loop theater scene, Frank Galati and Michael Maggio, to serve as associates, and a young director from New York, David Petrarca. In the 1990s Falls added to this "college" of directors, naming such theater artists as Mary Zimmerman, Chuck Smith, Henry Godinez, and Regina Taylor to the Goodman's artistic staff.
Highlights of Robert Falls' time at the Goodman have included dozens of world premieres and transfers of Goodman productions to other theaters. In his first season Falls began a partnership with actor Brian Dennehy with his production of Galileo and which has featured a number of collaborations since, including Death of a Salesman and Long Day's Journey Into Night, both of which went on to Tony Award-winning presentations in New York.
In the mid-1980s, concerned about the adequacy of its aging theater behind the Art Institute, the Goodman began to explore the possibility of a new facility. Led by Roche Schulfer and members of the Board of Trustees, the theater came to the conclusion that rebuilding on the site of the old theater was not a viable proposition and other locations in downtown Chicago were scouted. The City of Chicago, in the process of re-vitalizing the North Loop, urged the Goodman to consider the site of two old commercial theaters on North Dearborn, the Selwyn and the Harris. In the early 1990s the Goodman committed to building on the new site and fundraising efforts began. A major gift was received from Albert Ivar Goodman, a distant cousin of Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, and from his mother, Edie Appleton, which ensured that the theater would keep the Goodman name and allowed construction to begin. The new Goodman Theatre opened in December, 2000 with August Wilson's play, King Hedley II.
Other notable productions in the Goodman's recent history include Artistic Director Robert Falls' stagings of The Iceman Cometh starring Brian Dennehy, The Night of the Iguana with Cherry Jones and William Petersen, and The Young Man from Atlanta starring Rip Torn and Shirley Knight; Frank Galati's world premiere of John Kander and Fred Ebb's musical The Visit, featuring a book by Terrence McNally and starring Chita Rivera; David Petrarca's world premiere productions of Marvin's Room and the musical The House of Martin Guerre; Chuck Smith's acclaimed revivals of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, A Raisin in the Sun and The Amen Corner; Mary Zimmerman's premiere productions of The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Journey to the West, The Odyssey and the Philip Glass opera Galileo Galilei; the world premieres of Regina Taylor's Drowning Crow and Oo-Bla-Dee; the Chicago premiere of Zoot Suit, staged by Henry Godinez; nine of ten works in August Wilson's cycle of plays exploring the African American experience in the 20th century including the premiere productions of Seven Guitars, King Hedley II and Gem of the Ocean; plus several premieres of David Mamet's plays, including American Buffalo and A Life in the Theatre, and of Rebecca Gilman's plays Spinning into Butter, Boy Gets Girl, Blue Surge and Dollhouse.
(For a more complete list of Goodman productions, go to: Goodman ProductionHistory.)
Special events include Goodman's annual holiday production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a Yuletide tradition for thousands of Chicago families, which celebrated its 28th production this season. During the 2001/2002 season, the Goodman inaugurated its Family Theater Series, a new program designed to introduce young people to live performance in a playful and child-friendly way.
The Goodman's Department of Education and Community Programs provides comprehensive outreach services, including the free Student Subscription Series involving 2,700 Chicago public high school students each season featuring free matinee performances, pre- and post-performance classroom visits, student and teacher study guides, copies of scripts, educational video documentaries, and post-show discussions; the Summer General Theatre Studies Program for high school students; the Goodman/Yollocalli Youth Drama Workshop in collaboration with the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in the Pilsen neighborhood; Neighborhood Arts Partnerships involving the Goodman with neighborhood organizations and Chicago schools to create curricular arts programming in city schools; plus backstage tours, public lectures and professional internships. In addition, the theater provides complete access for disabled audiences.