Theater programs

Collection documents the work of Claudia Allen, a Chicago playwright. Includes scrips and production information.

Sarajane Avidon was a Chicago actress performing at Widsom Bridge and Orphans Theatre among others. She was also a founding member of Chicago Shakespeare Theater where she appeared in Henry V and Twelfth Night. The Sarajane Avidon Papers include scripts, programs, photographs and notes pertaining to Avidon's career in Chicago theater.

The Chicago Theater Collection-Historical Programs contains programs, playbills and newspaper clippings from more than 5,000 productions at Chicago’s historical theaters. More than 2,000 playbills and programs of local dramas, comedies, melodramas, operas, vaudeville performances and other events between the 1840s to the 1920s are available online in the Chicago Theater Collection-Historical Programs Digital Collection.

This scrapbook includes primarily Chicago, New York and Detroit programs, as well as reviews from Chicago newspapers.

eta was founded in 1969 by Abena Joan Brown and Okoro Harold Johnson. The theater produces dramas and musicals by local and national playwrights and features “Playwrights Specak,” a readers’ theater for new playwrights.

Felix Fantus (1886-1955) was an active theater-goer. He collected playbills from the Grand Opera House, Illinois, Powers’, Dearborn and McVicker’s theaters among others. Fantus included these programs and other clippings and ephemera in his theater scrapbook.

Clara Hemmings Furry pasted her theater programs and occasionally news clippings and pictures into scrapbooks. Pages are annotated with place, date of performance and the identity of Furry’s companions.

The Magic Circle Theatre was founded by Goodman School alumnus Guy Giarrizo and dedicated to the investigation of innovative techniques and the development of new plays. It became one of the resident theaters at Body Politic in 1973. The collection consists of promotional and production records including programs, posters, flyers and reviews. There are also copies of several original scripts from early shows.

In 1947 Max Maier exhibited his collection of Chicago playbills, programs and scrapbooks at the Chicago Public Library. A Chicago native, Maier was a contributor to the Chicago Tribune “Line O’ Type” column and an avid theater-goer. This collection documents the exhibit through photographs and clippings, as well as contains several examples of Maier’s correspondence.

The compiler of this scrapbook series remains anonymous. The volumes include programs, newspaper clippings and the compiler’s comments and notes. Productions represented include operas, concerts, plays and dance.

The Thomas F. Schulfer Program Collection was donated to Special Collections in 1988 by his son, Roche Schulfer, Executive Director at the Goodman Theatre. The collection documents primarily Chicago-area productions from the 1940s, 50s and 60s and includes a series of souvenir programs.

The compiler of this scrapbook remains anonymous. She attended a wide range of plays, operas and concerts. The scrapbook is annotated and includes reviews, clippings and occasionally pictures.

ShawChicago specialized in concert readings of works by playwright George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries. The collection includes production records, including programs and promotional materials, in addition to scripts, photographs and papers from long serving Artistic Director Robert Scogin.

The Theater Portrait and Clipping Files collection consists of portraits and clippings relating to actors, actresses, dancers, singers and vaudeville performers who performed on Chicago stages as well as in New York, London and smaller venues across the United States and Europe. Included are portraits, in the form of either professional photographs or clippings from programs, as well as obituaries and other clippings.

Includes a collection of programs, newspaper reviews and a few pictures pasted into a theater-goer's scrapbook, possibly compiled by Mrs. Rosalie E. Lang.

The scrapbook consists of clipped playbills predominantly from theaters in Chicago, but also from Boston and New York. Chicago venues Hooley’s McVicker’s and the Academy of Music appear most often, with several programs from the New Chicago and the Adelphi theaters.

Theater Scrapbooks “10-13” consist of materials relating to actors, actresses and performances circa 1900-1929. Materials include photographs and portraits clipped from sources such as newspapers, periodicals and programs, as well as parts of programs themselves and newspaper articles and reviews relating to plays or performers.

The scrapbooks document theater productions in Chicago and elsewhere. Yondorf frequently annotated her programs with the names of her companions and her opinion of the productions.