Lou Huszar Hull-House Theatre collection

An inventory of the collection at UIC

Biography of Lou Huszar

The Hull-House Dramatic Association was founded in 1896 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to promote fine arts in the Near West side neighborhood of Chicago.

In 1897, advertising executive and recent Cornell graduate Walter Pietsch was named the Dramatic Association's first director. In June 1897, Pietsch made his directorial debut with the opening of As You Like It at Hull-House. The success of Pietsch's plays and the performances of the local amateur actors inspired Addams to raise funds for a permanent theater at Hull-House. In 1906, the second floor of the Hull-House cafe was converted into the first Hull-House Theater. The theater was equipped with a coat room, washroom, and seating for two hundred and thirty. Pietsch never utilized the theater however.

In 1899, Bostonian Mabel Hay Barrows was hired by Addams to direct the inaugural play at the Hull-House theater, an adaptation of the Greek classic Return of Odysseus. Four years later Barrows returned to direct Ajax of Sophocles (1903). Both plays were performed in Attic Greek by amateur actors from the nearby Greek community.

In 1900, professional actor and Woman's Club member, Laura Dainty Pelham, was appointed director of the Hull-House Dramatics Association. Under Pelham's directorship, Hull-House's community theater garnered international attention and praise. Her directorial debut, Mountain Pink, a popular melodrama, drew more than one thousand people and raised necessary funds and community support for the theater.

Addams believed that introducing the fine arts to working class audiences was the theater's most important function. Thus Pelham directed several stage classics of Social Realism in the next several years. Henrik Ibsen's Pillars of Society (1905) and Bernard Shaw's You Never Can Tell (1905) are two examples of classics that were performed on the Hull-House stage.

In 1924, Laura Dainty Pelham died unexpectedly in the Hull-House apartment she had lived in since 1909. Maurice J. Cooney was chosen by Addams to replace Pelham as director of the Hull-House Players (formerly the Hull-House Dramatics Association). In accordance with Addams' wishes, Cooney produced plays of Social Realism by playwrights such as Lennox Robinson (The White Headed Boy), Bernard Shaw (You Never Can Tell), and Eden Phillpotts (The Farmer's Wife). Community interest in the theater slowly waned, however, and by 1935 the Hull-House Players disbanded. The next year, the Players came together again to put on adaptations of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist.

Charlotte Carr, director of Hull-House, reorganized Hull-House dramatics in 1939.That year, the Hull-House Players combined with the Hull-House Actors Guild, the Children's theater, and the acting group from the Lazorof School of Theater to become the Hull-House Theater. In 1941, Cooney resigned as director of the Hull-House Players and the group disbanded. From 1941-1960 the Hull-House Theater produced few plays compared to the years during the directorships of Pelham and Cooney.

In 1960, William Robert Sickinger began his relationship with the Hull-House Theater. In February 1963, Sickinger was officially appointed Theater Director at Hull-House by Executive Director Paul Jans. Jans respected Sickinger's work with the Philadelphia Civic Theater and believed that Hull-House Theater would benefit from Sickinger's experience working with amateur actors.

Sickinger and Jans established little theaters (between 100-300-seats) at each of the four Hull-House neighborhood centers. Jans and Sickinger submitted to the Hull-House Association a plan entitled: "A Return to Neighborhoods: A Proposal by Which Hull-House Association Will Activate Theater in Four Neighborhoods of the City of Chicago". The plan suggested the construction of the four theaters that would become the Hattie Callner Theater at Jane Addams Center, Uptown Theater, the Parkway Theater, and the Underground theater at Henry Booth House.

Sickinger's vision was to develop theaters that fostered community, enabled amateur actors to hone their skills, and introduced plays of social realism to broad audiences. Sickinger envisioned a city wide rebirth of amateur theater when he took over as director of Hull-House's theaters. Notable plays directed by Sickinger included Samuel Beckett's, Happy Days (a Chicago premiere), Bertolt Brecht's, The ThreePenny Opera, and Albert Camus' Caligula.

In 1968, the Parkway and Underground theaters were forced to close their doors due to financial troubles. In April 1969, Jans, the primary supporter of Hull-House Theater, resigned as Executive Director of Hull-House. The remaining members of the Hull-House Association Board of Trustees, facing a financial crisis that required them to reduce the annual budget by $200,000, cut funding to the remaining theaters. In May 1969, Robert Sickinger's resignation was announced by the Hull-House Association. On September 11, 1969, the meeting minutes of the Board of Trustees indicate that the Hull-House Association would no longer finance the theaters.

Scope and Contents

This collection consists of play reviews, playbills, pamphlets, fliers, business material pertaining to Hull-House Theater, set diagrams, and pamphlets.

Restrictions

Restrictions on Access

None

Administrative Information

Acquisition Information

Materials in this collection were donated to the University of Illinois at Chicago, Main Library, Special collections, in two accessions by Lou Huszar in 1971 and 1979. Photographs donated in 1971 were removed from this collection.

Bibliography

Hecht, Stuart Joel. Dissertation: Hull-House Theatre: An Analytical and Evaluative History. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1983.

Detailed Description/Box and Folder Listing