Chicago Repertory Group Collection of Scripts and Scrapbooks

Historical Note

The Chicago Repertory Group was founded in 1934 by six amateur actors with the aim of creating a social theater relevant to its time. The non-profit group sought to bring theater to people who could not afford the price of professional theater. Even after the group had produced several major successes and had a theater of its own, they continued to operate a mobile theater department, offering topical skits, songs, and short plays to trade unions, peace organizations, or any group that wanted "an evening of good entertainment with an educational value."

The CRG grew out of the Chicago Workers Theater, active 1933-34. It became the Group Theater, and then, at the request of New York's Group Theatre, changed to the name by which it was known throughout the Midwest, the Chicago Repertory Group. The CRG had its first major success in the spring of 1935 with the Chicago premiere of Clifford Odet's social drama, "Waiting for Lefty", at the Civic Theater. Under the directorship of Charles de Sheim, who came to the group from the Federal Theater, the CRG soon won press acclaim, and a list of sponsors that included Clarence Darrow, Harriet Monroe, Ruth Page, Meyer Levin, and John Fitzpatrick, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor.

In 1936, having moved to their own studio, the CRG established a theater school with an advisory board that included Langston Hughes, Clifford Odets, Morris Carnovsky, and Lee Strasberg. Carnovsky, Robert Lewis, and John Garfield of New York's Group Theatre came frequently to lecture. A playwriting Workshop provided nearly all of the material for the mobile department as well as several major productions.

The repertory of the group ranged from such highly acclaimed social dramas as "Hymn to the Rising Sun", "Waiting for Lefty", and "The Cradle will Rock", through Federal Theater plays adapted to the Chicago locale, such as "One Third of a Nation", to skits and plays written by the group itself. By the time the group produced its first three-act play, there were demands for the revival of its first one-act productions, especially "Lefty", which they played over 100 times in Chicago and its surrounding communities.

In 1937 the Chicago Repertory Group was awarded the "Palm" by Stage Magazine for "Being the only theater west of Broadway that is carrying out a policy devoted only to plays of social significance." The CRG was further noteworthy for its use of a modified version of the Stanislavsky approach to drama, practiced by very few groups in this country at the time. The group was governed collectively by a group council with the membership performing all of the functions of the productions. The group conceived of theater as a collective art, and its primary aim was to make each of its productions a synthesis of the creative contributions of the directors, actors, designers, and technicians.

Although in the late 1930's the group had produced several anti-war sketches and plays, in the early 1940's the CRG became active in the war effort. In 1942 the Office of Civilian Defense for the Chicago area made the CRG its official theater, and the group appeared at U.S.O. parties and at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station.

In June, 1943, the CRG celebrated its tenth anniversary, having grown to 50 members, but did not offer any major productions in the 1942-43 season. Apparently it did not survive long after its tenth anniversary. Just how long the group remained an active theater force in Chicago has not been determined, but there are skits concerning the Taft-Hartley bill and the hydrogen bomb in this collection which date from 1947. As no signatures are attached their source cannot be immediately identified.

Among the members of the CRG who achieved success in the professional theater are Charles de Sheim and (Louis) Studs Terkel, who acted in several CRG productions.

This collection is important in that it records the activity of one group during the peak period of social theater. It is especially rich in works produced by the members themselves and slanted to the specific problems of its audience and its period. Much of the material reflects the leftist attitude and the strong pro-labor sympathies which pervaded the major theater movements of the period, covering subjects such as the union organizing, strikes, and the evils of capitalism as well as praise of Russia and the Communist Party, attacks on Fascism in Spain and Germany, satires of prominent political figures, and anti-war material. One example shows the completeness of the collection; there are four separate copies of "One Third of a Nation", one of the most important Federal Theater productions showing the changes made as it moved from New York to its staging by the CRG as a study of tenement life in Chicago.