Judging by the relative youth (or is that just me?) of the people in the audience, much of the history that Granata and the panel presented was news to them. (As always, an excellent resource for anyone looking for a definitive history of Chicago theatre is “A Theater of Our Own: A History and a Memoir of 1,001 Nights in Chicago,” by former Chicago Tribune theatre critic Richard Christiansen.) The panelists were Sharon Phillips, former managing director for the late Body Politic Theatre, who also worked with the late Wisdom Bridge and the very-much-not-late Victory Gardens ; Jackie Taylor, playwright, actor, and founding executive director of Black Ensemble Theater ; and Steve Scott, currently associate producer of Goodman Theatre , who also directs with many other companies around town, including Eclipse Theatre Company .

Granata kicked things off by referencing, as seemingly anyone talking about cultural life in Chicago must, A.J. Liebling’s infamous 1952 take-down, “The Second City ,” written at a time when Chicago theatre mostly consisted of warmed-over road versions of Broadway hits. However, Granata quickly pointed out that “Chicago theatre, like Chicago, is a nation of immigrants”—and the vitality of the community grew as more artists migrated here during the mid-1960s and beyond.

Indeed, the only native-born Chicagoan on the panel was Taylor, who was born on the West Side and grew up in Cabrini-Green. Taylor related a story about how she first got involved in theatre. She and a group of young friends were causing mischief by throwing rocks at windows and a teacher in the Chicago Park District drama program in the projects caught her and gave her a choice: she could take drama classes, or talk to the police. Wisely, she chose the former.

“Children act out for many reasons,” Taylor said. “But mostly it’s because of a need for attention, focus, and discipline—all the things theatre gives.” (A good lesson for those who slash funding for arts education to keep in mind.) After a brief unhappy stint in Hollywood, Taylor decided to open her own theatre company in her hometown. “The only way to make change is to control it,” she said.

Phillips noted that when she first moved to Chicago (she was born in Texas and educated in Wisconsin), there were very few places for Equity actors to audition. (She wrote about her early years in Chicago off-Loop theatre in a piece for Granata’s blog, “I, Homunculus,” last fall.). Phillips’ real introduction to grassroots theatre in Chicago came courtesy of the Reverend Jim Shiflett and the Dream Theater (not to be confused, as Granata noted, with Jeremy Menekseoglu’s current Dream Theatre Company). Shiflett, a minister with a strong commitment to social justice and interest in how Viola Spolin’s improvisational games (also the bedrock for what became Second City ) could be applied for community building, also headed up the Community Arts Foundation (CAF), which encouraged artists to work directly in their neighborhoods. (This organization was housed in the Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ that TimeLine Theatre Company now calls home.) Through CAF, Shiflett acquired the building that eventually became the Body Politic and Victory Gardens , and is now the Greenhouse Theater .

“The 2200 block of North Lincoln was slated for demolition back then,” noted Phillips.

Scott, a Kansas native, recalls that when he graduated from the University of Kansas’ theatre program, “We were told we had two options: New York, or teaching.” After getting graduate degrees in education, Scott realized that he didn’t really want to teach, at least not in universities. He had met Peter Schneider, the managing director of the now-legendary St. Nicholas Theater (started by David Mamet and friends such as William H. Macy) at a conference. Around the same time, said Scott, “I realized that my friends in New York were out of work and miserable, and my friends in Chicago were working and happy.” He came to Chicago, auditioned for (and wasn’t cast) Steppenwolf’s famous production of Balm in Gilead, and quickly got a job as director of education at Goodman Theatre , then under the leadership of Gregory Mosher.

Granata and the panel identified two things that helped the growth of regional and off-Loop theatre in Chicago. The first was the appearance of the American Conservatory Theater, now based in San Francisco but originally from Pittsburgh, under the direction of now-deceased founder William Ball. When ACT left Pittsburgh, Chicago and San Francisco were the main contenders for its new home. San Francisco won, but ACT’s appearances for two seasons in a row in the mid-1960s at Ravinia helped boost the movement toward a regional theatre. Scott notes that, though the Goodman Theatre began in 1925, it had operated primarily as a training facility rather than a professional company. With the encouragement of the late philanthropist Hope Abelson and many others, that began to change.

At the same time, Bob Sickinger began operating community-based theatres with an experimental bent through Hull House. ( Black Ensemble Theater is in a former Hull House venue.) Sickinger presented then-edgy pieces, such as Jack Gelber’s The Connection. One of Sickinger’s stalwart ensemble members was an actor who ran a pest-extermination company as his day job: Mike Nussbaum, who of course later earned fame by acting in Mamet’s early plays (Mamet himself was a Hull House alum). The eightysomething Nussbaum still performs regularly with Chicago Shakespeare and Northlight.

Though “ensemble” gets thrown around incessantly when talking about Chicago theatre, Scott pointed out that not all the earlier companies were ensemble-oriented. St. Nicholas, thanks to Mamet, was more of a playwright-driven theatre, and even the old Organic bore the imprimatur of visionary artistic director Stuart Gordon.

One little-known aspect of what helped grow the storefront scene got a lot of play from the panel and probably resonated with younger artists who have been wrestling with the requirements for the PAV (Performing Arts Venue) license: the need to revise building codes so that non-traditional spaces could be converted into small theatres. Phillips pointed out that, though Christiansen rightly gets a lot of credit for championing the burgeoning off- and off-off-Loop movement, his counterpart at the Sun-Times, the late Glenna Syse, deserves equal credit for applying consistent pressure to the first Mayor Daley and his administration to facilitate new codes that were friendlier to small theatres. (The old fire codes for Chicago theatres were a relic of the tragic downtown Iroquois Theatre fire in 1903—the deadliest single-building fire in U.S. history, which claimed 602 lives.)

Taylor recalled that she got her first theatre in 1976—a 150-seat space in the 1400 block of N. Wells (close to where A Red Orchid Theatre hangs its hat today) by bargaining with the landlord and talking him down to $500 a month, after she pointed out that he had nobody else offering him money. “We were all very young, all very excited, and we embraced each other and worked together,” Taylor says. She and Phillips were both around for the Off-Loop Producers Association of Chicago, which eventually turned into today’s League of Chicago Theatres .

Phillips also noted that Actors Equity has been very good about working with smaller companies in Chicago since the beginning, when the progenitor of today’s CAT (Chicago Area Theatre) contract was COLT—Chicago Off-Loop Theatre.

But banding together and working to help other companies grow was a key point stressed over and over by the panel as one of the most important elements in the health of the storefront scene. Phillips recalled that, when Body Politic was facing an early financial crisis, other companies put fundraising flyers for Body Politic in their programs so that they could finish their season. And a 1974 electrical fire in the BP space turned into an occasion for performance art when a company called Horses, Inc. (housed in the old Steppenwolf space on North Halsted) showed up and wordlessly began sweeping up the debris.

So what is important for survival looking ahead? Freelance director Eric Ziegenhagen, in the audience Q and A portion, asked if there is a distinction between theatre companies who are neighbors and those who just happen to be in a particular neighborhood. Phillips responded that “those [companies] who are integral to the community will have an easier time riding out the tough times.” Taylor pointed out that her company’s mission—to eradicate racism—led to what Black Ensemble Theater is best known for—musicals that celebrate black artists. But that, as Taylor noted “brings many different cultures into the theatre.”

“Your production of The Glass Menagerie was the best I ever saw,” Scott told Taylor.

“But it didn’t make any money,” she responded.

Scott noted that the explosion of companies, even as the economy and arts funding contracts, makes it “more important to have a unique identity.”

“There has got to be organization and communication,” said Taylor. “You can’t all be crabs in a barrel. The soil here still remains nourishing.”

Scott wrapped it up by noting the central paradox of Chicago theatre. “The hard thing is that you can’t get rich and famous here. The great thing is that you can’t get rich and famous here,” so the work remains the primary focus.