A Theater of Our Own: A History and a Memoir of 1,001 Nights in Chicago
*Starred Review* In the past 40 years, Chicago has grown from a place ragtag touring companies passed through on their way to downstate Illinois into what British critic Michael Billington calls one of the most important theater towns in North America. Many of the top actors and directors working today, including talents as diverse as John Malkovich, Bill Murray, and Tina Fey, cut their teeth there. Chicago-based arts journalist Christiansen watched it all happen, as a reporter for first theChicago Daily Newsand then theChicago Tribune. Now retired, he is ideally suited to chronicle the Chicago theater movement. Written in the sometimes dry but fact-packed style of well-edited Sunday features, his book begins with the earliest theatrical enterprises in pre-fire Chicago and touches every major theater event, including the Iroquois Theatre fire and the Depression-era WPA, that preceded the great flowering of theaters in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a blooming that, as Christiansen notes, continues to this day. Christiansen's effort will be an invaluable resource for anyone wanting to find out about the theaters and the companies that put Chicago on the theatrical map and keep it there.Jack HelbigCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved