Chapter 15 - Building a Movement: Mary Reynolds Aldis and Little Theatre in Chicago

Summary

This chapter makes the case that the Little Theatre movement in the United States was a unique outgrowth of the Chicago Renaissance’s diversity, values, and networks. The chapter provides a list of Little Theatre characteristics – including artistic exchange, philanthropy, ensemble theater practice, trends in dramatic literature, and development in theater design – evident in Mary Reynolds Aldis’s work with her Lake Forest Players between 1911 and 1916. By putting the Lake Forest Players in context with Laura Dainty Pelham’s Hull-House Players and Maurice Browne and Ellen Van Volkenburg’s Chicago Little Theatre, the chapter makes clear both how the city’s artistic boom helped create the Little Theatre movement and how the practices that these early Little Theatres in Chicago developed became standard for contemporary non-profit theatre in Chicago and in the United States.