In thinking about Steppenwolf's production of The Dresser, we started wondering about the history of touring productions in Chicago. What was the impact of touring theater on the city's early theatrical life? We approached none other than Richard Christiansen, former chief theater critic for the Chicago Tribune and perhaps the finest chronicler Chicago theater has ever had. The following is an excerpt from his upcoming history of our city's theater scene, entitled A Theater of Our Own: A History and a Memoir of 1,001 Nights in Chicago, scheduled for publication by Northwestern University Press in late October. At the turn of the century, with many imposing playhouses in place and with an affluent audience filling their seats, Chicago was second only to New York as a theater center in the United States; and it was often said that if a show had floundered on Broadway, it would most likely make its money back in the Loop. George M. Cohan, who through his vaudeville and musical productions knew all about business possibilities in the cross–country stops for touring shows, made up a little alphabet poem about the road in which Chicago's stature as a theater town is neatly summarized: "A stands for Albany, good for one night./ B stands for Boston, for two weeks, all right./ C for Chicago, big money, no yaps./ D stands for Denver, break even, perhaps...." All the American and European stars of the stage, many of them bringing their own acting company, played Chicago. Mrs. Patrick Campbell in Pygmalion, Anna Held in The Little Duchess, William Farnum in Ben Hur, Ethel Barrymore in Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, George M. Cohan in Little Johnny Jones, Minnie Maddern Fiske in Becky Sharp, Herbert Beerbohm Tree and his Royal Haymarket troupe of London in repertory, Richard Mansfield in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Maude Adams in The Little Minister, Helena Modjeska in Camille, Thomas W. Keene in Hamlet and Richard III and, of course, Joseph Jefferson in Rip Van Winkle. Anna Morgan, a literary lioness who staged all–female versions of Hamlet and George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra and who had presented the American premiere of Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder in Chicago, captured some of the star–struck excitement that those engagements produced for Chicago audiences when she wrote of seeing Henry Irving and Ellen Terry perform at the 2,000–seat Columbia Theatre, at 57 W. Monroe St., in 1885: "What charming entertainments these great artists and the supporting members of their company gave at that time, what an event it was in Chicago! Nothing approaching it in importance and interest has occurred during my remembrance. The city seemed changed, in some way, assumed a metropolitan air. I remember the closing performance, the play was Much Ado About Nothing. The house was packed, many persons, including myself, sitting on the steps leading from the boxes to the parquet. Marshall Field, whom I saw for the first time, sitting with his young son Marshall Field Jr., was in one of the very front seats." With its population now more than one million, making it the second largest city (after New York) in the country, and with its eminence asserted by the huge success of the Columbian Exposition of 1893, Chicago now also had enough history behind it to lay claim to the first individuals in a long list of famous show business artists and administrators who had spent at least part of their lives in the city. Lillian Russell, the musical comedy actress with the famed hourglass figure, a sensation at the Columbia Theatre during the Columbian Exposition, had given a song recital at Kimball Hall when she was still just plain Helen Louise Leonard. Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., the producer who was to bring many editions of his Ziegfeld Follies on tour to Chicago, was the son of Dr. Florenz Ziegfeld, co–founder of Chicago Musical College. The productions in which the touring stars and the stock companies appeared relied heavily on European classics and recent New York and London successes. Realism and spectacle, strengthened by technical advances, were favored in production values, and farce, musicals and melodramas were the preferred vehicles. Among the latter were the durable East Lynne and Uncle Tom's Cabin, which in an 1882 visit advertised "TRAINED SIBERIAN BLOODHOUNDS/The most savage of their species, which will engage in the Realistic Picture/ of the terrible SLAVE HUNT" (and all this for a 50–cent top ticket price). For a while, the flow of product to commercial theaters was strictly controlled by the Theatrical Syndicate, a New York organization that had a lock on a large majority of the nation's playhouses and was able to dictate what shows would be booked and how long their engagements would last. A monopoly, in other words. In any era, including our own, this is not a healthy situation, and several Chicago theaters and many actors, including Mrs. Fiske, billed as "the first lady of the American stage," fought for independence, their cause egged on by some press accounts reviling the "Jew Syndicate." Nevertheless, from 1896 until at least a decade into the 20th century, when the trust's power was deleted by competition from another group that Mrs. Fiske and producer David Belasco had formed with the aid of the ambitious/voracious Shubert brothers/producers, the Theatrical Syndicate virtually ruled the show business world, building and booking theaters across the country. It hung around until 1916, and it left Chicago and the rest of the country, with one central heritage that endures to this day: the national touring company. TOURING SHOWS While touring repertory companies, such as the one depicted in The Dresser, are not a significant part of the contemporary American theatrical landscape, taking shows on the road has long been a part of Steppenwolf's artistic programming, nearly from the company's inception. Steppenwolf made its New York debut in 1982 with the landmark production of Sam Shepard's True West, featuring ensemble members John Malkovich and Gary Sinise. The show established the company as an important voice in the American theater. In the last year alone, several of Steppenwolf's productions toured both nationally and internationally. Suzan Lori–Parks's Topdog/Underdog traveled from our Downstairs Theatre last fall first to The Alley Theatre in Houston, then to Dallas Theatre Center, ending up at Hartford Stage in January of this year. Our production of Homebody/Kabul was seen by audiences at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, as well as those at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. Steppenwolf's acclaimed revival of The Time of Your Life enjoyed enormous success at the Seattle Repertory Theatre and at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater. Orange Flower Water, a new play produced in the Garage Theatre last fall, transferred to the Galway Arts Festival last summer, while Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune travels to the Dublin Theatre Festival in October.