all kinds of writing
![](14_My_Life_In_The_Theater__part_one_files/shapeimage_1.png)
all kinds of writing
Chicago is known as one of the most vibrant theater cities in the world, but it was not always thus. Its current growth can be traced back to 1963. Paul Jans (my father), was newly installed as executive director of Hull House, the renowned social agency founded by Nobel prize-winner Jane Addams; harkening back to the agency’s roots, he considered the arts to be an essential component of the Hull House mission, and asked Robert Sickinger to head a new theater program.
In his history of Chicago theater, A Theater Of Our Own, Richard Christiansen calls the opening of Hull House Theater under Sickinger “the key event in realizing this theater of our own…”
This is where I got my start in theater: running lights and sound, moving sets, playing harmonium and piano for “Three Penny Opera,” and composing the music for John Stasey’s episodic children’s musical, “The Adventures of Captain Marbles And His Acting Squad.” These were my high school years, yet the thrust of my education took place within the walls of Hull House Theater, in the company of genius.
Among the many other artists nourished by the Hull House experience we can include the brilliant actor Mike Nussbaum, Jim Jacobs and the late Warren Casey (who later wrote “Grease” together), and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet. Not only did the Hull House Theater have an immediate impact on the city, waking it from the theatrical doldrums, it also planted the seeds that have allowed theater in Chicago to flourish in the ensuing decades.
My Life In The Theater: part one
Thursday, May 14, 2009