Playwrights Theatre Club

Foundation at the University of Chicago (1953)

The Playwrights Theatre Club was founded on June 23, 1953, by Paul Sills, David Shepherd, and Eugene Troobnick, operating initially in the Reynolds Club Theatre on the University of Chicago campus. Sills served as director; his mother Viola Spolin had pioneered improvisational theatre games, though the Playwrights programme was classical rather than improvisational. Shepherd had studied theatre at Harvard and Columbia before arriving in Chicago in 1952 and brought an ambition for a politically engaged community theatre. The company structured itself as a membership club to maintain non-profit status, and within its first year had built a subscriber base of approximately 2,000 members.

Classical Repertory and Ensemble (1953–1955)

The company's programme concentrated on European classical drama, opening with Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Over two seasons it presented approximately thirty productions, including Brecht's The Threepenny Opera alongside works by Molière, Aristophanes, Shakespeare, and Chekhov. The ensemble that gathered around this work included Ed Asner, Barbara Harris, Sheldon Patinkin, Fritz Weaver, Byrne Piven, Joyce Hiller (later Joyce Piven), Mike Nichols, and Elaine May, with Bernie Sahlins joining as a producing partner in the second year.

Closure and Compass Transition (1955)

The Playwrights Theatre Club was shut down in 1955 following building-code violations, ending its classical repertory programme abruptly. The closure did not disperse the ensemble it had built. Shepherd, who had long been developing an idea for a working-class political theatre that improvised with its audiences, used the moment to reorganize the community around an improvisational format. The resulting company, the Compass Players, opened on July 5, 1955, at 1152 E. 55th Street in Hyde Park, with the same core ensemble that had performed at the Playwrights Theatre Club.

The Playwrights Theatre Club's identity was classical rather than improvisational. It concentrated on European drama staged with bohemian energy and minimal resources for a University of Chicago audience that valued intellectual seriousness and political engagement. The choice of Brecht for its inaugural production in 1953, when the playwright remained politically controversial in the United States, placed the company in deliberate opposition to commercial Chicago theatre.

The company did not develop an improvisational pedagogy, but it established the ensemble habits and relationships that made the Compass Players possible. Performers trained in classical ensemble work under Paul Sills before the Compass project began, and the trust built through shared productions informed the improvisational risk-taking the Compass later demanded. The transition from Playwrights to Compass was a development within an already-established community rather than a fresh start.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1953): Brecht's play served as the company's inaugural production, establishing the political and aesthetic ambitions of its two-season run. Staging Brecht in 1953 was a deliberate statement of alignment with the European theatrical left at a moment of significant cultural pressure in the United States.

The Threepenny Opera: A second Brecht production in the company's repertory, indicating sustained commitment to his work across both seasons.

Thirty Productions in Two Seasons: The Playwrights Theatre Club's full repertory included works by Molière, Aristophanes, Shakespeare, and Chekhov alongside the two Brecht productions, constituting an unusually ambitious classical programme for an independent Chicago company of the period.

The Playwrights Theatre Club's primary legacy is institutional. It assembled the ensemble of performers and producers who founded the Compass Players in 1955 and, through the Compass, originated professional improvisational theatre in America. Without the community that Sills, Shepherd, and Troobnick built between 1953 and 1955, the Compass would not have had the ensemble relationships needed to attempt scenario-based improvisation.

The people who worked at the Playwrights Theatre Club shaped American comedy and theatre across subsequent decades. Paul Sills and Bernie Sahlins co-founded The Second City in 1959. Sheldon Patinkin became one of the most influential teachers and advocates in Chicago theatre over five decades. Ed Asner became a prominent television actor. Barbara Harris developed into a respected stage and film performer. Mike Nichols and Elaine May both encountered the ensemble during this period, before their careers as a duo and as solo directors took shape.