Act Well Your Part, There All the Honor Lies
Histories of Hull-House Theatre
The famed settlement house’s connection to Chicago theater
Cloth – $30
979-8-234-03028-3
Publication Date
Cloth: 12/15/2026
About the Book
In the 1890s, Hull-House settlement became home to Chicago’s first neighborhood theater. The Polk Street venue was a center for Chicago theater and the birthplace of important national movements ranging from Chicago’s Little Theatre movement to improv to the storefront theater movement that took root in the 1960s. Matthew Randle-Bent, Liesl Olson, and Ross Jordan draw on primary sources to document a century of theater at and around Hull-House. In addition, contemporary leaders in the local theater scene offer contributions that flesh out the Hull-House Theater’s importance and advocate for civil theater in the twenty-first century. More than 150 images expand on the text.Published by the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, the book complements the Act Well Your Part exhibition and festival hosted by the museum to celebrate the Hull-House Theater’s legacy and Chicago’s ongoing commitment to civically engaged performance.
About the Author
Matthew Randle-Bent is the associate director of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Liesl Olson is the director of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and a professor of art history and museum and exhibition studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. She is the author of Chicago Renaissance: Literature and Art in the Midwest Metropolis. Ross Stanton Jordan is the curator at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.Related Titles
