According to the Chicago Tribune, a new archive of Chicago theatrical performances is being established through Actors' Equity and the Chicago Public Library. The Chicago Film Archive of Performance is being modeled after the New York Public Library’s Theatre on Film and Tape Archive.
The collection will be made permanently available to the public in the Harold Washington Library's Special Collections and Preservation Division. A launch event featuring the cast of Oracle Productions' The Jungle is set for May 26.
As listed in the Tribune, the 21 productions currently tapped to feature in the archive are Animals Out of Paper (Shattered Globe Theatre), Byhalia, Mississippi (The New Colony and Definition Theatre Company), Circle-Machine (Oracle Productions), Direct From Death Row: The Scottsboro Boys (Raven Theatre), The Drowning Girls (Signal Ensemble Theatre), The Few (Steep Theatre Company), The Hairy Ape (Oracle Productions), The Jungle (Oracle Productions), Le Switch (About Face Theatre), Miss Buncle’s Book Lifeline Theatre, Murder Ballad (Bailiwick Chicago Theatre), No Wake (Route 66 Theatre Company), Porcelain (Prologue Theatre Company), Posh (Steep Theatre Company), Sender (A Red Orchid Theatre), Really Really (Interrobang Theatre Project), Red (Redtwist Theatre), Rolling (Jackalope Theatre), United Flight 232 (The House Theatre of Chicago), The Wild Party (Bailiwick Chicago Theatre) and Yasmina’s Necklace (16th Street Theatre).
The goal is to have 40 recordings by the end of the year.
