Chicago

Performing Arts

Chicago is renowned for its theater tradition. Stage performances draw around three million attendees annually. Among the two best-known theatrical organizations in the city are the Goodman Theater, its oldest resident troupe; Steppenwolf Theater Company, associated with playwright David Mamet; and the famed improvisational group Second City, training ground for many talented comic performers who have since gone on to achieve nationwide success in film and television. Other theater groups include the Court Theatre, the Pegasus Players, Victory Gardens, and Wisdom Bridge. Touring performances of Broadway productions can be seen at the Schubert Theatre.

The Chicago Symphony, one of the best in the nation, performs from fall through spring at Orchestra Hall on Michigan Avenue and at the Ravinia Festival on the North Shore in the summer months. Chicago has two opera companies, Lyric Opera of Chicago, which performs operas in their original languages with supertitles displayed above the stage, and Chicago Opera Theater, which performs in English. Chicago's resident ballet troupe is Ballet Chicago, founded in 1988. Hubbard Street Dance Chicago stages contemporary dance performances.

Known as "the Blues Capital of the World," Chicago has been a prime venue for blues clubs and performers since the 1930s, and this tradition is vibrantly renewed every spring at the lakefront Chicago Blues Festival, which draws crowds of as many as 400,000 during its three days.