Image: Hull-House Theatre auditorium, ca. 1899. Image courtesy of Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archive, Art Institute of Chicago.
Act Well Your Part is an exhibition and festival hosted at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, celebrating the legacies of Hull-House Theatre and building a future of civically engaged theatre in Chicago.
A theatrical hub for the city of Chicago for over a century, Hull-House played a pivotal role in the development of community theatre, the Little Theatre movement, Improv, and Chicago’s iconic non-profit theatre scene. Taking its name from the epigraph emblazoned above the original Hull-House stage, Act Well Your Part, There All the Honor Lies reframes contemporary Chicago theatre as an essential part of the city’s civic fabric.
Cast of The Troll’s Holiday at the Hull-House Theatre, 1923. Photograph by Earl Pierce. Image courtesy of University of Illinois Chicago Special Collections
An expression of “order and beauty,” in Jane Addams’s words, the theatre was always integral to the mission of Hull-House. In the early years, plays were performed by immigrant neighbors in the drawing room of the Hull residence or in the gymnasium. In 1899, the 230-seat Hull-House Theatre opened with a production of “The Return of Odysseus,” a six-act play adapted from Homer and performed in Attic Greek by the Greek community.
Emblazoned on the fire curtain of that theatre, Act Well Your Part, There All the Honor Lies, a line from English poet Alexander Pope, expressed a conviction that participating in theatre could function as a form of civic engagement. For over a century, Hull-House originated numerous movements of national importance: from early community theatres to the rise of storefront theatre in the 1960s. From the 1970s until the 2010s, theatres built by Hull-House provided a home to numerous icons of contemporary Chicago theatre. Ultimately, Chicago theatre is fundamentally bound up in the history of Hull-House.
We must build into the fabric of neighborhood life a place for theater to flourish close to the grass roots of American democratic culture.
Robert Sickinger, “On the State of Theatre in Chicago,” c. 1963
Image: Bill Terry as the Street Singer in The Threepenny Opera, 1964. Photograph by Robert Gedman. Image courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago.
2025 Festival
Act Well Your Part comprises an ongoing exhibition that surveys the history of Hull-House theatre in the Residents’ Dining Hall and an annual program series which includes performances, hands-on workshops, and conversations with key players in Chicago theatre. Check out our upcoming programs, with more to be announced.
Act Well Your Part is supported by the Discovery Partners Institute.
