William Robert Sickinger (November 7, 1926 – May 9, 2013) was an American theater director, based in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. He was regarded as the founder of "off-Loop" theater, the Chicago equivalent of Off-Broadway. He often cast non-professional actors in his productions, and in doing so occasionally found new talent such as

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Jim Jacobs Jim Jacobs (born October 7, 1942) is an American actor, composer, lyricist, and writer for the theatre, long associated with the Chicago theater scene. Jacobs is best known for creating the book, storyline, characters, lyrics for the 1971 musi ...

, and

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, all of whom were Sickinger proteges.

Early life

Raised in Philadelphia, Sickinger was drafted into the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

whilst still at school, and served in the Philippines during the Second World War. He subsequently resumed his studies at

Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania (Bloomsburg, BU or Bloom) is a campus of Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania and it is located in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE). The ...

, where he trained as a teacher and first discovered theater.

Chicago theater

Sickinger was able to convince a local movie theater owner to rent him space, and produced a number of plays in this venue during the early 1950s. He was later hired by

Hull House Hull House was a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located on the Near West Side of the city, Hull House (named after the original house's first owner Cha ...

Association director Paul Jans to run a theater programme in Chicago. Sickinger chose to produce "challenging, sometimes distressing contemporary plays" on subjects that had never been seen on Chicago stages, mounting productions by Edward Albee, Harold Pinter, Athol Fugard, and Amiri Baraka. Though his choices raised eyebrows, critics generally praised his productions as "revelatory". Sickinger founded the Uptown Theater, as well as other theaters in more deprived areas of Chicago. He was an accomplished fundraiser, promoting theater in unlikely venues such as breakfast clubs and organising performances in the homes of Chicago's wealthier citizens. He attended almost every performance of his productions, and would continue giving notes to the actors throughout a show's run.

Later career

After Jans' resignation in 1969, Sickinger was also obliged to resign from the Hull House Association when board members argued that he was no longer engaged with their mission to provide social services. Sickinger relocated to New York, where he directed a number of off-Broadway shows with limited success. He later retired from theater and began running a

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company called Everything For Living Space. He died of congestive heart failure at his residence in

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, on May 9, 2013, aged 86.

References

External links

Bob Sickinger Papers
a
the Newberry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sickinger, Robert 1926 births 2013 deaths People from Chicago Military personnel from Philadelphia Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania alumni American theatre directors United States Army personnel of World War II