Our holdings consist of tens of thousands of programs for theater, music, dance, and opera events with a focus on Chicagoland. Each of these performance types are their own collection and are organized by venue.
The collection showcases a history of performance in the theater-heavy city of Chicago. It is a great resource for histories of Chicago venues, performers, and shows. The design of performance programs is a delightful overview of the creative scene in Chicago, and the advertisements can provide context and information for Chicago businesses and advertising.
Was your ancestor in a local production? Are you trying to imagine the entertainment scene in a bygone era? From burlesque shows to church choirs to international ballet stars, these materials can help you investigate them.
Dates covered: 1850s - Present
Large sections of the collection are devoted to the McVicker's Theatre, the Grand Opera House, the Goodman Theatre, the Studebaker Theatre, and the Ravinia Park Theatre.
Throughout the span of the collection, most years have over fifty programs, with less in the more recent past.
See the catalog record for the Theater Programs collection and search the inventory here.
Dates covered: 1860s-Present
With many programs for Orchestra Hall, Grant Park Band Shell, Auditorium Theatre, Mandel Hall (University of Chicago), and Civic Opera House, you can find some of Chicago's most famous music halls documented here.
End-of-year performances for high schools, church groups, and one-off performances are excellent snapshots of community history.
Classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz, conductor Arturo Toscanini, radio star Pierre Andre, conductor Leonard Bernstein, and even Andre Watts -- many famous names have graced Chicago stages, and beautiful program artwork is a gorgeous relic of this.
See the catalog record for the Music Programs collection and search the inventory here.
Dates covered: 1870s-Present
Opera in our collection is much more concentrated in a smaller set of venues. The Auditorium Theatre, the Civic Opera House, and the Chicago Opera Theater hosted most of the shows in this collection. Carmen, Aida, Rigoletto, Madame Butterfly, and Il Trovatore are the most commonly performed operas in the Chicago operas of this collection.
The collection commonly evokes the beautiful faces and voices of Harold Kravitt, Charlotte Bruno, Francesco Curci, and Dimitri Onofrei. Some larger venues included layouts of floor plans and seating in the programs.
Within the collection, there are language notes for programs in German, Polish, and Czech.
See the catalog record for the Opera Programs collection and search the inventory here.
Dates covered: 1869-Present (mostly 1920s on)
Ballet is strongly represented as an art form in this collection. From the Auditorium Theatre to the Harris Theater and Columbia College, Chicago has hosted many famous dancers.
The Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance, and American Ballet Theatre appear many times. Chicago audiences also saw the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Natyakalalayam Dance Company, and the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico.
See the catalog record for the Dance Program collection and search the inventory here.
If searching for a specific performance, it is helpful to search in all inventories.
When programs were first collected and inventoried, there was not a distinction between opera, music, and dance. Those programs, especially late 19th and early 20th century dates, were included in the Theater Program inventory and will indicate in the notes field or by title if they are opera or dance.
The Research and Access Department uses Airtable to track some of its collections where the inventories have hundreds or thousands of records, each with multiple data points. Searching massive inventories in a single spreadsheet can be time-consuming for researchers.
Airtable provides multiple options for finding information. Users can choose between basic keyword searching or layering multiple search conditions that filter the data to only display select information -- all without impacting the original data set.
Use any of the search options below or combine search features:
Find in View: Select the magnifying glass icon on the right side of the view toolbar to open a search bar (or use Ctrl+F). Type your search here and then press enter. Each instance will be highlighted in yellow in the base, and you can scroll through using the arrows in the search bar.
Airtable does not conduct "fuzzy" searches or keyword searches. For example, a search for Morton Building will bring up Morton Building Company but not Morton Salt Building.
Start broad, refine, and try different combinations of search terms.
This technique is recommended for smaller datasets, not large inventories such as the Chicago Sun-Times which will take too long to run the search and may time out.
Sort: Arrange all the data by a certain field. There is an option to add additional Sort fields. For example, you can sort all programs first by venue, then add a condition to also sort by title, then sort by year.
Filter: This technique is recommended for large datasets such as the Chicago Sun-Times. Filter out records from a view according to conditions you set to search more quickly and efficiently. You can also use Filter to search within specific fields. Combine multiple conditions to get more specific results. Select “and” from the dropdown menu between conditions for results that include both of your conditions. Select “or” from the dropdown menu for results that include either of your conditions.
Description: Select “Show records where description contains” and then enter your search terms.
Date: Select “Show records where date contains” and then enter the year or date you would like to search, such as 1985 or 1985-01 or 1985-01-26.
Results: Rows of data are numbered on the lefthand side. Next to the number, there is a diagonal arrow icon to Expand. This opens all the data for that row or entry in a single view.