Chicago Great Talent Export
Chicago has spent the better part of a century becoming extraordinarily good at producing people who eventually become famous somewhere else. This is not exactly a municipal failure. Cities generally prefer their alumni to win Academy Awards rather than indictments. But it does create a peculiar economic arrangement in which Chicago supplies an enormous amount of the early infrastructure — small stages, improvisational companies, rehearsal rooms, audiences willing to watch unfinished work, directors willing to take risks, actors willing to perform for very little money — and then watches as Los Angeles, New York and the television and film industries capture a disproportionate share of the financial value once those people become commercially important. Chicago theater has functioned, in this sense, like one of America’s most productive venture-capital firms, except that it has traditionally neglected the part where the venture capitalist owns equity. The city develops talent, tes...