Fine Arts Building (Chicago)

The Fine Arts Building houses the Studebaker Theater, also known as Studebaker Hall, dedicated in 1898.^[8] In 1917, the theater underwent its first major renovation under the direction of architect Andrew Rebori. The theater still looks much the same as it did after that renovation, retaining the original ceiling from 1898.

The Studebaker was the site of David Bispham's 1901 recital exclusively featuring the songs of Carrie Jacobs-Bond.^[9] Paul Whiteman and his orchestra gave the first public performance of the Grand Canyon Suite here on November 22, 1931. The venue also hosted some of the earliest live television shows including DuMont Television Network's Cavalcade of Stars hosted by comedian Jack Carter^{[citation needed]} and Hawkins Falls, Population 6200.^[10]

In the 1970s the theater was partitioned into a multiplex movie theater. Renovations to return to live theater were begun in 2015, and the theater was reopened in 2016 with a capacity of 740.^[11]

A larger multimillion-dollar renovation began in 2021, updating many of the Studebaker's technical capacities.^[12] Following the renovation, the Studebaker Theater became home to NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!^[13]

From 1912 to 1917, the Fine Arts Building housed the Chicago Little Theatre, an art theater credited with beginning the Little Theatre Movement in the United States. Not being able to afford rental on the building's 500-seat auditorium, co-producers Maurice Browne and Ellen Van Volkenburg rented a large storage space on the fourth floor at the back and built it out into a 91-seat house.^[14] The group specialized in training actors and producing contemporary plays in their small 99-seat theater on the 4th floor, including performances of Shaw, Strindberg, Ibsen, Wilde, and Yeats. Though short-lived, the Chicago Little Theatre was a monumental influence on American theatre, spreading the Little Theatre practice across the nation and laying the groundwork for the Chicago storefront theater movement. The Chicago Little Theatre space is now occupied by the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, whose founder chose the space because Van Volkenburg used puppets and coined the word "puppeteer."^[15]

• Lorado Taft, sculptor
• William W. Denslow, Wizard of Oz illustrator
• Frank Lloyd Wright, architect
• John T. McCutcheon, political cartoonist
• George Barr McCutcheon, author
• Ralph Fletcher Seymour, publisher and etcher
• Anna Morgan, acting teacher
• J.C. Leyendecker and F.X. Leyendecker, illustrators
• Oliver Dennett Grover, artist
• Frederic Clay Bartlett, artist
• Irving K. Pond, architect
• Caxton Club, literary club
• The Little Review, literary journal edited by Margaret Anderson
• Chicago Woman's Club
• Fortnightly of Chicago
• Illinois Equal Suffrage Association, led by President Grace Wilbur Trout
• Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras
• George Ade, humorist
• Henry Blake Fuller, novelist
• Kalo Shop, silversmithing shop
• Chicago Little Theatre, founded by Maurice Browne and Ellen Van Volkenburg
• The Dial, literary journal edited by Francis Fisher Browne
• Chicago Musical College
• Alliance Francaise
• George Hamlin, tenor
• Arnold Jacobs, tubist
• George Perlman, violinist and composer
• Harrington Institute of Interior Design
• Studebaker Theatre Company (1956–1957), founded by Bernard Sahlins
• Jazz Institute of Chicago
• Chicago Opera Theater
• Gillian Flynn, novelist