Festival Play
One of the major elements in the Chicago Association of Commerce's elaborately orchestrated observance of the semicentennial of the fire in 1921 was this historical pageant, featuring literally a cast of thousands. The scenario, book, and lyrics were by poet Wallace Rice, who had also designed the official city flag in 1917 (see the "Enduring Symbol" gallery in the "Commemorating Catastrophe" section). This description comes from the Association's newsletter, and it reveals how the anniversary had become an occasion to commemorate not the conflagration but Chicago's destiny of greatness. The play was underwritten by "public spirited firms," and the performers worked for free, with any profits to go to the South Park Board. During early October, the Association circulated letters to Chicago businessmen that began, "The Chicago Association of Commerce is asking the entire community to back the Semi-Centennial Festival Play, now being given nightly at Grant Park Stadium--first because it is a spectacle every Chicagoan should see; second because it is an enterprise every Chicagoan should support." The Association advised recipients, "There are fifteen thousand seats [down from the original plan for 25,000] to fill every night," and, "We must have individual initiative to create city wide interest and attendance." According to newspaper accounts, the play was well-received, but unfavorable early October weather limited the size of the audiences.
City's Story Will Live in Festival Play
Magnificent Portrayal of Chicago, Past and Future, To be Feature of Semi- Centennial Celebration
The history of Chicago--a stirring epitome of the national life--will be reenacted in vivid form as one great feature of the semi-centennial celebration of Chicago Day this coming October. As already has been announced, the Association of Commerce, with the cooperation of the other organizations in the city and of the people generally, is preparing to make the fiftieth anniversary of the great fire of 1871 the occasion of a fitting observance of what Chicago has achieved in the past and is destined to achieve in the future.
The most colorful and picturesque feature of the celebration will be a great festival play, presented with a cast of 2,000 persons, a chorus of 500 and an orchestra of 60. [These numbers were later increased.] Edward Moore, now music critic of the Tribune, has written the music, Wallace Rice has prepared the scenario, book and lyrics, and Donald Robertson is the Festival Play Master, in general charge of the preparing of the great spectacle.
For the presentation of this great drama of the city's life an amphitheater seating 25,000 persons will be erected in Grant Park through the courtesy of the members of the South Park board. The stage will be amply large to permit the presentation of the stirring scenes from Chicago history which have been selected to typify best the development of the frontier trading post and its future growth.
Will Have Beautiful Setting
As a fit setting for the six acts of the festival play elaborate and beautiful scenery, historically correct, will be painted. The bare sandy shore that has long since given way to shipping, business and dwelling places, will live again. Old Fort Dearborn will emerge from the mists of the past to stand once more on the bank of the sluggish river. The old court house square will be brought back by the brush of the artist and the glories of the World's Fair, the Peristyle and Court of Honor, come again into transitory being to fade into a vision of the Chicago of the future.
Scenically, the festival play will be the most beautiful and elaborate affair of its kind ever attempted in Chicago.
The festival play will open with a prelude in which will be revealed the spirit of the dunes, the prairie and the lake in a symbolic dance giving a glimpse of the charm of color and motion that will fill the six scenes of the play. The prelude will be followed by a prologue in which Donald Robertson will recount the story of Chicago past and glimpse the story of the Chicago that is to be.
Then will come the six scenes of the festival play proper, the first being the coming of Marquette and Joliet in 1673, the "Elevation of the Cross" and the "Prophecy of the Drainage Channel." The "Elevation of the Cross" promises to be one of the most dramatic scenes of the play. In this scene, too, will be portrayed the march of the Spaniards from St. Louis and of the French from Kaskaskia in 1781. The costuming of all the actors in this and the other scenes will be historically correct and the days of those first pioneers in the wilderness will be made to live again for the instruction and delight of twentieth century Chicago and its guests from far and near.
Scene two will disclose Fort Dearborn in 1803 and the first coming of the American flag. It will be a flag strange in its detail to the spectators of today, for it will flaunt in the breeze fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, the forerunner of the banner of today with its forty-eight stars and the thirteen stripes, to tell of the original states of the republic. In this scene too will be reenacted the first grim day in the city's history, the massacre of 1812. Once more the little party of regular troops, settlers, women and children will be attacked by the hostile red men and fight out the heroic but hopeless battle that was waged on the lake shore near the foot of what today is Eighteenth street. This affray of 1812 will reveal as clearly as any scene can, the change that a little more than one hundred years has wrought in Chicago.
Passing of the Red Man
Scene three will depict the passing of the red man, the surrender of the land that had been his for uncounted centuries to the white man newly come out of the east. The scenes depicted will be the last Indian treaty in 1833 and South Water street in 1835 with the "War Dance of the Pottawatomie." But for Wild West shows and museums the war dress of the Indians would be unknown to the Chicago people of today, but in this scene in the little straggling street on the bank of the river they will behold one of the most remarkable scenes in the varied and picturesque history of the city.
Scene four will reveal a great change; the Indian has gone and a thriving city marks the site of his hunting camps. The court house square of 1861 will be shown and the march of the Chicago Light Artillery and the Chicago Zouaves to fire at Cairo the first shot in the west in the great struggle of the Civil war. The songs of that early day Chicago, particularly the war songs, will be sung again and the, to us, strange styles of 1861 will fill the stage. This will be followed by the portrayal of how the news of the victory at Fort Donaldson in 1862 was received in Chicago and this stirring bit of early war days will give way to the "Dance of Emancipation" in 1863.
The scene will close with the picturing of the Chicago fire. The old Tribune building, the Sherman House and other historic structures in the heart of the town will crumble beneath the sweep of the flames as they did on that October day fifty years ago when it seemed that the fate of the struggling city was sealed and that the community that had fought so bravely to establish itself must cease to be. The scene will conclude with the "Dance of Fire and the World's Succor of Chicago." Every resource of stage craft will be used in the fire scene to make vivid the destruction of the city.
World's Fair to Live Again
Scene five will tell a different story for it will set forth the glories of the World's Fair, the most beautiful exposition of national progress ever made and an achievement of Chicago that astonished the world. The great heart of the Fair, the Peristyle and Court of Honor will be shown, and with them for a background will be staged a great "Festival Procession of the Fine Arts" in the preparing of which every artistic resource of Chicago and the genius of its painters and designers will be employed. It promises to be one of the most beautiful and impressive incidents of the whole festival.
The sixth and concluding scene of the play will open with the grim days of the World war and will portray the "Victory March of the Army and Navy" in 1918 with a "victory dance" to drums and trumpets. This will fade and in its place will dawn the brighter day of peace with a magnificent "March of the Nations, America and Chicago." This too will pass and as the climax of all the pictured history of the city will be revealed "The Future in the Chicago Plan," a vision of the Chicago of tomorrow, its ideals realized, its hopes come true.
Such is the story of the Festival play told in crude outline. Great in its design, worked out in beauty of detail and broad stage pictures, enriched with impressive music and acted with spirit by its hundreds of players, it promises to be an achievement that will long be remembered.
The festival play will be given each weekday evening during the semi-centennial celebration, that is from Monday evening, October 3, until Saturday evening, October 8.
Two impressive ceremonials will mark the week. One will be the dedication of the amphitheater on Sunday afternoon, October 2, and the other will be the "rededication of Chicago to the future" on Sunday afternoon, October 9.
