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      <title>Comments On: Paul Sills
    
      by Michael Miner</title>
      <link>http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/06/03/paul-sills</link>
      <atom:link href="http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/Rss.xml?oid=942030&amp;id=comments" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />      <description>Comments On: Paul Sills
    
      by Michael Miner</description>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:01 -0600</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: Paul Sills]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/06/03/paul-sills/#951749]]></link>
    
    <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/06/03/paul-sills/#951749]]></guid>
    <author><![CDATA[Albert Williams]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[Paul Sills was one of the two most important director-teachers in post-World War II American theater -- the other being Lee Strasberg. If Sills had chosen to work in New York he might have received the same recognition that Strasberg did. But he chose to work in Chicago at a time when little outside attention was paid to the grassroots theater movement taking root here. Sills, along with community activist Jim Shiflett and composer William Russo, founded the first professional off-Loop theater, the Body Politic, where Sills put on his brilliant Story Theater productions. Ironically, "off-Loop theater" didn't start winning international recognition until after Sills stopped working here on a regular basis.
    
    As for "The Deer Park," I recall that production vividly. It was a critique of the Hollywood movie industry, and certainly a shocker, especially the scene with the African-American woman performing (simulated) oral sex on a white man. But looking back in the wake of plays by David Mamet, Neil LaBute, and David Rabe (especially Rabe's Hurlyburly), it may have been ahead of its time. As Sills was.
        
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          Posted by Albert Williams]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:39:36 -0500</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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          <item>
    
    <title><![CDATA[Re: Paul Sills]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/06/03/paul-sills/#965475]]></link>
    
    <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/06/03/paul-sills/#965475]]></guid>
    <author><![CDATA[Jon Anderson]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[That's a nice take on the Sills family. Carol was, as you say, "very friendly"  and a really talented artist, trained at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada. We were both in the Class of '55. Paul was truly a genius and free spirit, but he did have his share of clinkers. One was a production of "Deer Park" by Norman Mailer, an unplayable play put on at the Hyde Park Theater in 1967 and backed by Second City where I was working in the front office. It featured simulated interracial oral sex, a subject of some concern in the community at the time. Looking for a word to sum up the audience reaction, aghast would be a good place to start.
        
        <br />
        
          Posted by Jon Anderson]]>
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    <pubDate>Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:04:31 -0500</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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