Last week’s program focus led me to one of the American Theatre Architecture Archives newest accessions of some of our oldest materials. The Donalad Ilko Collection includes a large number of theatre programs from the 1880s in Chicago. The programs are in surprisingly good condition for ephemera printed on newsprint, and contain a huge amount of informative content, from examples of humor, advertising, poetry, play listings, and more.
(credit: American Theatre Architecture Archive, Theatre Historical Society of America)