Draft:Sidney Eden

• Comment: Alright, enough. Accesscrawl (talk) 07:53, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: Databases are not reliable independent sources. Theroadislong (talk) 17:47, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

---

Sidney Eden was an American theatre producer, director, playwright, actor and theatre critic. During the 1970s, he operated the First Chicago Center Theatre in downtown Chicago. A 1974 Chicago Tribune feature by theatre critic Linda Winer examined Eden’s attempt to establish a resident producing theatre in Chicago’s business district, including his artistic plans, financial losses and disputes with the theatre’s landlord.

At the First Chicago Center, Eden produced Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie, starring Ben Gazzara, Mark Medoff’s When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?, the musical Sheba, and The Rise and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter. Productions at the theatre received three Joseph Jefferson Awards in 1974.

Career

First Chicago Center Theatre

In 1973, the First National Bank invited Eden to rent a former conference hall in its building at Dearborn and Madison Streets for a season of theatrical productions. According to Winer, Eden and the bank initially agreed on the goal of attracting audiences back into Chicago’s Loop through professional theatre.

The First Chicago Center opened on December 11, 1973, with The Rise and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter. Eden followed it with Eugene O’Neill’s one-act play Hughie, starring Ben Gazzara, and Mark Medoff’s When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?.

Winer described the venture as a potentially important but financially troubled attempt to create a resident theatre in downtown Chicago. She reported that Eden had personally lost approximately $80,000 and had accumulated additional debt while operating the theatre. The article also examined a dispute between Eden and the bank over financial support, advertising, the physical limitations of the theatre and responsibility for the productions’ losses.

The disagreement extended to artistic matters. Michael Feinstein, manager of Eden’s Sheba production, alleged that the bank had objected to material in When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? and Sheba. The bank denied imposing automatic censorship but maintained the right to approve productions and exclude material it considered in poor taste.

Eden told Winer that he intended to use Chicago as a proving ground for productions that could later tour or transfer to other cities. At the time of the article, Hughie was scheduled for Hartford and Los Angeles before a planned Broadway presentation, while Sheba was scheduled for St. Louis and Detroit before a possible New York production. Winer wrote that Eden regarded the First Chicago Center as a showcase for developing major theatrical productions.

Aaron Gold’s Tower Ticker column described Sheba as critical to the future of “Sidney Eden’s First Chicago Center Theater.” Gold reported that Eden had invested substantial time, money and talent in the production and noted that Hughie had brought him national attention. Gold also reported that the theatre’s first three productions had not achieved financial success.

Sheba, a musical adaptation of William Inge’s Come Back, Little Sheba, starred Kaye Ballard and featured music by Clint Ballard Jr. and orchestrations by Ralph Burns.

By October 1974, Roger Dettmer described the First Chicago Center as defunct. Despite the theatre’s closure, its productions received three Joseph Jefferson Awards: Mark Medoff was recognized for his performance in When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?, Louise Hoven received an award for the same production, and Ben Gazzara was honored for his performance in Hughie. Eden accepted all three awards on behalf of the recipients.

Broadway

In 1975, Hughie was presented at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway as part of the double bill Hughie / Duet. Eden was credited as a producer in association with the Broadway production. Gazzara received a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.

Acting, writing and directing

Eden also worked as an actor. In 1979, he appeared in Jay Broad’s A Conflict of Interest, directed by José Ferrer at the PAF Playhouse in Huntington, New York.

In 1986, Eden wrote and directed Atlantic City Lost, a comedy-drama presented at the Quaigh Theatre in New York. The play concerned two confidence men living in an Atlantic City hotel during the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Reviewing the production for The New York Times, D. J. R. Bruckner discussed Eden’s writing and referred to his earlier career as a producer in Chicago and on the West Coast.

His directing work also included a production of West Side Story presented during a Leonard Bernstein festival.

Film and television

Eden appeared as an instructor in the 1973 film The Spook Who Sat by the Door.

He later worked as a theatre critic and commentator for Broadway Magazine, a television program carried by NBC’s Tempo cable service.

Ray Lonergan Memorial Library donation

In 2002, Eden donated more than 4,000 plays, books, periodicals and other theatre materials to the Ray Lonergan Memorial Library in the Chicago office of Actors’ Equity Association. Actors’ Equity reported that the donation doubled the size of the library’s collection.

The Actors’ Equity account described Eden as an actor, director, playwright and producer and summarized a career that included work at the Goodman Theatre, the Cleveland Play House, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the First Chicago Center Theatre and Broadway.

Selected works

Theatre

• The Rise and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter — producer
• Hughie — producer
• When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? — producer
• Sheba — producer
• A Conflict of Interest — actor
• West Side Story — director
• Atlantic City Lost — playwright and director

Film

• The Spook Who Sat by the Door — actor

Television

• Broadway Magazine — theatre critic and commentator

References

This page will be placed in the following categories if it is moved to the article namespace.

Categories:

• American theatre producers
• American theatre directors
• American male stage actors
• American dramatists and playwrights
• American theatre critics