Kathleen Thompson (1946-2024)
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Co-founder and Artistic Director of Chicago's Commons Theatre, founder of Chicago’s first feminist bookstore Pride and Prejudice, playwright, journalist, prolific author and activist Kathleen Thompson has passed away at the age of 78. Kathleen founded Chicago's Commons Theatre in 1980, along with actor Judith Easton and Mike Nowak, her partner of 46 years.
She began her time in Chicago theatre in 1977, when she assistant directed the Chicago production of Wendy Wasserstein’s UNCOMMON WOMEN AND OTHERS at the fabled St. Nicholas Theater, alongside Mike Nussbaum. A lifelong feminist, Kathleen was one of the first female artistic directors at a Chicago theatre. Commons Theatre produced new work – including eight of Kathleen's plays, including CAUGHT IN THE ACT, A TWO STORY HOUSE, I SHALL LOVE YOU FOREVER, A TWO STORY HOUSE, COULD THIS BE HEAVEN?, PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS, SIDEKICKS, KINDNESS and the film noir homage DASHIELL HAMLET: THE CLASSIC MYSTERY, which she cowrote with Nowak, Mike Nussbaum, and Paul Thompson. She met her partner Nowak when they were both students of Nussbaum's at St. Nicholas; she went on to teach playwriting at Chicago Dramatist Workshop for 10 years alongside Nowak. Kathleen’s first book was the 1974 feminist classic “Against Rape”, co-written with Andra Medea. In the 70s, Kathleen toured the country to educate people about rape; the book emerged from the first Midwest conference about rape organized by woman’s group Medea; and it broke the silence about rape around the world. It was banned by the apartheid-era South African government, a fact Kathleen would often say was one of her proudest accomplishments as a writer. The book had seven printings and was later serialized in hundreds of newspapers across the United States. It remained in print until 1990 and was used in rape crisis centers and woman’s studies college courses for many years. Her other books include “Feeding on Dreams” (1994) about the harmful exploitation of the US diet industry, landing her on The Oprah Winfrey Show for the first time. She went on to co-edit Facts on File’s “Encyclopedia of Black Women” (1997) and co-wrote the first narrative history of American Black women, “A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America” (1998), with preeminent historian Darlene Clark Hine. In 1999, Kathleen began her years-long collaboration with Hilary Mac Austin, co-authoring three print documentaries “The Face of Our Past: Images of Black Women from Colonial America to the Present” (1999), “Children of the Depression” (2000) and “America’s Children: Picturing Childhood from Early America to the Present” (2001). “The Face of Our Past” resulted in her second appearance on Oprah. Their final book together was “Examining the Evidence: Seven Strategies for Teaching with Primary Sources” (2014), which won a Learning Magazine Teachers Choice Award in 2016. After reading the “Bitch Manifesto” essay in the book “Notes From the Second Year: Women’s Liberation”, she opened Pride and Prejudice, the first feminist bookstore in Chicago. Pride and Prejudice became a springboard for a feminist collective that included a women’s rap group, pregnancy testing and abortion counseling as a part of the underground abortion group, the Jane Network. The collective also produced “The Source”, a women’s liberation directory. Pride and Prejudice evolved into The Women’s Center, expanding to host an artists’ collective, musical performances, a lesbian counseling center and a place to hold Family of Woman dance events. Kathleen – a proud bi-sexual – and attended the early Chicago Pride marches and demonstrations. in 1987, she co-founded the educational development house Sense and Nonsense with her sister-in-law, Jan Gleiter. In 2003, Kathleen created the non-profit One History in 2003 with the goal to provide accurate historical information for students and teachers. She also wrote over 100 children and young-adult focused books. A gardener and environmentalist later in life, Kathleen and her husband were a driving force in their neighborhood garden, Green on McLean, which became a fixture in the Logan Square neighborhood, helping to drive gang members away from the area, and for which they received an award from the 14th District Chicago Police for their role in removing the gang presence from the neighborhood. In an effort to preserve early ‘70s Chicago LGBTQ+ and feminist movement history, Kathleen arranged for lesbian photographer Eunice Hundseth’s photographs to become part of the Newberry Library’s permanent collection in July 2020. Kathleen was born in Chicago, moving to Oklahoma City in 1951. She attended Northwestern University where she earned her bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1968. Kathleen was active in the anti-war movement against the Vietnam War, and was in Grant Park during the 1968 DNC – but not injured or arrested. Kathleen is preceded in death by her parents and sister Sara Thompson, and survived by Nowak, brothers Paul (Jan) and Michael (Shirley) Thompson and sister Tracy (Steve) Moncure, many nieces and nephews and countless chosen family members and friends. Friends offered these remembrances: Kathleen had a brilliant mind, a gift for finding beauty, and for encouraging others to create. She made it look easy. But behind it all, was fierce hard work…During her stay in the hospice, we read one of Kathleen’s mysteries. It was filled with love: Foster Avenue at midnight during the 1980s; Svea’s Diner after the breakfast crowd; the sound of actors spilling out of a storefront theatre in the quiet after a show. Starving writers, scruffy actors, kids out where they shouldn’t be. Kathleen loved this town.” Many thanks to Albert Williams and Windy City Time for their coverage. |