Terry McCabe, Emeritus Artistic Director

Terry McCabe was City Lit's artistic director February 2005 through June 2024. He has directed plays professionally in Chicago since 1981. He was artistic director of Stormfield theatre for four years, resident director at Wisdom Bridge Theatre for five years, and worked at Body Politic Theatre three different times in three different capacities over a span of 14 years. His City Lit adaptations of Holmes and Watson, Gidget (co-adapted with Marissa McKown), The Hound of the Baskervilles, Scoundrel Time, and Opus 1861 (co-adapted with Elizabeth Margolius) were Jeff-nominated. He won two Jeff Citations for directing at Stormfield and has been thrice nominated for the Jeff Award for Best Director, for shows at Court Theatre, Wisdom Bridge and Victory Gardens. He has directed at many Chicago theatres either long-gone or still with us, as well as off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre and at Vienna's English Theatre. His book Mis-Directing the Play has been denounced at length in American Theatre magazine and from the podium at the national convention of The Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, but is used in directing courses on three continents and is now available in paperback. He is a member of the theatre faculty at Columbia College.