"The Pekin's heretofore neglected background and setting are amply supplied in this superb book. . . . [It] makes a truly important statement about how theaters were embedded in their communities and how the impact of a place such as the Pekin could affect the reputation and business prospects of its neighbors in extraordinary ways."
Thomas Riis, author of ... Read moreFrank Loesser "Impressive. . . . Anyone who is interested in African-American theater, or even in the history of social consciousness and art in Chicago, can benefit from this clearly written and well-researched exploration of a nearly forgotten playhouse."
South Side Weekly "Fascinating and enlightening."
Nick Digilio, WGN Chicago "An important contribution to the field. . . . Bauman's research is remarkable. Highly recommended."
Choice "Musicologist Thomas Bauman directs his prodigious research skills to reconstruct the rise and fall of a single (and singular) institution: Chicago's first black-owned theater, the Pekin. . . . Bauman painstakingly recreates a timeline of performances and offers a sense of the theater's critical reception in black and white newspapers, and understanding of its financial challenges, and a grasp of the role it played within the community." American Music "The Pekin is a comprehensive work that provides important insights into a lesser known period of African American theater history in Chicago. . . . This book is an important addition to the historical narratives on African American theater in the early twentieth century."
The Journal of African American History "It's clear from first glance that Bauman has done something extraordinary in filling in and out one of the biggest gaps in American theater history by narrating the social, cultural, and political biography of both Robert T. Motts himself and of his Pekin Theater of Chicago."
Vershawn Ashanti Young, author of From Bourgeois to Boojie: Black Middle-Class Performances Show Less