Asked to list the most important Chicago playwrights, few of today’s Chicagoans would mention Theodore Ward, a name they perhaps have not heard at all. A trip to Hyde Park for the remarkable South Side family drama “Big White Fog” at Court Theatre, though, would likely correct that oversight.

Director Ron OJ Parson’s staging, which employs some 17 actors, sure opened my mind to this play, which I had never seen and read only in college when studying the WPA’s Federal Theater Project, of which this play was part.

Ward had a fascinating life. Born in Louisiana, he was both a shoeshine and a bellboy before finding his way (via a scholarship to the University of Wisconsin) to Chicago and its South Side Writers Club. His was a very different background than that of Lorraine Hansberry, a fello

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