If any journalist could be said to have lit the spark for an artistic movement, that scribe was Richard Christiansen, longtime chief critic at the Chicago Tribune and perhaps the single individual who did the most to put homegrown Chicago theater permanently on the global map.
Christiansen died Friday, Jan. 28, at the Selfhelp Home on the North Side. He was 90 and had been living in recent years at the Chicago home, following decades of residence on Chicago’s Near North Side. His death was announced by longtime friend Sid Smith, a former arts critic at the Tribune.
