Truman College
1145 West Wilson Avenue
Truman College, formerly Mayfair College, is one of the City Colleges of Chicago.
The current Truman College campus’ main building was built in 1976 and was designed by John Moutoussamy, a pioneering Chicago architect who worked in a modernist style. Moutoussamy was the first Black architect to design a high-rise building in Chicago and the first Black architect to have a partnership in a major architectural practice. The College was renamed after Harry S. Truman, the 33rd president of the United States, upon the opening of the building. College classes had previously met in Chicago Public Schools buildings since 1956.
Neighborhood buildings were demolished to construct the College, including apartment buildings in the 4400 block of N. Clifton where scenes in Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool (1969) were filmed. Chicago writer Robert Loerzel documented these Uptown scenes in Medium Cool in a series of social media posts and photographs in 2019, 2020, and 2024.
The Pegaus Players (now Pegasus Theatre Chicago) were founded in 1978. According to a 1980 schedule and brochure, the Pegasus Players “began as a student-faculty effort at Truman College, resulting from a combination of a drama and creative writing class.” According to its website, Pegasus has received 77 Joseph Jefferson Citations, known as “Jeff Awards” or “Jeffs” which are the Chicago equivalent of Broadway’s Tony Awards. The company’s website notes that it “is committed to providing a quality arts experience to those who would normally be denied it, such as inner-city school students and low-income senior citizens.” According to a December 9, 2010 article by Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune, the company was “moribund” for several months in 2010.
From 1984 - 2014 the company called the O’Rourke Theatre at Truman College its home. During this time Truman was the home of Pegasus Players’ Young Playwrights’ Festival, which continues in Pegasus’ new home on Chicago Avenue. Now in its 36th year, the Festival has staged and inspired the work of hundreds of young playwrights who live in or attend school in the City of Chicago. According to Pegasus’ website, the Jeff committee “awarded the first-ever Jeff citation to an outreach program” to Pegasus for its service to Chicago’s disenfranchised, and the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs recognized the Young Playwrights’ Festival for its outstanding contribution to the arts and outreach efforts. Each year young playwrights submit their plays for an April deadline. After several rounds of evaluation and judging, three or four young playwrights are selected and their works are performed as part of Pegasus’ mainstage season. Over the years, Pegasus has produced plays from over 75 young playwrights.
Contests like the Young Playwrights’ Festival and the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame’s Randy Albers Awards are vital to the community. They provide opportunities and inspiration for young writers and help cultivate new voices to contribute to and strengthen Chicago’s long and impressive literary tradition.
