Janet Coleman brilliantly recreates the time, the place, the personalities, and the neurotic magic whereby the Compass made theater history in America. The Compass began in a storefront theater near the University of Chicago campus in the summer of 1955 and lasted only a few years before its players--including David Shepherd, Paul Sills, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, Barbara Harris, and Shelley Berman--moved on. Out of this group was born a new form:...