Glenna Syse, a respected Chicago theatre critic who covered arts and entertainment for the Sun-Times over three decades, died March 4, the Sun-Times reported.

Ms. Syse was 73 and died of a brain tumor. She joined the Sun Times in fall 1954 after writing about and reviewing the arts for The Seattle Times. She was a Saskatchewan, Canada, native who was trained as a pianist at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

Ms. Syse was described as a tireless reporter and critic who, along with Richard Christiansen, helped shed light on the growing resident theatre community in Chicago, including tiny storefront venues, scrappy non-Equity companies and several troupes that would become major players in American regional theatre — The Goodman Theatre, among others. She retired in the late 1980s.

She served on juries for The Pulitzer Prize, the Tony Awards and Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Awards. Ms. Syse's marriage to the late news writer Norman Syse ended in divorce. There are no survivors. A memorial service is being planned.

— By Kenneth Jones