American Theater Company (ATC) was founded in July 1985 as a company dedicated to exploring, nurturing, and developing theater that addressed and affected the real working-class people of Chicago. From 1986 to 1993, ATC produced such critically acclaimed productions as The Hairy Ape; Rick Cleveland's Bad Moon; and Monsters and Monsters II, collections of commissioned monologues by Chicago playwrights including David Mamet. The Hairy Ape was hailed by Richard Christiansen of the Chicago Tribune as one of the three best shows of the year. In August 1993, the company leased a warehouse in the primarily working-class neighborhood of North Center as our home. Highlights include a hit revival of The Hairy Ape, Lisa Loomer’s Living Out (co-produced by Teatro Vista); a blue grass re-imagining of Oklahoma!; and our annual production of It’s a Wonderful Life: The Radio Play, which is now a Chicago holiday tradition and is broadcast annually on WBEZ Chicago Public Radio. In November 2007, ATC entered its most significant era of growth and transformation with an expanded mainstage season. Nationally recognized projects included the regional premiere of Speech & Debate (TimeOut Chicago’s top three production of 2008), Chicago premiere of The People’s Temple by members of the Tectonic Theatre Project, and an unprecedented repertory of African American and Caucasian productions of True West and Topdog/Underdog in collaboration with Congo Square Theatre Company. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune wrote, “An exciting new era. Demonstrably, ATC is now on a whole new track… comparable to what you’d see at America’s leading progressive theaters.” In March 2009, ATC recommitted itself to its mission of exploring a diverse and complex identity that reflects America today. In its first collaboration with About Face Theatre, ATC’s bold punk rock revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch broke all previous box office records with two extensions, cultivating a rich audience of all ages, sexual orientations and cultural backgrounds. In September 2009, ATC broke box office records again with the Chicago Premiere of Yeast Nation (the triumph of life), the new musical from the Tony Award winning-writers of Urinetown. In April 2010, ATC premiered 2010 Pulitzer Prize-finalist Kristoffer Diaz’s newest play, Welcome to Arroyo’s, which will move to The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego this fall. This spring, ATC celebrated its 25th Anniversary with The Silver Project, over 30 short plays about America. Over 33 playwrights were asked to choose a year from 1985 to 2010 and write a short play about America in that year. The writers included Craig Lucas, Neil LaBute, David Henry Hwang, Regina Taylor, Naomi Iizuka, and the first collaboration from the legendary Maria Irene Fornes in over ten years. The project engaged over 100 Chicago theater artists in five sold-out evenings and a weeklong marathon of all 33 plays performing in chronological order.

American Theater Company is an ensemble of artists committed to producing new and classic American stories that ask the question: “What does it mean to be an American?”

American Theater Company produces four to six mainstage productions each season, ranging from innovative interpretations of American classics to groundbreaking world premieres from some of the country’s leading playwrights. In January 2008, ATC launched three comprehensive outreach initiatives, American Mosaic, Bridge and Chicago Chronicle, in the 7th through 10th grades of 10 Chicago Public Schools. In American Mosaic, over 700 9th grade students study an American play in ATC’s mainstage season that explores identity, culture, historical events, or social issues. Over 25 teaching-artists partner with classroom teachers to analyze and explore the play with English classes by designing and performing scenes from the play on the actual set of the ATC production. Bridge provides 10th Grade students that excel at American Mosaic an opportunity to explore theater after-school by forming multi-cultural performance ensembles in their respective schools. Each ensemble creates an original play that expresses their collaborative views on American identity, which is presented together in an inter-scholastic festival at ATC. Chicago Chronicle combines eight professional playwrights with teenagers from Chase Elementary to create a documentary style play from interviews with community members in Logan Square. The plays are performed for the community by professional actors in staged readings at Chase and ATC. ATC offers an extensive series of new play development initiatives for local and national playwrights. ATC’s Literary Circle, a group of professional directors, dramaturges, and academic leaders from Chicago and the surrounding region, gather twice a month to discuss new work and select projects for potential development. Annually, ATC offers 8 to 10 workshops toward the development of new work. In addition, ATC offers three annual new play festivals: 10 x 10 Festival invites ten Chicago playwrights to write 10 ten-minute plays on events immediately happening in America. Big Shoulders gathers 10 short plays about Chicago from un-produced, unpublished Chicago writers. Finally, this summer, ATC has partnered with Black Box Acting Studio to present Unplugged, a repertory of three new plays in development. This program allows student actors to explore the process of working on a new play while playwrights experience their play on its feet for the first time. Finally, ATC has partnered with several organizations for the development of community-based collaborations. Through a collaboration with the National Public Housing Museum and Congo Square Theatre Company, The Project is a documentary-style play exploring the history of Chicago’s Public Housing through interviews with local residents, community leaders, and city officials. Through a collaboration with Collaboraction Theatre, ’68, is a multi-media, documentary-style exploration of the events surrounding the Chicago riots in the summer of 1968.