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This summer, APTP launched a two-year project to create Learning Curve, our first immersive theater production, in collaboration with Third Rail Projects, one of the foremost creators of immersive performance.
“What is Immersive Theater?” This video made by the American Theater Wing introduces you to some of the most talked-about immersive theater projects in recent years, including Then She Fell by Third Rail Projects.
Albany Park Theater Project (APTP), Chicago’s award-winning, multiethnic, youth theater ensemble, announces the launch of the company’s first-ever immersive theater project. The two-year project is expected to culminate in 2016 with APTP’s premiere of a large-scale, immersive theater performance, created and performed by youth ensemble members, exploring the theme of education, and taking place throughout the classrooms, hallways, offices, bathrooms, gymnasium, locker rooms, lunchroom – and, yes, even the theater – of a school. To kick off the project this summer, APTP will bring to Chicago the award-winning and widely acclaimed Third Rail Projects (TRP), creators of the long-running Then She Fell in New York. During a weeklong residency at APTP this August, TRP will train teen artists in the fundamentals of site-specific, immersive performance.
Albany Park Theater Project is seeking to expand our community of creative collaborators. We are looking for performing artists to come play with our youth ensemble this summer, to teach us new skills, deepen the skills we already have, and to broaden our sense of what is possible in performance.
Dwight Conquergood was a pathbreaking performance studies scholar and activist who became a dear friend to Albany Park Theater Project and many ensemble members. On the 10th anniversary of Professor Conquergood’s death, David Feiner, APTP’s producing artistic director, had the privilege to speak at “Cultural Struggles: A Symposium Honoring the Scholarship and Activism of Dwight Conquergood.” The Symposium took place at Northwestern University, where Professor Conquergood was on faculty for much of his career. David’s presentation shares some of the profound impact that Dwight had on APTP – and also details the making of APTP’s acclaimed production, Home/Land.
God’s Work began in a storytelling circle at our theater on Chicago’s northwest side, a space that is equal parts creative laboratory and second home for APTP’s youth ensemble members and adult artists alike.
Marta Popadiak, APTP Class of 2003, has made a career out of the passion for social justice that she developed at APTP. We interviewed Marta about her blossoming career as an organizer around progressive political issues and candidates in Minnesota.
We bid a bittersweet farewell this fall to APTP’s Class of 2013 as they embarked on their college careers: Jancillin Chacko to Coe College, Randy Dang to Northeastern Illinois University, Lilia Escobar to St. Olaf College, JP Marquez to Beloit College, Nichole Martinez to Wittenberg University, Stephany Perez to Kalamazoo College, and Raul Rico to Middlebury College. Most were APTP ensemble members for five years, since 8th grade.
Albany Park Theater Project visited The College of Wooster in Ohio as artists in residence for a long weekend in Fall 2013. As part of the College’s fall forum, “Facing Race,” APTP youth ensemble members performed select works from APTP’s repertoire for an audience of 300 students and faculty.
Paloma Morales joined APTP when she was thirteen years old, four years and three plays ago. Audiences will remember her as the young Ahlam selling her treasured dolls to audience members in Home/Land, and as the young heroine who loses her childhood home in I Will Kiss These Walls. Paloma took a break from rehearsals to reflect on APTP’s new play, God’s Work, and her four years with the company.