Learning Curve

  • Chicago Reader: “The School that Became a Theater that Became a School”

    Chicago Reader//Aimee Levitt: In a lot of ways, Ellen Gates Starr High School in Logan Square isn’t much different from other CPS neighborhood schools. Enrollment and funding are down, and the school is on probation: the results of standardized tests from this year, currently in session, will determine whether it stays open.

  • Impact 100 Awards APTP $100,000

    Impact 100 Awards APTP $100,000

    Albany Park Theater Project is honored to be the recipient of this year’s $100,000 Impact Grant from Impact 100 Chicago‘s suburban chapter. Impact 100 Chicago is a women-only organization with members from all parts of the Chicagoland area. The 180 members of the suburban chapter voted to award this year’s Impact Grant to APTP to support the full-scale, world-premiere production in 2016 of Learning Curve, an innovative performance about public education that will actually place audiences within the walls of a Chicago public school and in the shoes of its students. APTP is collaborating on this groundbreaking production with Third Rail Projects, the New York-based, experimental dance-theater ensemble considered one of the foremost creators of immersive and site-specific performance.

    Impact 100 members cast their votes after hearing live project presentations from 5 finalist organizations. APTP is proud to be the first-ever cultural organization to receive this chapter’s Impact Grant. All of us at APTP extend our deepest gratitude to the members of Impact 100 Chicago, especially the Culture Committee who selected us as their finalist and advocated for us. We promise that your investment in Albany Park Theater Project will truly make a difference in the world…and we can’t wait to share Learning Curve with you in 2016.

    APTP’s Impact 100 presentation was made by Lilia Escobar, an alum from our Class of 2013, and David Feiner, Producing Artistic Director.

  • “Ahead of the Curve”
    Morgan Greene, HowlRound

    “Ahead of the Curve”</br>Morgan Greene, HowlRound

    Albany Park Theater Project (APTP) has now produced over eighteen years of poetic, daring, justice-seeking work that has generated nineteen plays seen by 50,000 audience members, a yearly production slot at the Goodman Theatre, and an unrivaled reputation for the youth ensemble. APTP remains a theatre committed to authenticity, where the work is created from stories told by fellow community members—but they are always ahead of the curve. Before APTP, ensemble members Gustavo Duran, Kito Espino, Maria Velazquez, Chelsee Nava, and Kiara Lyn Manriquez thought theatre was “Shakespeare,” that it was “boring,” and that it wasn’t “for them.” But what they experienced at APTP was, as Manriquez described, “like nothing they had seen before.”

  • Learning Curve Behind the Scenes with
    Third Rail Projects’ Jennine Willett

    I met David Feiner, artistic director of Albany Park Theater Project, in the fall of 2013 after he wrote to Third Rail Projects about his experience at our show Then She Fell and inquired about meeting to chat about sharing this format with the APTP youth ensemble. Working with teenagers is not exactly in my comfort zone, but faced with David’s enthusiasm and excitement, I found myself just saying “Well, how about we just come out to Chicago and teach a workshop with your company?”

  • APTP Announces Two Productions for 2015

    APTP Announces Two Productions for 2015

    Albany Park Theater Project will stage two productions in 2015, the first highlighted by a new collaboration with Third Rail Projects and the second by a continued partnership with Goodman Theatre. Tickets for both productions go on sale in Spring, 2015.

  • APTP and Third Rail Projects: Immersive Theater in 6 days or less

    Already in less than 72 hours, APTP’s home theater and ensemble has transformed—school desks fill the building, furniture is dispersed across the theater, APTP teens interact with rooms and objects as though they are fellow actors, and the entire Eugene Field Park field house (which houses APTP) is evolving into a multi-floor, multi-room performance space. This week, APTP hosts New York’s Third Rail Projects to learn the art of immersive theater. By Saturday (less than 72 hours from now), APTP and Third Rail will reveal the original 40-minute performance experience they have co-created in just five days.