ALBANY PARK THEATER PROJECT

As a theater based in one of the country's most diverse neighborhoods, and a historical port-of-entry for immigrants, APTP has a vision for equity and inclusion in the arts. For 20 world premieres and counting, APTP has explored and challenged racism and prejudice, both personal and structural, by showing audiences worlds outside their own, represented by people with lived experience in those worlds, and based on the direct testimony of people about their own lives.

APTP has the following overarching goals for its work:
• Teen ensemble members will become proficient in the language of the arts and create dynamic theater that thrives in Chicago's theater landscape. This goal is measured through participation, the number of rehearsal hours, retention rate among the youth ensemble, and the artistic product of the ensemble.
• APTP teens will recognize their ability to lead lives of significance—and embrace what it takes personally and educationally to do so.
• Through creative drama and theater making, APTP will support social-emotional skills among students at two local middle schools.
• APTP's theater productions will highlight and amplify stories and voices that often go unheard, and in doing so, will foster dialogue about community issues and expand access to the arts to those who do not normally think of themselves as theatergoers.

Albany Park Theater Project was founded in the belief that the arts can play a significant role in building strong communities—and exceptional young people. APTP impacts up to 10,000 people per year through original theater created by the high school ensemble, youth development, and school-based programs.

The Creation of Original Theater: Collaboratively created by the high school-aged ensemble and its artistic directors, APTP’s performances are always inspired by real-life stories gathered through interviews conducted by company members. Youth ensemble members serve as ethnographers and artists, seeking out a wide range of real-life stories, which they then nurture into performance—considering multiple possible staging strategies and devising text, movement, and music ideas. The content and style of APTP’s performances demands and inspires an especially high degree of presence and stakes in its teen artists—they often remark that they’ve been entrusted with a sacred responsibility to do justice to someone’s story.

Theater Education: In order to maintain and further the company’s reputation for artistic excellence, ensemble members participate in intensive, year-round performance training, which is continuous throughout a teen’s tenure with APTP. APTP also emphasizes the appreciation and critique of artistic work by taking teen ensemble members to multiple arts events in Chicago each year. In all, teens in the ensemble spend 10-60 hours a week, year-round, for 4-6 years, creating art.

Youth Development: The creative process helps teens develop social-emotional skills such as critical thinking, the ability to set and achieve ambitious goals, teamwork, creative problem solving, and cross-cultural competency. APTP builds on those skills through youth development supports: mentoring, tutoring, leadership opportunities, college counseling, assistance in finding summer jobs and internships, and alumni support. APTP stands out for nurturing exceptional achievement in teens without pre-screening them—there is no selective admission process.

Middle School Programs: APTP holds in-school creative drama programs at three local public schools. The focus of these programs is on bridge building across cultures and supporting social-emotional skills. The programs include workshops for 7th-9th grade students and a year-ending public performance by those students for the entire student body, teachers, and families. Many of the students join APTP’s core ensemble once they reach high school.

Since its founding in 1997, APTP teens have created 22 original plays, performed for more than 50,000 people, opened their neighborhood’s first performing arts space, and toured to universities, festivals, and community organizations. Their artistry has earned numerous awards, including the Midwest Light of Human Rights Award from the National Immigrant Justice Center, the Coming Up Taller Award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, the inaugural Luis Valdez Award for Arts Activism from the Alliance of Latinx Theatre Artists, and the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. In 2018, APTP made its first international appearance at The National Theatre of Scotland’s Exchange Festival, the the only U.S. company invited to participate.

APTP has a reputation for consistently producing innovative, fearless, emotionally affecting theater, with rave reviews from Chicago's major critics and other theatrical observers. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune hails APTP as “one of Chicago's more remarkable artistic institutions," and Time Out Chicago says “the company's reputation for artistic excellence is well earned." Robert Falls, Artistic Director of the Goodman Theatre, calls APTP “one of the finest companies of its kind in the country." Learning Curve, APTP's most recent production that put audience members in the shoes of CPS students and teachers, was featured in The New Yorker and appeared on the 2016 “top ten" theater lists for The Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Time Out Chicago.

APTP performances bring people together across ethnicity, race, class, geography, and age. At 2016's production of Learning Curve, for example, 61% of audience members were under the age of 45, 41% were from households of low to moderate income, 45% identified as a race/ethnicity other than Caucasian, and close to 40% were new or infrequent theatergoers.

Offstage, APTP demonstrates the positive impact that participation in the arts can have on young people:
• 90% of alumni since 2015 are in college. All will be the first in their families to earn a degree.
• At least 60% of alums in college are anticipated to graduate by the age of 25, nearly matching the 80% rate for students from households in the top income quartile in the country.