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BoHo Theatre (incorporated as Bohemian Theatre Ensemble) was a non-profit Chicago-based theatre company. It was in operation from 2003 to 2023.
The company was founded by artistic director Stephen Genovese until 2010, when he was succeeded by artistic director Peter Marston Sullivan. The last artistic director was Stephen Schellhardt.
BoHo Theatre's mission was "to create bold theatre that challenges convention through innovative storytelling and unites artist and audience in the examination of Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Love through the lens of human relationships." [1] The Company presented plays and musicals in a variety of genres and considers itself an incubator for up-and-coming Chicago talent. [2] Over its years of operation, the company's productions were nominated for 82 non-Equity Jeff Awards (winning 19), including 5 Jeff Award for the Stephen Schellhardt directed Big Fish in 2019. Boho also won five After Dark Awards, and a Black Theatre Alliance Award. [1] In 2013, BoHo Theatre received a Business Leadership Award from the Rogers Park Business Alliance. [3]
Due to changing theatre models in Chicago and the Pandemic shutdowns, Boho Theatre closed its doors in May of 2023 after 19 years of creative, innovative and challenging productions.
The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise. It is the oldest improvisational theater troupe to be continuously based in Chicago, with training programs and live theaters in Toronto and New York. Since its debut in 1959, it has become one of the most influential and renowned in the English-speaking world. In February 2021, ZMC, a private equity investment firm based in Manhattan, purchased the Second City.
The Neo-Futurists are an experimental theater troupe founded by Greg Allen in 1988, based on an aesthetics of honesty, speed and brevity. Neo-Futurist theatre was inspired in part by the Italian Futurist movement from the early 20th century. Originating in Chicago, branches of the Neo-Futurists also exist in New York City, San Francisco, and London.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theater company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Immaculate Conception grade school in Highland Park, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on Halsted Street. The theatre's name comes from Hermann Hesse's novel Steppenwolf, which original member Rick Argosh was reading during the company's inaugural production of Paul Zindel's play, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, in 1974. After occupying several theatres in Chicago, in 1991, it moved into its own purpose-built complex with three performing spaces, the largest seating 550.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) is a non-profit, professional theater company located at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois. Its more than six hundred annual performances performed 48 weeks of the year include its critically acclaimed Shakespeare series, its World's Stage touring productions, and youth education and family oriented programming. The theater had garnered 77 Joseph Jefferson awards and three Laurence Olivier Awards. In 2008, it was the winner of the Regional Theatre Tony Award.
Theater in Chicago describes not only theater performed in Chicago, Illinois, but also to the movement in Chicago that saw a number of small, meagerly funded companies grow to institutions of national and international significance. Chicago had long been a popular destination for touring productions, as well as original productions that transfer to Broadway and other cities. According to Variety editor Gordon Cox, beside New York City, Chicago has one of the most lively theater scenes in the United States. As many as 100 shows could be seen any given night from 200 companies as of 2018, some with national reputations and many in creative "storefront" theaters, demonstrating a vibrant theater scene "from the ground up". According to American Theatre magazine, Chicago's theater is "justly legendary".
Chay Yew is a playwright and stage director who was born in Singapore. He was artistic director of the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago from 2011 to 2020.
Lifeline Theatre was founded in Chicago, Illinois, United States in 1983 by five Northwestern University graduates: Meryl Friedman, Suzanne Plunkett, Kathee Sills, Sandy Snyder Pietz, and Steve Totland.
Frank Condon, MA, MFA, is a playwright and theatrical production director, the founding Artistic Director of River Stage, in Sacramento, California, and a professor of theatre at Cosumnes River College. Condon is best known for bringing controversial plays to the theatre.
McCarter Theatre Center is a not-for-profit, professional company on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. It was incorporated as a nonprofit in 1963. A two-time Tony Award winner, the McCarter’s legacy traces back to the theatre’s first performances in 1930. Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, Kaufmann and Hart’s You Can't Take It With You, and William Inge’s Bus Stop all had their premieres on the McCarter stage.
The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep, is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for producing avant-garde plays by contemporary writers. The company, described as a "cultural pillar", is currently located in a 65-seat theatre in the TriBeCa section of lower Manhattan. The company, and the projects it has produced, have won multiple prizes and earned critical acclaim, including numerous Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Drama Critics' Circle Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. A recent highlight was winning the Drama Desk Award for Sustained Achievement for "nearly four decades of artistic distinction, innovative production, and provocative play selection."
The Celebration Theatre is a 501(c)(3) non-profit theatre company in Los Angeles, founded in 1982. The company is located in West Hollywood, on the west end of Theatre Row, and specializes in works representing the LGBTQ+ experience.
Oracle Productions was a Chicago, Illinois based theatre company founded in 2001. Oracle moved into a storefront space at 3809 N Broadway in June 2006. In 2010 Oracle moved to a theater model dubbed "Public Access Theatre". Their "store front" style influenced the first shop front theatre of the UK. Oracle ceased operations at the end of 2016 citing personal changes for their Executive Producer and Director.
Founded in 1991, Theatre at the Center is a year-round professional theatre in Munster, Indiana. They offer a performing arts series, a children's theatre program, and serve as hosts for special programs that enhance cultural opportunities in Northwest Indiana. As part of the Ridgewood Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit company, it is Northwest Indiana's only professional equity theatre and is located 35 minutes from downtown Chicago.
Timothy Sheader is a British theatre director. Sheader read Law with French at the University of Birmingham before moving into a career in theatre. He has been Artistic Director at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre from 2007 to 2024. He became Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse in 2024.
Chicago Dance Crash is an American physical theater and street dance company based in Chicago, Illinois. The company tours year round while sustaining a calendar year ‘season’ of local premiers and commercial work as well as a spring/fall educational outreach program. The company has received widespread critical acclaim while being considered one of the most notable American dance companies to emerge during the first decade of the 2000s.
The Sacred Fools Theater Company is a Los Angeles–based theatre company and nonprofit organization. Founded in January 1997, the company is a member organization of the LA Stage Alliance.
Porchlight Music Theatre is a professional theatre company in Chicago, Illinois that has won numerous Joseph Jefferson Awards in its 25-year history. The company has come to embody the slogan "American musicals. Chicago style".
Derek Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American filmmaker and playwright best known for his 2016 feature film The Housemaid , which was shot in Vietnam and produced by CJ E&M Film Division, HKFilm, and Timothy Linh Bui.
Steep Theatre Company is a not-for-profit theatre company located in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 2000 by Peter Moore, Alex Gillmor, and Alex Gualino, Steep has become known as one of Chicago's iconic ensemble-based storefront theatres. Chicago is known for its brand of bold, collaborative, actor-driven theatre in intimate venues scattered throughout the city's many neighborhoods, and Steep is an embodiment of this theatrical movement. The ensemble has produced over 60 plays and cultivated a growing community of artists and audience members. In 2019, through a gift from the Bayless Family Foundation, Steep announced it would become an Equity theater.
