History

Theatre Y enters its 15th year as an artistic force, forging collaborations in Chicago and across the world and touring productions internationally from New York to Transylvania, in venues ranging from La MaMa’s experimental theater to prisons. Its model is unique in that for the last two years it has been entirely member-funded (much like public television/radio). These members, as well as Foundations like MacArthur, Driehaus, Donnelley, DCASE, and the Cliff Dwellers, allow us to provide open and free access to challenging dramatic pieces from some of the world’s leading playwrights.

Theatre Y was co-founded in 2006 by its current Artistic Director Officer Melissa Lorraine, who is also an acclaimed actor, and director Chris Markle who, until his death, worked with the towering masters of Eastern European theater. From the beginning, Theatre Y was called “one of the city’s most adventurous troupes and a conduit to the European performance scene” (NewCity Stage).

In 2015 Theatre Y became a unified 16 member ensemble around a year-long rehearsal of Macbeth at the Chopin Theatre, as part of Chicago’s Shakespeare 400 Festival in 2016. Trained and directed by Georges Bigot – once central to Ariane Mnouchkine's Théâtre du Soleil and one of France's most celebrated actors, Mr. Bigot has also formed ensembles all over the world including Tim Robbin's company in LA - The Actor's Gang.

Theatre Y is a physical theater whose ensemble has trained for 5 years in Tadashi Suzuki Movement, as well as other training intensives from masters across the world. This physical work has branched out into movement therapy for trauma rehabilitation across the city.

Lorraine is committed to continuously re-thinking the practice of theater while stretching and developing her growing Ensemble of artists in Chicago. Her “international laboratory” creates new and different cultural and civic encounters with people from all walks of life through each and every performance. “I’ve been intrigued by Theatre Y since I experienced their 2010 production of András Visky's JULIET in Chicago,” says former Chicago Reader Critic Tony Adler, a new Theatre Y board member. “I am a strong proponent of the Theatre Y vision and its enthusiasm for pushing boundaries, encouraging public discourse, and engaging audiences in new ways.”

In 2018, Theatre Y joined the Free Theatre Movement and presents their member supported work free of charge in their storefront space, “The Ready”, in Lincoln Square, and movement therapy for trauma rehabilitation in Chicago's prisons and hospitals.

Within our ongoing “international laboratory”, the Theatre Y ensemble of Chicago artists become increasingly agile and can pave the road for audiences to leave their comfort zones to learn and engage with new people and experiences. Theatre Y seeks to provide the most “immediate” theater experience possible. Through a combination of intimate staging, experimental productions, challenging international content, and a member-based public theatre model, Theatre Y holds a unique spot in the Chicago theater scene. With the addition of Mr. Adler to the board, the company will continue to forge its identity, sharpening its methods, and forwarding the FREE THEATRE MOVEMENT.

After 18 years our community has officially reached a quorum, a critical mass that generates its own energy; known in the marine biology world as bioluminescence. 

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If you have any questions please feel free to email info@theatre-y.com or call 773-908-2248.

We are so thrilled to have you with us in this.

The Theatre Y Ensemble

HORIZON

The newest and most rapidly expanding Theatre Y project is our Camino Project, which emerged from Theatre Y’s walk across Spain’s Camino de Santiago in 2017, a 500-mile pilgrimage route dating from the 9th century.  During this trek from the French border to Finisterre (Latin for “the end of the world”), we attempted to find in the ancient practices of walking and hospitality new possibilities of social life rooted in the fragility, care, and tempo of the body.  The Camino Project—a six-hour participatory experience—extends this investigation to Chicago audiences.

Theatre Y has partnered with The Bureau of Transient Affairs and veteran European choreographers Dénes Döbrei and Heni Varga to create a performative travel guide that immerses attendees in a walk designed to prepare them for travels both physical and internal, real and imaginary, alone and in improvised community.  It was one of the Top 5 Shows this August - Newcity Stage, and Reader Recommended: "Combines pilgrimage and theater - Theatre Y's ambulatory production stretches over six hours and five miles—and it's worth your time and effort.”

Directed by Theatre Y Artistic Director Melissa Lorraine, Conceived by dramaturg Evan Hill, and featuring the Theatre Y Ensemble, The Camino Project combined a five-mile walk through Chicago, a celebratory meal, and performative events that blended theater, dance, and performance art. The Camino Project is a thoroughly unique invention that challenges the confines of traditional spectatorship and asks audiences and performers alike to imagine how to be together beyond politics, beyond consumerism, and even beyond the theater itself.  "What a LIFE experience this production is!"  -Amy Munice (Picture This Post) Highly Recommended “...If you can take a walk on a wilder side--in all senses--in this writer’s view, theater experiences don’t get better than this. A dream come true.”

With support from MacArthur International Funds, The Camino Project was slated to be presented in Serbia in the summer of 2020 (Pending).  We have also been invited to create a “Caminos” in Casablanca, and are eager to continue exploring landscape interpretation around Chicago and the globe.