by Nathan Pugh

by Nathan Pugh

The Chicago area is well-known throughout the country for having a dense concentration of Equity theatres. One of these companies, operating on the Chicago Area Theatre Agreement, is Writers Theatre, located on Chicago's North Shore in the suburb of Glencoe, Illinois. The company has a long history of focusing on the power of language and literature as well as a history of performing in small venues. Within the past decade, it's also undergone large changes, with new performance spaces and a new artistic director transforming the way Equity members engage with productions.

Writers Theatre was founded in 1992 by Michael Halberstam and Marilyn Campbell-Lowe. The company originally produced their work in the back room of the bookstore Books on Vernon, a venue that could only seat around 50 people. Still, the artistic community there enjoyed being the "theatre in the back of a bookstore," and the theatre eventually added a second performance space in the Woman's Library Club building in 2003.

Since 2016, Writers Theatre has performed in a new facility in downtown Glencoe. The building was designed in collaboration with artists, and it retains an intimate quality: the Nichols Theatre seats 200–230 people, with some audience members' feet still on the stage.

Equity member Erik Hellman, a Chicago-area actor who's performed multiple times at Writers Theatre, said that the size of the venues is unusual for Equity productions in the area.

"For someone like me who grew up playing in these off-off-loop, non-Equity houses where you were playing for a small captive audience of 30 or 40 people – to be able to get that kind of intimacy and energy while also making a living wage, I don't know anyone else [besides Writers Theatre] who does it," he said.

Kate Lipuma has served as Writers Theatre's executive director for nearly 19 years, moving back to Chicago specifically to work with the company. She noted that throughout the company's history, they've prided themselves on their close connections to each other.

"Physically, our space is all about intimacy," Lipuma said. "It's sort of what we do, but it's also very much about how we do it – which means it's an intimacy with our relationships, with our artists, our staff, our board, our patrons. It's a very collaborative personal process, which I think is why you'll see a great amount of loyalty from the people who come back."

The Nichols Theatre includes a large thrust that's surrounded on three sides by audience members. Braden Abraham (the company's artistic director since 2022) said that performances can have an almost "cinematic" quality. This was especially true when Abraham directed the 2025 production of Brian Friel's classic Irish play Translations.

"I would encourage the actors to know that they can have all these private alliances and private looks to the people next to them," Abraham said. "Someone will pick up on that. We try to take full advantage of the expressiveness of the space and what it allows for, both in the things that everybody sees, and the things that perhaps only a few audience members will see."

Equity member Tyler Meredith performed as Maire in Translations, a character who undergoes what she called a moment of "extreme emotional intensity." Meredith appreciated the proximity of the audience onstage during those moments, and just the fact that she performed unmiked.

"Doing a play like Translations, that for my character is incredibly emotionally vulnerable and had some incredibly intimate moments, [the space] brings the audience in in a supportive way," Meredith said. "They feel so tangible when you're performing… Since they are so close, it allows you to rely on them in storytelling."

Hellman, who was also in Translations, noted that all performance styles are accepted within the Writers Theatre space.

"I can make a tiny little gesture and it can mean something to someone in the farthest reach of the theater, or I can make a large choice and know that it has weight in the room," he said.

Even with their focus on intimacy, Writers Theatre still produces ambitious musicals with large ensembles while still providing positive experiences for the workers.

Equity member Miranda Anderson has stage managed multiple large-production musicals at Writers Theatre, building off her experiences with productions employing actor-musicians. She said that Writers Theatre's production of The Band's Visit featured Equity members playing instruments alongside an offstage orchestra of union musicians. The company worked hard to ensure that the musicians union and Equity could collaborate while still feeling valued individually.

Equity member Matthew C. Yee has performed in multiple Writers shows, including its 2024 production of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812. Yee said the creative team took into account the fact that performing a sprawling two-act musical had the potential to be exhausting, and the team collaborated closely with the actors in choreography.

"The goal was, 'Let's make this show as doable as possible for you guys, so that we can show you off as best as we possibly can, but also make the show not a slog every time you do it,'" Yee said.

A recent production that showcased many of the strengths of Writers Theatre was As You Like It, a musical adaptation of the Shakespeare play by Equity member Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery. Anderson, who served as the stage manager, appreciated the queer elements of this production, which drew on the queerness in Shakespeare's original text but didn't feel didactic for the creative team.

"To be celebrating love in every form on stage is a really beautiful thing," Anderson said. "Without explanation, without apology, without agenda – just to do it is a really beautiful thing."

Equity members shared that a highlight of being in a Writers Theatre production is working within its building. Anderson appreciates the fact that stage managers have their own office, which offers her a "place to land" while also being accessible for other production members. She also enjoys the fact that the building is near a park, has a rooftop area and has plenty of spaces to rest within the theater itself during two-show days.

Lipuma said that this was all by design, and that creative team members were crucial in the construction of the space in 2016.

"The building was built in collaboration with over a hundred artists who helped us think about that space, and make sure that [it] would be comfortable for artists and give them a safe space to play, and had all the amenities that they needed to set them up to be successful," Lipuma said. For example, green rooms and rehearsal rooms feature floor-to-ceiling windows to provide as much natural light as possible for cast and crew members. All of this contributes to artists feeling a sense of "ownership in the space," Lipuma said.

Equity members acting in Writers Theatre productions have found the company to support both the creative and logistical elements of their productions. For example, Tyler Meredith appreciated that at one performance of Translations, 30 people from Ireland attended the show, and the play prompted deep discussions about the erasure and colonization of Northern Ireland. Meredith also acknowledged that Writers Theatre supported her after she performed her character's emotional breakdown, which included getting into a shower in full costume onstage. Meredith said the company provided "those little things that I don't think so many of us will ever take for granted being part of a union," including separate slippers and a robe to keep Meredith warm after performing.

Moving into the future, Lipuma said that Writers Theatre is focusing on their education and engagement programming, acknowledging that they needed to reintroduce themselves to the Glencoe community after the COVID-19 pandemic. They've created student matinees, a family matinee series targeted for children between 5–11 and a podcast featuring discussions with Writers Theatre artists.

Abraham notes that the mission of the Writers Theatre is in the name, and that they always focus on the words on the page. The company has a history of staging classic works by the likes of William Shakespeare and Tom Stoppard. Yet the theatre has also made an effort to expand the range of voices onstage – including contemporary members of the theatre canon like Sarah Ruhl, Katori Hall and Nilo Cruz, as well as dramatists setting their plays in Chicago like Madhuri Shekar's Dhaba on Devon Avenue.

Abraham said it's also important for Writers Theatre to include more world premieres in upcoming seasons, and to develop new plays in readings alongside their productions. (Writers Theatre has run a Literary Development Initiative since 2004.) "An investment in new work is an investment in the future of the American theatre and the art form," he said.

Erik Hellman said that he was drawn to theatre at a young age because it was a "listening medium" that allowed audiences to appreciate language. He sees Writers Theatre as a place fostering that same listening and intelligence.

"I think Writers has an audience base that comes in with the expectation that they're going to be presented with something that is going to require them to lean forward, and listen, and to pay attention," Hellman said.

"We want the experience coming to Writers to always be social and meaningful and fun, but those terms don't need to be narrowly defined," Abraham said. He continued, "You really should feel like the theatre has affected the way you look at the world, and that's what I hope for folks when they come to see our work. For actors, too, I hope that they can come here and feel like they can do their best work, they feel a sense of courage and vulnerability, and a sense that they can really practice their craft and be supported in it."

In addition to being a performer, Hellman is also a playwright, and he is developing a work about Victorian parlor seances. He sent a draft to staff at Writers Theatre, who helped set up a reading and offer notes. In December of 2025, Writers Theatre held a day-long workshop and presentation of the work.

Hellman appreciates the fact that the company sees him as both an actor and a playwright. Hellman moved with his wife (Equity member Jessie Fisher) to the Writers Theatre neighborhood about two years ago, and they were both looking for a new "home base" theatre. Writers Theatre encouraged them to bring back their musical variety show which hadn't been performed since the COVID-19 pandemic, and Hellman and Fisher performed the show in the Writers Theatre lobby.

"It's been made very clear to us that we matter to them on top of the fact that we're actors," Hellman said. "They want to invest in the relationship with us as whole artists, and not just as employees of the theatre. And that I think is the kind of caretaking that matters the most to me: being seen as something more like a collaborator."

Nearly all Equity members interviewed for this article described Writers Theatre as their "artistic home."

"My voice not only as a stage manager, but also as an artist in my own right, feels really valued here," Anderson said. "Collaboration is really valued here, and that's such a core of my upbringing in the industry that finding a place where that feels equally valued has been a real gift."

"To have so many sold-out houses and extended runs, it speaks so much to the work that [Writers Theatre] does," Meredith said. "The way that artists constantly want to work there, it speaks so much to the environment they create."