Cristina Panfilio

Chicago Shakespeare Theater announces today the extension of A Midsummer Night's Dream, now playing in the Courtyard Theater through February 3, 2019. Staged by internationally acclaimed director Joe Dowling, Shakespeare's beloved comedy is infused with raucous humor, dazzling dance numbers, and eclectic musical score blending rock, jazz, blues, rock, and '50s doo-wop.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater announces today the extension of A Midsummer Night's Dream, now playing in the Courtyard Theater through February 3, 2019. Staged by internationally acclaimed director Joe Dowling, Shakespeare's beloved comedy is infused with raucous humor, dazzling dance numbers, and eclectic musical score blending rock, jazz, blues, rock, and '50s doo-wop.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater presents a vibrantly reimagined A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by internationally acclaimed director Joe Dowling, in the Courtyard Theater, now through January 27, 2019. 

Chicago Shakespeare Theater presents a vibrantly reimagined A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by internationally acclaimed director Joe Dowling. Shakespeare's beloved comedy is infused with raucous humor, a striking visual landscape, and eclectic musical score blending rock, jazz, blues, rock, and '50s doo-wop.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater announces today the cast and creative team for a vibrantly reimagined A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by internationally acclaimed director Joe Dowling. Shakespeare's beloved comedy is infused with raucous humor, a striking visual landscape, and eclectic musical score blending rock, jazz, blues, rock, and '50s doo-wop.

Anyone who's taken a poetry class knows that there's so much more to poetic words than meets the eye. If you look the right way, there's often something grand underneath - a hidden meaning waiting to be discovered through focused reading and an open mind. Lauren Gunderson's soul-stirring I and You is indeed a poetry all its own.

Watch director John Langs discuss staging A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at American Players Theatre!

American Players Theatre re-imagines PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE, one of Shakespeare's lesser performed works, in an innovative new way-and critics are weighing in!

A FLEA IN HER EAR at American Players Theatre plays at the Hill Theatre until October 7. It features Nate Burger as Camille Chandebise, Cristina Panfilio as Antoinette, John Taylor Phillips as Etienne, Gavin Lawrence as Dr. Finache, Andrea San Miguel as Lucienne, Kelsey Brennan as Raymonde Chandebise, David Daniel as Victor Emmanuel / Poche, Marcus Truschinski as Tournel, Juan Rivera Lebron as Don Homenides de Histangua, John Pribyl as Feraillon, Rebecca Hurd as Eugenie, Tracy Michelle Arnold as Olympe, Jopnathan Smoots as Herr Stompf, Kipp Moorman as Baptistin, and Robert R. Doyle as Hotel Guest.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at American Players Theatre's newly renovated Hill Theatre brings a modern spin on this Shakespearean classic, which first played on the American Players Theatre stage thirty seven years ago.

American Players Theatre (APT) announces its 38th Summer Festival Season, June 10 - October 22, 2017, a diverse lineup of eight classical and contemporary plays in repertory that includes the return and work of visiting Chicago director and Jeff Award-winner William Brown taking on Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters in APT's newly renovated flagship 1140-seat outdoor amphitheater on the Hill. 

Written 30 plus years ago in 1985, the late Milwaukee playwright Larry Shue's award winning Foreigner first debuted at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. After playing Broadway in the 80's, and reprised by numerous theaters across the country on an annual basis, Foreigner returns to the Quadracci Powerhous for the holiday season. Directed by the inimitable Laura Gordon who understands Shue's incomparable blend of humor, relevance and warm heartedness, could re-envision this scenario in a rural Georgia bed and breakfast inn. At the Georgia inn, a British Sergeant, Froggy, rescues his low spirited and shy friend Charlie for a weekend's stay Here Charlie meets the winsome inn owner, Betty, a conspiring reverend, David Marshall Lee, his fiance Catherine, her younger brother, Ellard, and a rapscallion homegrown Georgian, Owen. Throw in Catherine and Ellard's recent inheritance, and the invisible white empire on a starry night, and Shue created a hilarious farce, even when seen several times.

When the audience arrives at American Players (APT) Up the Hill Theatre for the opening of William Shakespeare's King Lear, they might believe a presidential press conference will be staged. Green lawn expands into the audience, actors place contemporary white chairs in a distinct pattern and a glass podium greets the audience--and plenty of paparazzi appear to capture the King, the Duke of Gloucester and Duchess of Kent, and Lear's three daughters entering the lawn party. At night under the stars, the royal staging opens when the King appears announcing his 'retirement,' dividing his kingdom to his three progeny. Two dutiful daughters ascend to the podium pronouncing their love, while Cordelia speaks from the back row of chairs, the front of the Up The Hill Theatre. Goneril, Regan and Cordelia were 'dressed to kill', so to speak in sophisticated, fashion worthy coats and the appropriate fascinators, for English royalty, as were the men.This beginning places the audience firmly in a King Lear crafted for the current day, up to the very minute audiences.

n a year when the country tries to discern the truth about numerous politician's pasts, presents and futures, Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband attempts to make some sense of blackmail and corruption in the government institutions and individuals who serve their citizens. American Players Theatre takes their audiences Up The Hill for Wilde's summer visual delight. This fascinating production captivates the eye along with the ear dressing the cast in lavish period costumes designed by Matthew J. Lefebvre amid a cream and golden gilded stage, period rooms, courtesy of Scenic Designer Takeshi Kata.

Quite refreshing and revitalizing as a summer breeze, American Players Theater (APT) opened their 2016 Up the Hill season in Spring Green with a wild version of William Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. Directed by the well-known David Frank, this condensed Comedy revisits a slight nod to Lewis Carroll's 'The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland.' The production plays broadly by quoting  Shakespeare's verse with a tongue in cheek delivery also heightened by Victorian costumes designed by Fabio Tablini.  The imaginative designer envisioned two Dromios which might resemble Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, clothed in wide striped pants, vivid colored jackets and huge straw hats. The story set amid an Ephesus where square marble columns and a great gate placed on the left Up The Hill stage fashioned by Scenic Designer Nayna Ramey, gives Ephesus a rather dream like quality. 

American Players Theatre (APT) announces its 37th Summer Festival Season, June 3 - October 16, 2016, a diverse lineup of eight classical and contemporary plays in repertory that includes the return and work of two visiting Chicago directors: Derrick Sanders, founding Artistic Director of Congo Square Theatre Company directing The African Company Presents Richard III by Carlyle Brown in APT's intimate 200-seat Touchstone Theatre; and Jeff Award winner William Brown taking on William Shakespeare's King Lear in APT's flagship 1140-seat outdoor amphitheater on the Hill.

Windy City Playhouse, Chicago's newest professional theater, launches 2016 with the Chicago premiere of Nell Benjamin's slapstick farce The Explorers Club, set in a Victorian-era scientific gentleman's club. David H. Bell directs Cristina Panfilio (Chicago Shakespeare Theater's Pericles) as a female anthropologist vying for membership. Alex Goodrich (Elf: The Musical), Ryan Imhoff (Chicago Shakespeare Theater's A Midsummer Night's Dream), Matt Browning (Redtwist's Incident at Vichy), Graham Emmons (Prologue's Porcelain), Dan Rodden (Theater at the Center's On Golden Pond) and Zack Shornick (MPAACT's Ghosts of Atwood) make up the Club members, while Colin Morgan (Oracle's No Beast So Fierce) is Queen Victoria's private secretary and Wesley Daniel (Chicago Shakes' Pericles) is a blue-skinned primitive. Previews for The Explorers Club begin Wednesday, January 27, 2016 at Windy City Playhouse, 3014 West Irving Park Road. Press performances are Thursday, February 4 at 7:30 pm. and Friday, February 5 at 8 p.m. Tickets, $15-$55, are available by calling the box office at 773-891-8985 or visiting windycityplayhouse.com/the-explorers-club/

American Players Theatre (APT) is excited to announce its 37th season, which will run June 4 to October 16, 2016. In APT's flagship outdoor amphitheater, William Shakespeare will bookend the Hill season with The Comedy of Errors and King Lear. Also playing on the Hill: Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde and Arcadia by Tom Stoppard.

Marriage can be a foreign language. To some, the language comes easily. But, with time, the words can become meaningless as the motivation behind them lessens. The longer the relationship goes on, the more difficult it can become to comprehend the other person and know exactly what to say.

In the intimate American Players Theatre's (APT) Touchstone Amphitheater, Edward Albee's 1975 Pulitzer Prize winning play Seascape premiered on Saturday afternoon---perhaps with greater resonance in this century than when originally produced.. Director Laura Gordon returns to the drams after directing Milwaukee Rep's 2007 production in the Stiemke Studio along with APT company member Cristina Panfilio. Panfilio agian performed the role of Sarah, the coming up from the ocean floor lizard wife of Leslie. This stellar duo continues to define Albee's play with sensitivity and endearing wit, along with fellow actors Sarah Day, Jonathan Smoots and LeShawn Banks.