Late last month, after 23 of 28 American Theater Company ensemble members—including three founders—announced their mass departure to form a new theater, citing “administrative and artistic differences,” ATC’s artistic director PJ Paparelli offered an explanation of his own. In an interview reported by Chris Jones on his Chicago Tribune blog, Paparelli said, “Our title says that we’re an American theater, and that has to include Americans of all races, ages, and sexual orientations. That means you have to make the programming multicultural. That shift was difficult because when you only have four or five shows a season, that means fewer opportunities for some.”
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Paparelli joined the company 18 months ago, after three years as artistic director at Juneau’s Perseverance Theater, the only professional company in Alaska. He looked like a rising star. In 2007 he’d staged the world premiere of Yeast Nation, by Urinetown creators (and former Chicagoans) Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann, and Columbinus, a play he cowrote, had earned favorable reviews in New York and was about to be produced in Chicago by Raven Theatre. Paparelli had a reputation for engaging younger, more diverse audiences, and word is that the ATC board, which was about to embark on a capital campaign for a new building, thought he’d be an asset to that project. The ensemble interviewed him and were initially enthusiastic. He talked about collaboration, members say, and they thought that meant he’d work with them.
A late change in this season’s lineup was a bone of contention. Paparelli had initially scheduled Yeast Nation for the spring slot, but then put it off until next season and—in a decision that mystified many in the company—substituted Hedwig and the Angry Inch, with out-of-towner Nick Garrison in the title role.
In late February, without regard to a dismissal procedure added to the theater’s charter at Paparelli’s insistence, Buddeke got an e-mail saying “the board has decided that you shall no longer be a member of ATC’s Ensemble, effective immediately…. [I]t is our decision that this action is necessary for the future of the organization.”
“I think the board feels very strongly about the mission and the vision and feels that it’s not just the ensemble’s theater, but it’s all of our theater collectively—and that was a shift, because I think the ensemble feels very strongly that it’s their theater. And frankly, that’s insulting to people on the staff, people on the board, and our audience members. A theater company is the sum of all of its parts.”
