Albany Park Theater Project is a multiethnic, youth theater ensemble creating original theater that inspires people to envision a more just and beautiful world. Founded in 1997 by David Feiner and Laura Wiley, APTP has won a devoted audience and earned critical praise by surpassing people's expectations of youth theater and creating adventurous work of intelligence, beauty, and significance. APTP
has created more than 50 original performance works and performed for more than 30,000 people. APTP has been recognized with the Coming Up Taller Award by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, hailed as “one of the true theatrical treasures of Chicago” by the Chicago Sun-Times, and featured in the Emmy Award-winning documentary, Beauty Rises: Four Lives in the Arts. As APTP ensemble members, teens become artists who are engaged with their community, think critically about their world, and create art with the goal of making the world more just. APTP provides youth development programs through which teens pursue the futures they dream. For most, youth development at APTP culminates with a free, comprehensive college counseling program. APTP teen artists have a 72% better high school graduation rate, a 42% higher college matriculation rate, and a 650% higher college graduation rate than the Chicago public schools average.
