Building Stage

The Building Stage is a theater company built around a performance space. It is in this space that we conduct theatrical explorations as well as create, develop, and unveil our new works. We also rent to other companies and create festivals for companies to develop and present their own pieces.The space maintains the intimate environment that is the hallmark of Chicago's off-Loop theater while adding a vertical dimension absent from most of the city's storefront spaces. It is an entirely flexible blackbox that can be set up to suit the needs of each individual creation.Not only is the space the physical center of our work, but it also serves as the symbolic center. We believe theater is made not written. And while every project has its own unique process of creation, each is driven by the spirit of investigation: to ask, through the action on stage, how a piece functions, how it is constructed, and what must be done to make it work. Whether applied to the staging of an original idea, the adaptation of literature and other media, or the reinterpretation of a pre-existing dramatic text, it is this approach to the work that defines us.