American Players Theatre: World-class theater in Wisconsin

By Jonathan Abarbanel, The Windy City Times

Spring Green, Wisconsin—American Players Theatre celebrates its 40th anniversary next year. It's among North America's best destination theaters, set in the truly bucolic rolling hills of southeast Wisconsin, and it's an easy three-and-a-half-hour drive away. Even so, American Players Theatre remains undiscovered by many astute Chicago theatergoers who boast about visiting Canada's Stratford and Shaw festivals. I'm here to tell you folks: Go ( relatively ) local!

Located 40 miles due west of Madison, American Players Theatre ( APT ) is set on a hill near the south bank of the Wisconsin River, about one mile from Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Taliesin estate and artists' colony. You'll keep company with wild turkey, deer, chipmunks, hummingbirds and maybe a genuine Wisconsin badger. ( I spotted one recently. )

Spring Green itself is two miles away across the river. With fewer than 2,000 inhabitants, it still has true small-town charm unlike the too-crowded bustle of Stratford or the picture-postcard look of Niagara-on-the-Lake ( home, respectively, to the Stratford and Shaw festivals ). Downtown Spring Green has no parking meters and only one stoplight, but it does have several farm-to-table restaurants, a first-class bookstore ( Arcadia ), a couple of decent bar-and-grill joints ( The Shed, Freddy Valentine's ) and two old-fashioned general merchandise stores ( Nina's and Spring Green General Store ).

The 2018 APT season offers nine productions in rotating repertory, presented in the 1,089-seat outdoor Up-the-Hill Theatre and the indoor, air-conditioned, 201-seat Touchstone Theatre ( where performances continue through mid-November ). Matinees are only on weekends ( Friday-Sunday ), so visitors have days free to check out the Frank Lloyd Wright architecture; enjoy the wide, shallow and warm Wisconsin River ( canoe, tube, fish and/or swim ); or visit local artists and artisans or nearby Tower Hill State Park.

APT has a resident core company of 13 actors, some of whom have been with APT for over 20 years. Other actors are brought in each season, as well as guest directors, designers, composers, etc., although many have returned to APT time and time again. Several core company actors have worked in Chicago during the winter, while Chicago directors and designers frequently are found at APT ( among them, designers Kevin Depinet and Jesse Klug and composers Joe Cerqua, Victoria DeIorio and Andrew Hansen ).

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