Chicago is known for being a pioneer in the storefront theatre movement, in which small, upstart theatre companies take over gutted-out storefronts or other similar spaces to stage their productions. Fittingly, North Park鈥檚 theatre program is designed around the storefront model, providing students with hands-on training in the full spectrum of skills required to stage plays in such intimate and unique settings.
One such Chicago-based theatre company is InGen, whose 鈥渆nsemble of artistic engineers鈥� is composed of more than a few North Park alums. Founded by Tai Palmgren and North Park alumnus Joseph Schupbach C鈥�06 in 2012, InGen has produced 14 full productions, two staged readings, and one festival. The founding members include seven North Park graduates, while 23 in total have worked with the company.
InGen鈥檚 driving concept is to 鈥渃reate live events that recreate collective memory and shared experience for audience members,鈥� Schupbach says. The company does so by adapting contemporary popular texts, including film, television, and popular music, for the stage.
InGen鈥檚 recent production, Bangarang! A Neverland Reunion, which ran at The Den Theatre last August, reinvented the popular 1991 film Hook, set to a live performance of the music of Fleetwood Mac.
鈥淚 found that the sordid, complicated, and nostalgic narratives of the Fleetwood Mac discography and actual history of the band partnered well with the complicated relationships in the Peter Pan canon,鈥� Schupbach says of the inspired, if unconventional, pairing. 鈥淯ltimately, both texts explore growing up, forgiveness, evolution, and self-interrogation.鈥�
Schupbach, who is currently pursuing his MFA at the University of California, Davis, says his favorite aspect of working with InGen is collaboration, a strength that he values from his North Park education.
鈥溌芾蛏� Theatre trains students to be go-getters, to wear many hats, and to develop and support a robust and caring ensemble,鈥� says Schupbach, a teacher who uses many of the techniques he learned at North Park in his own classroom. 鈥淭hat is essential to all collaborative work and certainly essential to InGen.鈥�