Mission
Vintage Theater Collective strives to dialogue with classic plays, typically producing new adaptations, focusing primarily on language and character to create a sense of immediacy and relevancy. It's not antique, it's refurbished, it's Vintage.
Collective Members
Company Bios
Katy Carolina Collins is a founding member and co-artistic director of the Vintage Theater Collective. Previous productions with Vintage include: A Wintertime Tale, Misanthrope, or the Impossible Lovers and Hedda Gabler. In Chicago she's worked with: Steppenwolf, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, New Beast Theater, and The Building Stage. Regionally has worked with: Guthrie Theater, Shakespeare on the Cape, Theater de la Jeaune Lune, and The Minneapolis Playwrights Center. She graduated with her BFA from the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater Acting Training Program.
Jason Economus is an actor, writer, teacher, stand-up comic and director. Chicago credits include: Shear Madness at the Chicago Theater, and he has worked with The Building Stage, Buckeye Tree Productions, New Beast Theatre Works, Library Theatre and Chicago Fusion Theatre. Regionally he has worked with Milwaukee Shakespeare and Door Shakespeare. Jason can be seen out in the rockin’ Chicago Stand up/Improv comedy scene any given week.
Eric Powell Holm (playwright bio) has directed and adapted Misanthrope, or the Impossible Lovers and A Wintertime Tale with Vintage. In 2005, he co-founded Shakespeare On The Cape in Provincetown Mass, and over four seasons, directed Twelfth Night or What You Will, Romeo and Juliet, School For Wives, Cloud 9, The Tempest, and the world premiere of Tennessee Williams’ long-lost one-act The Parade, Or Approaching the End of a Summer (co-directed with Jef Hall Flavin). In Minneapolis, he directed Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play and the Midwest premiere of Christopher Shinn’s Dying City. Eric is a proud graduate of the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program and is a founder of The Strange Capers in Minneapolis.
Gregory Isaac has lived in Chicago for eight years, appearing in productions at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare, Steppenwolf Theatre, Backstage Theatre, About Face, TimeLine Theatre, and Writers’ Theatre, among others. He has worked regionally at the Alliance Theatre, the Shakespeare Festival of Dallas, the Georgia Shakespeare Festival, and he most recently performed with Vintage in A Wintertime Tale. This fall Greg will be joining Lifeline Theater to portray Heathcliff in a new adaptation of Wuthering Heights.
Rachael Jenison is a founding member and co-artistic director of the Vintage Theater Collective. Previous productions with Vintage include: A Wintertime Tale, Misanthrope, or the Impossible Lovers and Hedda Gabler. In Chicago she has worked with the Goodman Theatre, New Beast Theater, Bailiwick Director’s Festival, Library Theater, and the Irish American Heritage Center. Regionally she has worked with Theatre de la Jeune, Great River Shakespeare Festival, and the Madison Repertory Theater. She graduated from the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program. She will be attending the Old Globe / USD MFA Program starting fall 2010.
Steve Lenz was last seen with Vintage in their production of A Wintertime Tale and also joined them to create Misanthrope, or the Impossible Lovers. Other Chicago credits include; Lookingglass Alice (Lookingglass); Macbeth, Cymbeline, Short Shakespeare Comedy of Errors (Chicago Shakespeare Theater) Much Ado About Nothing, Robin Hood (Oak Park Festival Theatre); It's a Wonderful Life (American Theater Company); What's Behind Our Eyes (Erasing the Distance); and Peer Gynt, Machinal, Waiting for Lefty and Henry V (Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University). Film credits include I. A.M. Strong (Technisonic) and Red Dawn (MGM).
Michael Mercier graduated from the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program. Since arriving to Chicago, he’s had the pleasure of working with Vintage on Misanthrope, or the Impossible Lovers: Remount and A Wintertime Tale. Also with Halcyon Theatre’s Alcyone Festival. Regional credits include: Great River Shakespeare Festival, Minnesota Centennial Showboat, and the Minneapolis Theater Garage. He was the directing intern for The Guthrie’s Two Gentlemen of Verona directed by Joe Dowling. He can be seen this summer in the Asymmetry Cycle at the Viaduct Theater.
Remy Ortiz Past Credits include: El Grito del Bronx (Teatro Vista / Goodman Theater), A Big Blue Nail, A Park in Our House (Victory Gardens), Para Carmen (Collaboraction), Facing the Rain (Erasing the Distance), & Romeo & Juliet (Absolute Shakespeare), Stankface (Chicago Dramatists). Film credits include: Ride Along (FOX).
Kelley Ristow was last seen in Vintage’s A Winter Time Tale. Some of the theaters Kelley has worked for in the past include Georgia Shakespeare, Milwaukee Shakespeare, and Theater Wit. Upcoming she will be in the Asymmetry Cycle at the Viaduct Theater.
Adam Soule Credits include Misanthrope, or the Impossible Lovers:Remount (Vintage), A Wintertime Tale (Vintage), Not About Heroes (The Library Theatre at Feltre), Bloody Poetry (Idle Muse), Romeo + Juliet, Misalliance (Publick Theatre), Orson’s Shadow (New Rep), The Sweetest Swing In Baseball (Boston Theatre Works), Burn This and The Winter’s Tale (Devanaughn) Macbeth, Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing (Commonwealth Shakespeare). Adam can be seen this summer in a national Sears commercial.
Collaborators
Marcel Williams Foster - Development Advisor
Graphic Design by Caitlin Wicker and Jessica Huston
Photography by Carey Primeau