Victory Gardens Biograph Theater

Having moved in recent years to one of the city’s most coveted venues, the sumptuously renovated Biograph Theater, this company is Chicago’s highest-profile generator of new plays. Chay Yew, who succeeded longtime artistic director Dennis Zacek in 2011, has taken steps to reinvigorate Victory Gardens, shifting the dozen longstanding members of the company's Playwrights Ensemble to alumni status and bringing in new blood in the form of Philip Dawkins, Marcus Gardley, Samuel D. Hunter and Tanya Saracho. VG has also invited a passel of itinerant troupes into the building as resident companies, with Bailiwick Chicago, Rasaka Theatre Company, Sideshow Theatre Company and Teatro Vista making up the freshman class.