American Players Theatre
Misson Statement
American Players Theatre's mission is to perform timeless, challenging, poetic texts, with Shakespeare at its center, to the broadest audience possible. We strive to share our understanding that great poetry and stories, both from our past and from the emerging voices of the future, can illuminate the ever expanding experience of what it is to be human.
“American Players Theatre is the great open secret of American regional theater. Founded in 1980 in the tiny rural village that is also home to Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Wisconsin estate, APT produces nine plays each year, eight in the summer and one in the winter, performed in a handsome pair of theaters by a resident ensemble of 13 actors augmented by 31 summer-only performers, many of them company veterans as well. The repertory consists of classics and 20th-century masterpieces, and the audience is mostly drawn from the surrounding area. Surprisingly few people outside Wisconsin know of APT’s existence, yet it is America’s finest classical theater festival, unrivaled for the unfailing excellence of its productions. Nowhere else—not even in New York or Chicago—will you see such plays done more stylishly or excitingly.”