First Floor Theater

Some of FFT's founders in the (very) early days.

​Back in the Spring of 2012, with a number of other University of Chicago students, I co-founded First Floor Theater in Chicago. We did our first production as a one-off on a small budget, and  went from there. We have been producing in the city ever since.

For my work on the leadership team at FFT, I was named one of the Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago in 2019. 

FFT is my artistic home in Chicago, and I am very grateful for the efforts of the other members of our staff and company, past and present. In collaboration with dozens of other artists, we've made a lot of great theater over the years.

Currently, I work as the Artistic Producer at First Floor Theater. I provide artistic and producorial support for our main stage productions. Previously I had served as the Director of New Works, where I helped create The Blueprint Commission and FFT's pop up programming. See below for more information on some of the projects I've produced. You can find more information at firstfloortheater.com.

For any inquiries related to my work as a producer, or work with First Floor Theater, please contact me at andrewcutler@firstfloortheater.com.

The Blueprint Commission

​
​In 2020 and 2021, First Floor Theater did not produce on our usual model. We made the collective decision to prioritize the health and safety of our artists and our audiences. Fortunately, we were able to use this time to look to the future.

We decided to dedicate our resources and time to helping foster new plays. I am the artistic producer on the project, but the work would not happen without the full team at FFT.

Made possible by a generous gift from Michael and Mona Heath, The Blueprint Commission aims to break new ground for the American Theater. Through an extensive development process which includes two dedicated workshops over the life of the commission, the program provides resources for commissioned writers and a team of theater artists to bring new, daring plays into being.

In the inaugural year, we commissioned and workshopped Ariel Zetina's The House of Audacity! The play is a reimagining of Mother Courage, coupled with elements To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, and Medieval pageant plays. We incorporated designers into the second workshop, helping to more fully realize Ariel's vision, even at such an early stage of the process.

Currently, we have commissioned Omer Abbas Salem, whose project is in pre-production. Workshops will take place later this year, culminating in a public reading in early 2023.

Pop Up Productions

First Floor Theater has always been an organization that fosters experimentation. As a group, we have a strong affinity for new plays, and bringing new ideas to our audiences.

After several seasons where we focused almost entirely on main stage productions or play festivals, in that spirit of experimentation, I was looking for a way for the company to play with time and space. 

In 2019, we were able to realize the idea. In the spring of that year, I worked as the primary producer on our first ever pop up show, Killed a Man (Joking) by Beth Hyland, in collaboration with The Sound. In the Spring of 2020, FFT followed it up with another pop up, Vape Naysh by Brynne Frauenhoffer. 

Both plays were under an hour, and took place in Rigby's Lounge at the Den Theatre in Chicago. In addition to the experiments with time and space, they both allowed their respective writers to create projects that spoke to immediate cultural moments.

By keeping our footprint smaller, we were able to create work that was hyper relevant to our audience. 

​Keep an eye out for more pop ups in the future.