Cave Painting Theater Company was founded in 2012 by Gwen Kelly-Masterton and Heidi Mullins Lemieux as Anam Gan Ainm Theater; our name changed in 2013 to honor humanity's oldest form of recorded storytelling. Our mission is to explore the human experience and promote honesty and empathy in the human community through timeless stories and mind-expanding language.
Other things that are important to us:
Other things that are important to us:
- Awareness: At this stage in our development, we are producing a lot of western classical plays from previous centuries. We are committed to examining and addressing the oppressive or problematic elements of any script we work with, as well as celebrating its beauty and relevance.
- Diversity and Representation: CPTC is committed to becoming an ever more diverse company; finding work for actors of all shapes, sizes, colors, orientations, and genders; and increasing the visibility of women, people of color, and other under-represented demographics in poetic theater.
- Community: As an itinerate company, CPTC is commited to supporting other small Chicago theaters through space rental, and becoming an active, supportive member of the Chicago theater community.
- Compensation and Financial Transparency: At this stage in our development, CPTC uses a shares system, like ye olde theaters of Shakespeare's time, to compensate our cast and crew. All profits from each show are divided between that show's cast and crew according to our system, a full breakdown of which is available to any interested cast or crew member. We may be small and poor at the moment, but whatever there is, everyone gets a share. As we continue to grow, we are committed to upholding this level of transparency, and constantly improving our system to ensure maximum possible compensation for all our artists.
