About

Founded in 2010, The Black Ship Co. is an itinerant theater company that hails from Chicago's Bucktown. The company produces exclusively new works, with a mission of creating engaging, small scale pieces of theater which both illustrate and interact with contemporary American culture.

The term “black ship” may conjure images of piracy and Patrick O'Brien novels, but it was the breadth and depth of black ship lore that caught the attention of founding members Kellye Blosser, Hunter Koerner, and Nicki Mazzocca. From Odysseus' chosen craft to Commodore Matthew Perry's coal-powered steamers, black ships have long been considered mysterious and puissant, a foreign vessel bringing change in its wake. The Black Ship Co. embraces this legacy, bringing to the stage an ongoing series of formerly unknown works that promise dramatic impact upon their arrival.

The Black Ship Co. currently works through three key initiatives. The first is a mainstage season, through which the company produces two contemporary, often premiering, full length plays. The plays are selected from open calls and a growing network of emerging playwrights and are produced by rising artists within the Chicago theater community.

The Black Ship Co.'s second initiative, The Black Curtain Project, is an adventurous program that fuses traditional theater with advancing technologies. In this project The Black Ship Co. translates ten-minute plays into short videos that are then featured online, where they will be available to audiences free of charge.

Finally, The Black Ship Co. participates in active new play development in the form of an annual reading series. Playwrights are invited to have their scripts read in a public forum by trained and experienced actors. The readings provide audiences with a rare opportunity to take a first look at works in progress while giving playwrights a chance to examine their plays' functionality in front of a live audience. Each reading is accompanied by an in-depth discussion session.

To truly learn about The Black Ship Co. visit our main page regularly for a calendar of upcoming events or subscribe to receive our updates by email.