In good company: Three actors put down roots at American Players Theatre

Lindsay Christians, The Cap Times

All Shakespeare comedies end with a wedding. “As You Like It” has four, plus the reconciliation of brothers and the reunion of a daughter with her banished father.

For American Players Theatre, it’s a joyful way to start the 2026 season. The first preview of “As You Like It” opens Saturday, June 6, starting a summer that will include eight plays in repertory — five in the 1,100-seat outdoor amphitheater, three in the indoor Touchstone Theatre. (A fall “shoulder season” of a single play opens in late October.)

On a recent cool afternoon on APT’s Spring Green campus, joy was palpable on and off stage. Each play’s creative team was hard at work — storyboarding acts in a rehearsal room, running scenes in the Touchstone, grape-vining across the Hill Theatre thrust stage as actors learned new choreography.

As this activity hummed around the woods, theater leaders mulled over what they were going to wear this coming Sunday when American Players Theatre will accept the 2026 Regional Theatre Tony Award at Radio City Music Hall.

APT is the first Wisconsin company to win the award, given annually by the American Theatre Wing.

“We’ve really committed ourselves to a company of artists that are more than actors,” artistic director Brenda DeVita said. “They are very much owners of this theater.

“These people, being multitalented, multifaceted artists, being invested in the whole of the theater, is what makes it strong, makes it vibrant,” she said.

APT’s core acting company was founded in the late 1990s to “retain some critical actors in the company, and multiyear commitments were the key,” as managing director Sara Young wrote.

The core company started with 10 people. Now there are 18, the largest it’s ever been. Original members, like Sarah Day, have begun to retire as a new generation of artists are coming up. Samantha Newcomb, Laura Rook, Phoebe González and Josh Krause joined the company two years ago.

The three actors who join the core acting company this season should look familiar to regular APT attendees. Here we’ll get to know each of them a little better, and find out what they’re looking forward to this season on the hill.

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