Instrumental Theatre Company is a Chicago based performing arts organization whose mission is to inspire harmony through ensemble storytelling crafted at the intersection of actors and musicians. Their work revolves around the idea that music and story go hand in hand and amplify the work in new and exciting ways. 

ITC kicked off their work with the Mixtape New Play Festival Vol.1 at Uncommon Ground in spring 2025, producing three new short plays with music / musicals, performed by a cast of actor-musicians. They then went on to a sold out run of their adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, featuring original music devised and performed by the cast. Most recently, ITC produced a 48 hour musical theatre festival celebrating the idea that "done is better than perfect" in which 42 artists were assigned to six teams and tasked with writing, rehearsing, and performing a 15 minute original musical in just one weekend.

Instrumental is excited to return to Uncommon Ground this year with an even bigger and better festival celebrating new musically inspired storytelling. Four Wednesdays in a row, ITC will be performing a new musical or new play with music as a staged reading at UG. This new work development process will serve to continue incubating and highlighting the vast talent of theatre and music writers in Chicago, and lead to the eventual production of one or more of these new works in a future ITC season.