Portrait of Andrew Park

Andrew Park

Research Assistant Professor of Theatre

Andrew Park, an award-winning artistic director, stage director, playwright, lyricist and puppeteer, is research assistant professor in the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film. 

Park has served as artistic director for multiple theaters, organizations and festivals over a professional theater career that spans nearly two decades. He has also directed at several regional theatres, including the Illinois Shakespeare Festival.

Park is the founding Artistic Director of Quest Theatre Ensemble, a position he has held since 2002. Quest is an award-winning, free theater, committed to ensuring that everyone has access to the arts, regardless of their financial position.

Since 2007, he has served as Artistic Director of the John G. Shedd Aquarium, Chicago's highest attended cultural institution. Park writes, directs and produces multispecies aquatic shows that feature dolphins, beluga whales, sea lions, penguins and birds of prey. Past shows at the Aquarium include Fantasea, A Holiday Fantasea and One World.

In 1998, Park was appointed Artistic Director for the Showboat Becky Thatcher Theater in Marietta, Ohio, a position he held for three years before leaving Marietta for Chicago.

Once in Chicago, Park got right to work as a stage director and playwright. His original production, Seashore, with TriArts, Inc., was nominated for three Jeff Citations including "Ensemble" and "New Work."

He also conceived and directed an opening spectacle for the 2005 Lollapalooza Music Festival and served as artistic director for the Chicagoland Puppetry Guild's Puppet Festival and QuesFest—a puppet and drum festival on Chicago's North side.

Additional directing highlights include Circus Crashers at Actors Gymnasium, Failure: A Love Story at Illinois Shakespeare Festival, and three productions for the Cirque Shanghai franchise in Harbin, China and at Navy Pier's Pepsi Skyline Stage in Chicago and the Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City.

Park also directed the European tour of Quest's Blue Nativity and The People's History of the United States, which was nominated for two Jeff Citations including "New Work," and the Jeff Award winning production of Evolution/Creation nominated for five Jeff Citations including "New Work" and "Direction."

Park has written 10 full-length musicals with his longtime collaborator and friend, Composer Scott Lamps. Their newest musicals, A Christmas Wish and Return of Neverland were nominated for three Jeff Awards in 2014, including a nomination for "Best Music and Lyrics.”