ARTIST STATEMENT

I create theatre that pulls you in — work that’s alive in the senses, charged with heightened theatricality, and grounded in a visual language I call fantastical realism. I’m drawn to the moments when characters reach a breaking point, when the stakes are deeply human but expressed through a heightened, stylized lens. For me, theatre is a shared space where artists and audiences can come together, question what they believe, and maybe see themselves in a new way.

I work in two main modes: reimagining classics and building original pieces from scratch. In both, I start with curiosity — What did this story mean when it was first told? Why does it matter now? — and let that guide me toward something fresh, unexpected, and rooted in the now. I’m especially drawn to fantastical stories and fairy tales, reframed through a contemporary, post-modern point of view.

In 2009, I founded Cock and Bull Arts in Chicago to explore identity, sexuality, and psychology through bold, experimental theatre. Since then, I’ve collaborated with a devoted group of artists to create immersive, sensory-driven work: from adapting Ibsen’s Ghosts into the site-specific Lecherous Honey in a historic lakefront mansion, to staging an original, multimedia voyage through psychology and medicine, to launching Sessions, a virtual arts festival that brought together artists from around the world during the pandemic.

I love breaking form — mixing live performance with puppetry, music, design, and even gamified storytelling, like our choose-your-own-adventure piece The Octopus- which reached over 16,000 players worldwide. I’ve also worked with student ensembles, most recently creating The Boy Who Hates Everything, a Theatre for Young Audiences musical that won the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival’s national award for Outstanding Devised Play.

At the core of all my work is the belief that theatre should spark connection — between story and audience, between strangers in the dark, and between cultures across distance. I want to keep pushing my craft forward, building work that invites people in, surprises them, and leaves them with something they can’t quite shake.

-Chris Garcia Peak