“The Players: The Fifty People Who Really Perform in Chicago” article in NewCity Stage

#40. Gwendolyn Whiteside

When the ensemble walked out en masse from American Theater Company in 2009, even observers who cheered the act’s symbolism had little expectation that the reconstituted American Blues Theater would last very long. After all, they were a seasoned ensemble accustomed to operating at the highest levels of professionalism in Chicago who just abandoned their home base and sizable budget, not a bunch of kids moving to Chicago straight off of college from Ohio with a theater degree and starry eyes. But then no one expected Wendy Whiteside, an actor from the ensemble with minimal previous leadership experience, to step into the role of producing artistic director and help guide the company to a cohesive mission, a growing budget and a couple of critically successful seasons featuring revivals of “Tobacco Road” and “Waiting for Lefty.” Not only has Whiteside played a critical role behind the scenes, but she’s also consistently stepped onto the stage, turning in a series of well-received performances dating back to her acclaimed solo turn in the “K of D” at Route 66 in 2009, and since including wearing a prosthetic hairlip in “Tobacco Road,” playing a heartbroken young lover in “Waiting For Lefty” and anchoring the company’s Christmas moneymaker as Mary Bailey in “It’s A Wonderful Life: Live at the Biograph.” Her biggest role to date at the new ABT will come in the spring of 2013, when she teams with esteemed ensemble mate Carmen Roman for a two-hander fresh off Broadway.