Greg Allen is the inventor of Neo-Futurism and Founding Director of all six international companies dedicated to its practice (Chicago, NYC, Montreal, San Francisco, London, and Detroit). He is the creator of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (30 Plays in 60 Minutes) which ran every week for 28 years in Chicago through 2016 and continues to be performed around the world with over 100 productions per year.
Greg has also written, directed, and occasionally performed in over 85 original productions, all of which explore some facet of Neo-Futurism, from Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (a comedy to end all comedy) to The Strange and Terrible True Tale of Pinocchio (the wooden boy) as Told by Frankenstein’s Monster (the retched creature), from K. his award-winning adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial, to his legendary production of all nine-acts and seven hours of Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude at the Goodman Theatre. His collaboration with Theatre Oobleck - The Complete Lost Works of Samuel Beckett as Found in an Envelope (partially burned) in a Dustbin in Paris Labelled: “Never To Be Performed! Never! Ever! EVER!!! Or I’ll Sue! I’LL SUE FROM THE GRAVE!!!” - has been performed internationally in eleven different theater festivals including winning the Best Comedy Award at the New York Fringe. He also created two sold-out extended immersive theater shows before the term “immersive theater” was even coined.
His stage works have been seen both locally and nationally at Steppenwolf, Court, Northlight, the MCA, The Joseph Papp Public Theater, the MET, Geva, The Empty Space, HERE, Wholly Mammoth, and in over three dozen various Chicago theaters. His last two magnum opuses premiered in France and Norway yet some of his proudest theater accomplishments have come from staging solo interactive performance pieces in small festivals or his 18-month collaboration with a gay 16-year-old with Down Syndrome to create a one-time-only performance.
Greg has taught Neo-Futurism, playwriting and performance at University of Chicago, Depaul, Columbia, the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Actors Theater of Louisville, University of Houston, and in residencies nationally and internationally. He recently completed a residency at University of Indiana, is premiering his first TYA play based on Lord of the Flies and the Stanford Prison Experiment, and is writing a new play called (with all due deference to Peters Brook and Weiss as well as Hannah Arendt) The Prosecution and Execution of Stephen Miller for Crimes Against Humanity as Performed by the Inmates of Guantanamo Bay Under the Direction of Steven K. Bannon (the banality of evil), soon to be seen at a theater or prison near you. He likes long titles.