American Theater Company taps Usman Ally, ups its ensemble by 25 percent

October 27, 1:05 AMChicago Theatre Review ExaminerCatey Sullivan

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Usman Ally in The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (top, middle) and Celebrity Row (second from bottom) 

The American Theater Company increased its ensemble by 25 percent today, thanks to the addition of Usman Ally to the group’s ranks. The move is a sign of rejuvenation for an embattled troupe that was artistically gutted in March, when almost two dozen ensemble members resigned en masse.
Ally’s only a few years out of grad school, but he’s worked with a veritable who’s who of the city’s most respected directors: Cromer, Zimmerman, Zacek, Eason, Shinner, and Torres. One director that doesn’t show up on Ally’s resume thus far? ATC Artistic Director PJ  Paparelli. 

A bit of unfortunate but necessary background: This departure of ATC’s  founders and most of their colleagues resulted when tensions with Paparelli reached a boil last spring. The event sparked a maelstrom of commentary in the blogosphere, and something of an open season on Paparelli: Dozens of posters wondered whether ATC could survive minus the likes of founder James Leaming, Broadway vet Kate Buddeke, Emmy winner Rick Cleveland, Jeff winner Carmen Roman, stage channel CEO Marty Higginbotham and such well-respected off-Loop artists as Ed Kross, Stef Tovar, and Cheryl Graeff.

According to ATC’s website, Sadieh Rifai, Joe Minoso and Kareem Bandealy are the sole remains ATC’s once flourishing ensemble. The addition of Ally brings both fresh blood and substantial talent to the newly nascent group.

Ally’s presently finishing up a run in his showiest role to date, tearing up the stage as a reluctant professional wrestler in the Teatro Vista/Victory Gardens’s smash (literally and figuratively) The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity.

His journey to Chad Deity - and Chicago - was circuitous to say the least: Ally was born in Swaziland to Pakistani parents. He grew up in Botswana – and Pakistan and Kenya and Tanzania. As an undergrad sociology/anthropology major at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon, he turned to poetry slams and writing rap as a means of dealing with a drive-by shooting near his Portland campus – a race-related event that came in the wake of the World Trade Tower attacks. Ally speaks English, Urdu and Hindi, but it wasn’t until he began writing poetry that he was able to articulate his feelings about the shooting. Performance poetry became vent for his feelings about race and its complex role in a post 9-11 United States. 

The hip-hop cadence of slamming serves him well in Chad Deity: Playwright Kristoffer Diaz’s intensely physical satire incorporates hip-hop into his jaw-droppingly provocative send up of racism. The beats within the words merge with the beatings of the body Ally takes in a story that uses professional wrestling both metaphorically and literally. (As in a metal folding chairs literally get slammed into Ally’s skull.) The show also calls for Ally to straddle a dangerous line between satire and sacrilege.

“There was a scene where my wrestling character, the Fundamentalist - this Middle-Eastern generic Islamic villain - gets down on his knees and starts praying. I just said, look, I’m not going to do that. That’s not somewhere I’m willing to go,” Ally said in an interview earlier this fall. “We did a photo shoot, and I had a similar kind of thing. I wasn’t going to put on a bunch of Middle Eastern clothing for that. We all understand that the play is very much deals with parody but there are boundaries. You don’t want to make things worse than they already are,” he added.

Now ensconced in a critically hailed show selling out on a regular basis, Ally can look back and smile at his less-than-auspicious beginnings here. In 2007, armed with a newly minted MFA in acting (Magna Cum Laude, University of Florida, Gainesville) he showed up at general auditions for Steppenwolf.

“Sat and waited for nine hours. And didn’t get seen.” he recalled. He did, however, get noticed. Casting director Erica Daniels asked Ally to come back, and audition for 2007’s First Look Festival, where he snagged a role in Tranquility Woods, directed by Victory Gardens’ Sandy Shinner. “Sandy and Erica, they really got in my corner,” he recalled. “After First Look, I started getting called in. I never went to a general again.”

At ATC, Ally drew raves playing terrorist Ramzi Yousef in the David Cromer-directed Celebrity Row. At Lookingglass Theatre, he had a mini-run of hits as part of Mary Zimmerman’s Arabian Nights ensemble and in two productions of Laura Eason’s splendid Around the World in 80 Days. Nick Sandys directed him in Remy Bumppo’s American Ethnic earlier this year, while Dennis Zacek, storied founder of the Victory Gardens, cast Ally in 2008’s Relatively Close.

Like any actor, Ally has his frustrations: “My biggest one is that I don’t get called in for classics,” he admits, “I do get called in for new works which is great, but sometimes I’m like, how come nobody wants me for Shepherd or Mamet?” 

Classics notwithstanding, he knows what he likes in a director.
“What I really appreciate,” he continues, “is a director who can see me as a peer but isn’t afraid to give clear, concise direction. I don’t care if people are moody or demanding - Cromer is notoriously moody and snappy – but he’s an extremely intelligent man. And he’s not ashamed to be intelligent in public. You can trust his decisions.”

With Edward Torres, director of Chad Deity and Artistic Director of Teatro Vista, Ally sees a role model.
“He’s been at this game a lot longer than I have,” says Ally. “Being with a director who has been through the grind of being an actor of color? I see what he’s been able to do, and it’s inspiring.”
Chicago too, Ally says, is inspiring:

“In some ways,” he concludes, “I never felt like an American, but I immediately felt like a Chicagoan.”