Student’s production company opens doors to Chicago theatre 

Students on a theatre performance track at UIC’s School of Theatre and Music must complete a capstone project in their final year. The project could be a one-act play, live performance art or a screenplay. In short, it’s like a senior thesis, meant to showcase all a student has learned about design, directing or acting during their study.  

In his sophomore year, Omar Fernandez audited the capstone class, which is only taught in the spring. He knew he wasn’t earning any credit for attending, but he wanted to listen in on what others were creating. Then, he started helping.  

“One student wrote a play that would become a half-hour film, and Omar volunteered to be the cinematographer for her film,” said Bonnie Metzgar, an associate professor who leads the capstone projects. “It wasn’t one half-hour shoot. They shot over a three- or four-day period, and he did this for no credit. Just to be a part of the art.” 

It wasn’t long before Fernandez’s inclination to help became a way to make sure everyone had a voice in theatre. In 2022, Fernandez created Chicago-based theatre production company Subtext Studio. He and fellow producer Jean Gottlieb give UIC students and graduates a foot in the door of Chicago theatre. He hires UIC-based actors and stage technicians to help with each production. 

The studio was born from Covid-19 quarantine frustration, when remote work felt stifling to creative artists, Fernandez said. 

“We started by creating this club where students can workshop what they’re working on and give new students acting opportunities, but also directing and writing opportunities,” Fernandez said. “When we joined with Jean Gottlieb, we rebranded our mission to focus on all new works and new play development by diverse voices.” 

Fernandez is scheduled to graduate in December, having completed his capstone project last spring. In the meantime, his company drew rave reviews from the Chicago Tribune for “Saving Myself,” a production he directed for Destinos 2025, the Chicago International Latino Theater Festival in October.  

Gottlieb is Fernandez’s partner at Subtext Studio, having merged her Dragonfly Theatre with Subtext after both launched during the Covid-19 pandemic.  

“He said he wanted to have a place where he could hire UIC grads professionally, pay them, get them the experience and the credit on their resume so that they could go on,” Gottlieb said. “I’ve been doing this for 35 years, so it’s second nature to me. But the raw talent coming off this guy, and the ideas and the collaboration — everybody in the room has a voice. It just blew me away.” 

The play has always been “the thing” for Fernandez, even if his path to the theatre department didn’t start on the stage. As a freshman, he had a class schedule on track for pre-med students.  

Yet, when he found himself focusing more on theatre performance than on his science homework, he knew biology wasn’t his calling. 

“It was just so much easier to do the theatre work than it was to do the science work, and that just felt a little bit indicative of maybe where my heart was,” Fernandez said. 

When he auditioned for a role in UIC’s fall 2020 performance of “The Crucible,” he solidified his degree shift. Though that Covid-era performance could only be seen on a Zoom screen, his portrayal of the protagonist John Proctor impressed staff and students within the department.  

“I was just stupefied by his performance,” said Yasen Peyankov, UIC’s head of theatre. “It was so mature and so full. That’s when I invited him to take my Chekov class, and in that class, I have an open forum on feedback. That’s when I noticed that Omar had a director’s eye.”  

“We get a lot of emotionally intelligent and emotionally accessible actors, right?” said Jason Martin, Fernandez’s faculty advisor. “It’s much more rare to get the ideas person — someone who can act, direct, produce — he does all of that so well. But he has a passion for personalizing these big ideas, like a community turning in on itself in ‘The Crucible’ through rumor, and making it about the age of the internet and disinformation.” 

When Metzgar and associate professor Lydia Diamond first held UIC’s New Plays Festival in 2023, students submitted nearly 20 plays. Metzgar and Diamond could only choose five to produce. 

Fernandez’s play “Sexopoly” was one of the five picked. When he heard of the others which didn’t make the cut, and wouldn’t be heard, he organized Monday-evening readings of those plays with actors and professionals at Subtext Studio. All while preparing for the performance of his own play. 

“Every week they would come and do what we call a cold reading. Then, he would moderate the discussion in the theatre,” Metzgar said. “He’s such a believer in the importance of playwrights writing plays and hearing their plays, and he got no course credit for that at all. He was running off of the passion and believing in plays as a cultural currency that must be invested in.” 

It was that desire to “uplift every single person around him” that helped drive Subtext Studios. Fernandez said letting others help the company succeed grew the studio into something bigger than he’d imagined.  

“There’s no way it’s possible without the involvement of other people, which is very reminiscent of the theater experience,” he said. “When you have the crew and the lights and the actors and your designers, we are most successful when we are uplifting every single person on every project.” 

As he prepares to graduate from UIC, Fernandez has already seen the success of which many graduates dream.  

His play “Que Te Vaya Bien” was performed in 2024 at Destinos. Using Wrigley Field as a backdrop, the play is a semi-autobiographical look at generational expectations as a father and son confront their past. Chicago Reader called it “a home run” that tackles complex themes with compassion and nuance.  

“We workshopped the play at the university with some of my UIC colleagues, and it was such a great experience of Subtext Studio pushing me towards UIC, and then UIC pressing me back to Subtext Studio to develop this work,” Fernandez said. “Having the support from different audiences – from the professional industry and the academic industry – helped me define what story I was telling.”  

As he prepares to bridge the academic and professional worlds, his support for his fellow students doesn’t waver. His advice to them is simple: Be kind. Fail. Ask for help.  

“You’re going to fail 1,000 times before you have one success,” Fernandez said. “When people ask me, ‘How did you start the studio?’ I remember that it’s a long journey of 1,000 failures to get to the last three or four years of successes.” 

His journey has left a legacy of courage, generosity and vision on the UIC theatre department, said his faculty mentors.  

“Theatre is about going into a room and making something together,” Metzgar said. “Omar is so good at doing that and encouraging other people who want to do that. I hope his legacy is one of inviting people to have a conversation and pouring energy toward the work of young artists and new artists.”