Victory Gardens Theater is a theater company in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to the development and production of new plays and playwrights. The theater company was founded in 1974 when eight Chicago artists, Cecil O'Neal, Warren Casey, Stuart Gordon, Cordis Heard, Roberta Maguire, Mac McGuinnes, June Pyskaček, and David Rasche each fronted $1,000 to start a company outside the Chicago Loop and Gordon donated the light board of his Organic Theater Company. The theater's first production, The Velvet Rose, by Stacy Myatt, premiered on October 9, 1974.

Claudia Allen is an American playwright and educator based in Chicago, Illinois. She is known for writing LGBT characters in her plays, for Hannah Free, and for her association with the Victory Gardens Theater.