STAR MAKER

Carole Dibo, founder of the Actors Training Center in Wilmette, saw what aspiring actors needed—then built it.

“I remember hearing Oprah say that if you want to start your own business, you should fill a need,” says former actress turned Actors Training Center (ATC) founder Carole Dibo. “And that’s exactly what I did.”

Yet, Dibo didn’t set out to run an acting school in Wilmette—or manage Emmy-winning actors, for that matter. But life, she says, had other plans.

“I had a career as a petite runway model and commercial actor in Washington, D.C.,” Dibo recalls. “Then my husband’s real estate company moved him to Chicago. We came to the Midwest with an 8-week-old baby.”

She started booking work right away, as casting directors liked her “East Coast look.” When her husband wanted to move back East, she put her foot down. “I told him I was staying put. I really loved Chicago.”

Eventually, the family of five moved to the suburbs, where Dibo tried to keep one foot in the theater world.

“I turned 40 and looked at myself and thought, ‘What am I doing?’” she says. “I was PTA president, and I was directing shows at the middle school. I was auditioning and booking a little. But this wasn’t enough for me. I decided to partner with the woman who owned the Actor Studio Chicago and pitched her the idea of opening a teen division. Around that same time, the Wilmette Theater was for sale, and my husband and I bought it. My husband loves to say that was the worst real estate deal he ever made.” But the purchase paid off in other ways.

Just two years into owning the theater, the recession hit. It was hard to keep the theater financially afloat. To bring in more income, Dibo began teaching acting classes on the theater’s second floor. “Those classes eventually became the Actors Training Center we have today,” she says.

In time, the ATC moved into its own space around the corner in Wilmette and began offering acting courses from third grade through adulthood. Classes are taught by a variety of industry professionals from across the country. The ATC strives to bridge the gap between training the actor and the industry’s expectations.

“My allegiance is to the business, not the actor,” Dibo explains. “I’m training for the industry. If you’re looking for a shortcut or just want my contacts, I’m not your gal. I think our school gets a lot of wannabes because of my reputation, but our experience has taught us how to pick those people out right away.”

Dibo doesn’t say this as a negative but as a testament to what her school stands for.

“When I was an actor, I saw many children on set who didn’t really want to be there. I saw kids come into auditions not knowing what the industry’s expectations were,” she says. “If you want to be part of the ATC family, you have to listen to us. This is a business of supply and demand where the supply greatly outweighs the demand. When you come to us, you’re going to get that top-notch training that only professionals can give you. Be ready for that. It’s not the name on our building, but it’s who’s inside that makes us great.”

The ATC caught the attention of a teenage Rachel Brosnahan—now best known for her Emmy-winning role in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. “I started coaching Rachel for her college auditions. She got into NYU, and then I became her manager. I had no idea what I was doing,” Dibo laughs. “We were pretending I was a manager, just like she was pretending to be an actor. But it worked.”

While the ATC specializes in coaching children, its adult classes have also taken off since the pandemic. “I have a 70-year-old woman who started taking improv classes two weeks after her husband passed away,” she says. “We’re so close to getting her an agent—she’s that good. She has all of these new opportunities, new friends she has met. How can I not love what I do knowing this?”

At 66 years old and after 17 years of running the ATC, Dibo still has one big dream to achieve—owning a building that can house her school and an 80-seat theater. But until then, she’s pretty content with the state of the center.

“It’s amazing to see my students out there making it. But it’s even more special when they want to come back and touch base,” she says. “It’s all still mind-boggling to look back and think the ATC was once just an idea.”

To learn more about the Actors Training Center, visit actorstrainingcenter.org.