She may not be infamous, but Abbie Colton has covered a lot of ground since moving to Chicago a few years ago. She’s worked with WNEP and Factory Theatre, and most recently served on the Jeff Committee. Now she tackles the challenges of small-theatre management as the new managing director for Infamous Commonwealth Theatre .

Colton has a B.A. in theatre from Michigan State University, spent two years as a production assistant and stage-management intern at Berkeley Rep, and is currently finishing up her master’s in performing arts management at Columbia College Chicago. She admits that “the embarrassing part of this is that I had heard of Infamous Commonwealth, but had never seen their shows” before she ran across the job announcement at Chicago Artists Resource. However, she had worked with artistic director Chris Maher at Factory and also had worked with company members Nancy Friedrich and Rachel M. Sypniewski in the past.

ICT has been around since 2001, and raised its profile considerably in 2005 with its ambitious staging of Robert Schenkkan’s two-part epic The Kentucky Cycle, which won the 2006 non-Equity Jeff Award for best production. Currently, the company is itinerant and operates on a lean budget of $50,000. “I’m aiming to fix that and make them grow a little bit,” says Colton, who still works a day job in the financial sector.

ICT’s mission has been “One season, one topic, endless possibilities,” which Colton describes as “a cool kind of hook,” and the theme for this upcoming season, “redemption,” was suggested by Maher, who came on board a few months ago. The season opens on January 16 with ICT’s annual “24-Hour Project,” in which a group of artists has the titular stretch of time in which to create mini-plays on the theme. The first full production for 2010 will be Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, staged by Maher at the Raven in March, and the company will stay at the Raven for George F. Walker’s Escape From Happiness in July, directed by Genevieve Thompson.

Given the current problems facing arts funding, taking on the challenges of growing a small company might seem daunting, but Colton points out, “I think ICT is lucky, because they didn’t have all this previous funding that suddenly disappeared. Our best strategy is to focus on audience development and programming. Whenever the time comes for us to build on what new arts funding develops, we can jump. We already think about how we can produce the best art with the lowest amount of money possible.”

Infamous Commonwealth hosts a benefit, “The Horrible Holiday Sweater Party,” on Monday, December 7 at T’s Bar and Restaurant in Andersonville, 5025 N. Clark.