Playwrights Unit

Goodman Theatre’s Playwrights Unit is an exciting program designed to support and develop new work by Chicago playwrights. Over the course of a season, a group of four commissioned writers meet bimonthly with members of the Goodman’s literary staff to develop and workshop their plays-in-progress. The experience culminates with readings of each of the new plays. Plays developed in the Unit have gone on to receive readings and workshop productions in the New Stages series, as well as full productions at the Goodman

Dates are set for in-person readings of seven new works produced by Playwrights Unit members from the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 cohorts. The reading of The Madness of Mary Todd is by Terry Guest and directed by Lili-Anne Brown (Saturday, October 9 at 7:30pm); La Fuente De Cascabeles is by Exal Iraheta and directed by Denise Yvette Serna (Thursday, October 14 at 7:30pm); Expatriate is by Steve Pickering and directed by Sandra Marquez (Friday, October 15 at 7:30pm); Rust is by Nancy García Loza and directed by Laura Alcalá Baker (Thursday, October 21 at 7:30pm); You Deserve To Be Here is by Alex Lubischer and directed by Jess McLeod (Saturday, October 23 at 7:30pm); Boxing Play is by Marisa Carr and directed by Steph Paul (Thursday, October 28 at 7:30pm); and Rack Up is by Eliza Bent and directed by Jessica Fisch (Thursday, November 4 at 7:30pm).

In addition, the Goodman names four new Chicago-based writers to its 2021/2022 Playwrights Unit cohort: Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom, who created the anthology and immersive audiobook series Fairy Tales for Sun-Kissed Women; Susan H. Pak, a 2020 and 2021 finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference; Andrew Rosendorf, a current core writer with the Playwrights’ Center; and Omer Abbas Salem, whose play The Secretaries was developed in part through the Goodman’s Future Labs program.

Press Releases

September 14, 2021: Playwrights Unit Readings Appear Oct. 9-Nov.4; Announcing the 2021/2022 Playwrights Unit

Photos

Press Items

Download File	Alex Lubischer (2019/2020) Alex Lubischer is a Jeff Award-winning playwright originally from rural Nebraska. His plays include Bobbie Clearly (Roundabout Theatre Company, Steep Theatre), Pivot, Night Country, The Quonsets (Yale Cabaret, co-written with Majkin Holmquist), Blood Special, Pig.Gov and Survey No. 5. He has developed new work at Playwrights Horizons, Page 73, Atlantic Theater Company, The Orchard Project, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Victory Gardens Theater, Haven, First Floor Theater and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Lubischer was the 2017/18 Tow Foundation Playwright-in-Residence at Roundabout Theatre Company. He has been a semifinalist for the P73 Playwriting Fellowship and a three-time finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. He is currently working on commissions from Roundabout and South Coast Repertory. Lubischer received his MFA at the Yale School of Drama. Author: Goodman Theatre Email: press@goodmantheatre.org Category: Headshots
Download File	Monty Cole (2019/2020) Monty Cole is a Chicago-based director and playwright and has worked on productions, readings and workshops for Goodman Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Alley Theatre, Court Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, American Theatre Company, The Gift Theatre, House Theatre of Chicago, Cape Cod Theatre Project and others. He’s currently commissioned to adapt Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. Cole is also working with collaborator and choreographer Breon Arzell on revitalizing In Dahomey for the CalArts Center for New Performance. In fall 2019, Cole will direct The Brothers Size by Tarell Alvin McCraney (Steppenwolf Theatre Company) and Black Odyssey by Marcus Gardley (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). He recently received his MFA Directing degree at the California Institute of the Arts. Author: Goodman Theatre Email: press@goodmantheatre.org Category: Headshots
Download File	Nancy García Loza (2019/2020) Nancy García Loza is a self-taught pocha playwright rooted in Chicago, Illinois and Jalisco, México. She is currently an Artistic Associate and NNPN Producer-in-Residence at 16^th Street Theater and an Artistic Associate with Teatro Vista. Her play Tocaya will receive a workshop production with UIUC’s Free Armory Theatre in fall 2019. Loza is currently under commission from Make-Believe Association, 16th Street Theater, Chicago Dramatists, Teatro Leyden and more. Her plays include BRAVA: a folktale con música (Make-Believe Association, 2019 and featured in New York Times); MACHA: a pocha sister story (recognized in Steppenwolf’s “The Mix” list); Tocaya (developed at Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Rasca Cielos (developed at Theater on the Lake (2019); 16th Street Theater (2018); and Chicago Theatre Marathon (2017). She has also worked with Something Marvelous, Broken Nose Theatre, Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble, Collaboraction, and more. Loza is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and a first-generation alum of DePaul University, with a double concentration in Latin American Studies and Spanish. Author: Goodman Theatre Email: press@goodmantheatre.org Category: Headshots
Download File	Steve Pickering (2019/2020) Steve Pickering is a Chicago-based actor, director and playwright. He has appeared in over 30 productions at Goodman Theatre since 1987 and is currently a Goodman Theatre Creative Partner. He is the project manager and co-founder of Shanghai Low Theatricals (SLT), which adapts literary works for the stages. Recent SLT adaptations (often credited under the group’s pen name, Althos Low) include George Orwell’s Animal Farm for the Steppenwolf Young Adult Program (2014 commission), Alastair Reynolds’ Diamond Dogs for House Theatre of Chicago and a co-adaptation with director David Kersnar of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas for the Lookingglass Theatre Company (2018 commission – Jeff Award nominee for new work/adaptation). His new adaptation of three Edith Wharton gothics, Of Men and Ghosts, was chosen for Peninsula Players’ 2019 “The Play’s the Thing” winter reading series. As an actor, Pickering has performed on Broadway, Off-Broadway, at the New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park, in London’s West End, and with many major regionals both in Chicago, and across the country. He is a former Artistic Associate with the Organic Theater, Artistic Director of the Next Theatre in Evanston and a 2016 Lunt-Fontanne Fellow with the Ten Chimneys Foundation. Author: Goodman Theatre Email: press@goodmantheatre.org Category: Headshots