Company in the News Sep-2024

See what PlayGround-Chicago Writers and Company Members are up to this September!

Matt Schutz’s play, The Second First Kiss, which was written and performed as part of Playground-CH’s first season, was adapted into a short film and has been making the festival circuits! You can catch the film at FilmOUT San Diego on Saturday, Sept. 14th at 1:15 PM (shown with the full-length film Sunflower); at the Hollywood Queer Short Film Festival, October 5-6 (exact time TBD); or at Stamped Film Festival in Pensacola, FL, October 3-6 (exact time TBD).

“There’s a lot of magic that happens in our world if you know how to really see it,” said Keegon Schuett, who will receive one of the world’s most prestigious playwriting prizes, the Yale Drama Series Prize, for the play “this dry spell.” On Friday, October 25, Schuett will be honored at a reception at Yale Schwarzman Center for the conferral of the $10,000 David Charles Horn Prize and a staged reading of “this dry spell” in conjunction with the Yale Schwarzman Center and New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre as part of The Artistic Congress. Selected from more than 2,000 plays from 55 countries, “this dry spell” was chosen by playwright Jeremy O. Harris and will be published by Yale University Press, who partner with the David Charles Horn Foundation to administer the prize and bring each year’s winning play into print. Learn more here!

Karissa Murrell Myers’s play Black Bear Island received the 2023 Maxim Mazumdar New Play Award and will receive a world premiere at Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo in February 2025. Get tickets here!

Skylar Frishman will be going to do educational shows with Bright Star Touring Theatre in Vegas and Reno for half of September and all of October! They are super excited because this is their first time going to Vegas.

The Palos Village Players are excited to announce the World premiere of “My Kind of Christmas,” by playwright Dana Hall. This modern holiday comedy with heart, is set in the suburbs of Chicago. Audition Dates: September 4th and 5th, 7:00-9:30pm. You only need to attend one day. Auditions will consist of cold reads from the script. (non-equity show) Location: All Saints Lutheran Church 13350 LaGrange Orland Park, IL. Learn more here!

Carmia Imani is in the ensemble of the immersive performance, FIELD OF FLESH, which seats a small audience at an overflowing dinner table with a cast of loosely-connected family members. Through parodic exchanges with the audience, the performers perforate the boundaries between flesh and food, other and self, care and codependency. The show runs September 6th-28th. Feel free to reach out to Carmia on Instagram @carmiaimani for a discount code! Learn more here!

Mary Parisoe is working on a new full-length play!

Betsy Dudak’s work was recently accepted to the 2024 Off Page Play and Film Festival in PA, but declined. Betsy wanted to concentrate on The Playground Writers Pool. Learn more about Betsy here!

Shariba Rivers was nominated for two equity Jeff awards: performer in a supporting role (Notes in the Field) and ensemble (The Nacirema Society). Shariba is also cast in a feature film that starts shooting in September.

Eileen Dixon is the Artistic Director of Production at Redtwist Theatre! Redtwist is back open after completing our $250,000 renovation from the city! We have open with Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart”, running August 25-September 29th. Learn more here!

Katherine Swan’s play Some Other Woman Like Me is a finalist for the Henley Rose. The Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women is national competition whose aim is to recognize work by female playwrights. Learn more here!

Dakota Pariset recently closed a small revue with his theatre company, The Lightbulb Factory. “Slants of Light” featured two new short plays by Scott Carter Cooper and Lydia Moss and ran August 23rd at Yippiefest 2024, playing at The Chopin Theatre. He also opened the festival as HOST/HORATIO for 420 Shakespeare’s “Baked Hamlet, Prince of Dank-mark!” His other company microChicago is about to begin it’s digital rollout of microplays for the RED LINE series, a collection of microplays dedicated to the Red Line and part 1 of 8 of what will become “The ‘L’ Cycle”.

Lani T. Montreal’s Anak ni Tapia: Leaving Mother, her solo show about living in the shadow of a celebrity mother in the Philippines, is one of the plays being featured at CIRCA-Pintig’s Filipino-American Theatre Festival in October 2024. The show premiered in June 2024 as a culminating performance of Montreal’s Co-MISSION fellowship with Links. Learn more here!

William C. Thompson was excited to have participated recently in the 15th SAG-AFTRA Chicago & IFA Chicago’s “At The Table” presentation of “Belladonna” by Beah Travis. It is a truly beautiful screenplay, and William was delighted to have been able to work with such a talented cast of SAG-AFTRA colleagues.

Beth Kander just returned from the Possumtown Book Festival, where she was a featured writer. Next up: Two productions of her play MOUNTAIN OCTOPUS open in September and early October (Salida Theater Project, Bluegrass College/Lexington Arts), and her debut novel I MADE IT OUT OF CLAY will launch in December. Stay tuned for Chicago launch party information soon! Learn more here!

Spencer Ryan Diedrick begins rehearsals for THEY BROKE UP by Skylar Tarnas! This unhinged apocalyptic comedy – think “What if ‘Shaun of the Dead’ happened to the cast of ‘Rent’?” – is part of Avalanche Theatre’s Next Draft Series, and will have performances on Oct. 5th and 7th at The Fine Arts Building, 410 S Michigan Ave. Learn more here!

Peter Stielstra is currently playing in Alice By Heart at the Chopin Theatre. Learn more here!

Diana Simonzadeh recently completed acting the lead character Ruby Finnegan in indie short, The Solution produced by 54 Scripts Productions. The film is currently in post-production. Learn more here!