From a searing portrait of Hollywood to a gay Indigenous rom com about love, lust and longing, four new plays appear in free staged readings at Goodman Theatre next month. The new works—Stalled by Lena Barnard, Campy; The Search for Summer’s Campiest Camper by Dillon Chitto, It Girl by Hanna Kime and St. Miles by Jarrett King—are authored by members of the Goodman’s 2022/2023 Playwrights Unit. This season-long residency program for Chicago-based playwrights meets twice monthly with Goodman’s literary staff and other cohort writers to discuss plays-in-progress. Free readings take place July 10-16 at Goodman Theatre (170 N. Dearborn); to make a reservation visit www.GoodmanTheatre.org/Playwrights. Availability is limited.
The Goodman is grateful for the generosity of its New Work sponsors, including: Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation and the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Major Support of New Work; Ruth D. and Ken M. Davee New Works Fund, Major Support of New Play Development; The Glasser Family, Mayer Brown LLP, and Shaw Family Supporting Organization, Support of New Work.
ABOUT THE PLAYS
Stalled
By Lena Barnard
Directed by Halena Kays
Monday, July 10 | 7:30pm
Olive is back home in the country after her life fell apart in the city. But when her mom gives her an ultimatum to get her life on track, Olive is suddenly placed in charge of the family rental property: protecting the chickens from coyotes and making sure the sad lesbian AirBNB renters are okay. All she wants to do is watch the same episode of a bad TV show over and over and over again. Lena Barnard’s new play is a funny and moving exploration of how we seek comfort and how we get un-stuck.
Lena Barnard is a queer playwright, dramaturg and theater maker. Currently based in Chicago, she has also made work in Austin and Philadelphia. Her work has been read and developed by the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Philadelphia Artists' Collective, the SoLow Festival, UT New Theatre, Frontera Fest, Azuka Theatre, the Cohen New Works Festival, and PlayPenn. She was a member of the second class of the Philadelphia playwright's lab, the Foundry @ PlayPenn. She has a BA from Bryn Mawr College and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. lenabarnard.com
Campy; The Search for Summer’s Campiest Camper
By Dillon Chitto
Directed by Bo Frazier
Saturday, July 15 | 8pm
Chicago friends return to a gay summer campground to continue their annual tradition of competing to be named “Summer’s Campiest Camper.” As the competition draws closer, the campers are forced to reveal their true selves and confront their hidden feelings. Campy; The Search for Summer’s Campiest Camper is a gay Indigenous rom com about love, lust and longing.
Dillon Chitto is an Indigenous playwright of Mississippi Choctaw, Laguna, and Isleta Pueblo descent from Santa Fe, New Mexico. There, he learned the importance of art, culture, and traditions from his family and members of his community. In his playwriting, he connects these ideas using storytelling techniques learned throughout his life. He currently lives in Chicago, Illinois. He serves as Literary Manager for BoHo Theatre Company. In the past, Dillon has worked with Native Voices, AlterTheater Ensemble, Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Arena Stage.
It Girl
By Hanna Kime
Directed by Jessica Fisch
Wednesday, July 12 | 7:30pm
It’s 2002 and rising teen starlet Caitie Clark is a favorite fixture of all the major Hollywood tabloids. As the rumor mill churns with stories of Caitie’s professional and personal troubles, a massive breakdown on set brings her career to a screeching halt. Twenty years later, a major streaming corporation seeks to hold us all accountable by revealing the true story of Caitie Clark through a brave and timely biopic. A searing portrait of Hollywood across the last two decades, It Girl examines what it means to be a woman in entertainment: how things have changed and how they haven’t.
Hanna Kime is a Chicago-based playwright. Recent works include The Best Damn Thing (2021 O’Neill Finalist, selected for the Up: Renewal Reading Series), The Targeted (2020 O’Neill Finalist, 2021 BAPF Semifinalist), and Now More Than Ever (winner of Oklahoma City Rep’s Stage@Home New Voices Contest). Her full-length works have been read or developed with Steep Theatre, First Floor Theatre, Jackalope Theatre, The New Coordinates, Broken Nose Theatre, First Floor Theater (where she is a Company Member), and Sideshow Theatre (where she is an Ensemble Member). She graduated from the University of Chicago with degrees in English and Gender and Sexuality Studies. Outside of her own writing, Hanna works as a dramaturg and teaching artist. Over the 2020-2021 academic year, Hanna led a cohort of 8th graders from John Burroughs School in devising a digital play, A Joint Session. She currently serves as a Scriptshare reader with Playwrights Realm in New York, and she previously served as First Floor Theater’s Literary Manager from 2018-2021. Current projects include a commission with St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s Confluence Writers Project and a feature-film adaptation of her play The Best Damn Thing. hannakime.com
St. Miles
By Jarrett King
Directed by Gabrielle Randle-Bent
Sunday, July 16 | 7:30pm
What are protests if not a form of prayer? Five years ago, the Ellis family lost one of its members, a young Black man named Miles, to an act of police violence. Now Miles’s mother Opal wants him to be recognized as a saint. As the Ellises navigate the arduous canonization process, the family clashes and battle lines are drawn. Is true salvation on the other side of it all? There are 10,000 saints in the Catholic Church—not one of them is African American. Yet.
Jarrett King is an actor, playwright, and educator originally from Austin, Texas. His play A War of the Worlds—an Afrofuturist reimagining of the War of the Worlds radio broadcast—was the inaugural play in Penfold Theatre Company’s commission series. Other works include The Possible and Box, which will premiere at Penfold in 2023. As an actor, he has nearly two decades worth of credits performing in film, television, and professional theaters including Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Salvage Vanguard, Penfold Theatre, and the Mary Moody Northen Theatre. He has received Austin Critics Table and B. Iden Payne awards for his work and is a two-time second rounder at the Austin Film Festival. He is a teaching artist at Steppenwolf Theatre and Silk Road Rising and has taught for Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Shakespeare Slam. He is an adjunct professor at Loyola University, teaching courses in acting and teaching artistry. He is currently an Associate Artistic Director at Penfold Theatre Company. iamjarrettking.com
ABOUT GOODMAN THEATRE
Chicago’s theater since 1925, Goodman Theatre is a not-for-profit arts and community organization in the heart of the Loop, distinguished by the excellence and scope of its artistic programming and community engagement. The theater’s artistic priorities include new play development (more than 150 world or American premieres), large scale musical theater works and reimagined classics. Artists and productions have earned two Pulitzer Prizes, 22 Tony Awards and more than 160 Jeff Awards, among other accolades. The Goodman is the first theater in the world to produce all 10 plays in August Wilson’s “American Century Cycle.” Its longtime annual holiday tradition A Christmas Carol, now in its fifth decade, has created a new generation of theatergoers in Chicago. The Goodman also frequently serves as a production and program partner with national and international companies and Chicago’s Off-Loop theaters.
Using the tools of the theatrical profession, the Goodman’s Education and Engagement programs aim to develop generations of citizens who understand the cultures and stories of diverse voices. The Goodman’s Alice Rapoport Center for Education and Engagement is the home of these programs, which are offered free of charge for Chicago youth—85% of whom come from underserved communities—schools and life-long learners.
Goodman Theatre was built on the traditional homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi Nations. We recognize that many other Nations consider the area we now call Chicago as their traditional homeland—including the Myaamia, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac and Fox, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Wea, Kickapoo and Mascouten—and remains home to many Native peoples today. While we believe that our city’s vast diversity should be reflected on the stages of its largest theater, we acknowledge that our efforts have largely overlooked the voices of our Native peoples. This omission has added to the isolation, erasure and harm that Indigenous communities have faced for hundreds of years. We have begun a more deliberate journey towards celebrating Native American stories and welcoming Indigenous communities; learn more at GoodmanTheatre.org/Accountability.
Goodman Theatre was founded by William O. Goodman and his family in honor of their son Kenneth, an important figure in Chicago’s cultural renaissance in the early 1900s. The Goodman family’s legacy lives on through the continued work and dedication of Kenneth’s family, including Albert Ivar Goodman, who with his late mother, Edith-Marie Appleton, contributed the necessary funds for the creation on the new Goodman center in 2000.
Today, Goodman Theatre is led by Artistic Director Susan V. Booth and Executive Director/CEO Roche Schulfer. Theater leadership also includes the distinguished members of the Artistic Collective: Rebecca Gilman, Dael Orlandersmith, Henry Godinez, Steve Scott, Kimberly Senior, Chuck Smith and Mary Zimmerman. Jeff Hesse is Chairman of Goodman Theatre’s Board of Trustees, Fran Del Boca is President of the Women’s Board and Craig McCaw is President of the Scenemakers Board for young professionals.