When a media scandal strikes close to home, Vera is catapulted into confrontation with past wounds she’s desperate to forget. A mysterious client arrives at her community nonprofit with more to her story than meets the eye, challenging Vera to decide where her activism ends and catharsis begins. Laced with hip hop and poetry, one week in spring explodes preconceptions about women’s sexuality and how social media shapes millennial concepts of consent.

D E V E L O P M E N T H I S T O R Y
one week in spring was developed in the MFA Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute Chicago where it received its first staged reading directed by Beau O’Reilly. It was also developed in Teatro Luna’s PlayLab series and received a staged reading directed by Ilesa Duncan as apart of the Lunada’s series. It was a finalist for Victory Gardens’ 2010 Ignition competition. one week in spring’s first workshop production appeared in Halcyon Theater’s Alcyone Festival and is currently running in Curious Theater’s RhinoFest, Chicago’s longest running fringe theatre festival.

one week in spring was spawned from an investigation of media’s public discourse around private controversy, and the shifting nature of truth, particularly in response to sexual violence toward women. It plays in the gray area on a subject that is too often presented in black and white in America’s discourse around women’s sexual agency, particularly at a political moment where women’s rights are at the fore of legislative debates and Rick Ross’s raps celebrate date rape. Meanwhile, social media punditry expands platforms for self-made gurus to present sensational takes on the sensitive subject. What is the impact of another listicle arming women with “7 Ways to Not Get Raped at a Frat Party”? How do we balance the internet’s influence on personal empowerment versus its capacity to act as a placebo for true dialogue, change, healing? What is the difference between a victim and survivor? How are we complicit in the culture of sexual violence? Do we mean it when we tell women “it’s never your fault”? In a world where technology evolves faster than cultural values, one week in spring dissects the taboo of women’s sexual desire and agency against the backdrop of a world where the body is increasingly politicized