Welcome to Matteson! by Inda Craig-Galván

FULL-LENGTH: A suburban couple hosts a welcome-to-the-neighborhood dinner party for their new neighbors — a couple recently (forcibly) relocated from Chicago's roughest housing project — and it's anything but welcoming. A dark intra-racial comedy about reverse gentrification and how we deal with the "other" when the other looks just like us.
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Welcome to Matteson!

Recommended by

  • A. Emmanuel Leadon:
    11 Mar. 2019
    “ Provokes a conversation that so many of us prefer to avoid. Replete with deliciously awkward moments. The climax is incredibly effective without verging on gaudiness. If you feel like doing Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, consider this piece instead. ”
  • Nelson Diaz-Marcano:
    16 Feb. 2019
    “ The beauty of this script lies on the unapologetic exploration of classism in minority communities and the loss we all sustained on the journey to one up each other. It is an issue that has plague us, POC communities for ages, the idea that as humans we can only gain respect if we adhere to society rules. How you want to show "you are not like the others." Inda gives us a play that works on this question by peeling layers and layers of systematic racism. ”
  • Ellen Koivisto:
    14 Dec. 2018
    “ We pretend class is unimportant in the U.S. (go ahead, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps), but class prejudices are real and intersect with racism in devious, destructive ways. So welcome to Matteson from Cabrini Green, welcome to a dinner party as awful and memorable as Martha and George's, to an evening of mostly awful food and uncomfortable truths, and a couple self-destructing before our eyes, all played out with cork floors and 35-year old single malt Scotch hidden in the closet, and prejudices and attempts at connecting clashing hideously. Highly recommended. ”
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Development History

  • Reading
    ,
    The Old Globe - Powers New Voices Festival
    ,
    2019
  • Reading
    ,
    Miranda Theatre Company
    ,
    2018
  • Reading
    ,
    Kitchen Dog Theater New Works Festival
    ,
    2018
  • Reading
    ,
    Capital Stage Playwrights' Revolution
    ,
    2018
  • Residency
    ,
    Eugene O'Neill National Directors Fellows Winter Session
    ,
    2018
  • Workshop
    ,
    Oregon Shakespeare Festival Black Swan Lab for New Works
    ,
    2016

Awards

Winner
,
Blue Ink Playwriting Award
,
American Blues Theater
,
2018