Recommended by Hallie Palladino

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    How do you keep living and working during a catastrophic pandemic? Four funeral singers forge a fragile pact around their (at first) unspoken grief and fear. But as they focus on pressing practical matters like income and housing, they are soon confronted with unavoidable and ultimately heartbreaking choices. DIE OFF is an exquisite meditation on how to maintain our humanity in the face of anticipatory grief.

    How do you keep living and working during a catastrophic pandemic? Four funeral singers forge a fragile pact around their (at first) unspoken grief and fear. But as they focus on pressing practical matters like income and housing, they are soon confronted with unavoidable and ultimately heartbreaking choices. DIE OFF is an exquisite meditation on how to maintain our humanity in the face of anticipatory grief.

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    Just saw A Short Leap's production of Friends with Guns, and it was hilarious, surprising, very real, and as always Stephanie nails the social dynamics in a play that's smartly comic, with characters who are so very familiar and devastating precisely because they are so familiar. And it's also a very real portrayal of early motherhood.

    Just saw A Short Leap's production of Friends with Guns, and it was hilarious, surprising, very real, and as always Stephanie nails the social dynamics in a play that's smartly comic, with characters who are so very familiar and devastating precisely because they are so familiar. And it's also a very real portrayal of early motherhood.

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    This play's evocative atmosphere and mysterious subject matter draws audiences in from the start. The off kilter characters are specifically drawn, the breadcrumbs are ones we want to follow, and the effect is engaging and spooky punctuated with well-timed humor. It's a psychological drama wrapped up in the bearskin rug of horror and mystery.

    This play's evocative atmosphere and mysterious subject matter draws audiences in from the start. The off kilter characters are specifically drawn, the breadcrumbs are ones we want to follow, and the effect is engaging and spooky punctuated with well-timed humor. It's a psychological drama wrapped up in the bearskin rug of horror and mystery.

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    I'm a huge fan of this play and of Derek's work - underdrown is luscious, magical, romantic, nerdy, witty, and terrifyingly timely portrait of Black queer love at the inflection point of climate change and societal collapse.

    I'm a huge fan of this play and of Derek's work - underdrown is luscious, magical, romantic, nerdy, witty, and terrifyingly timely portrait of Black queer love at the inflection point of climate change and societal collapse.

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    Stephanie's pitch perfect satire is a brilliant response to the very real (this happened in her school district) banning of books by radicalized suburban moms. Everything from the magical talking crow and the title's nod to Brecht are laid out like a luscious charcuterie platter of comedic delight. This play is very real and very important, and every city needs to produce it because it's a study in how anti-democractic ideas spread, morph, and metastasize.

    Stephanie's pitch perfect satire is a brilliant response to the very real (this happened in her school district) banning of books by radicalized suburban moms. Everything from the magical talking crow and the title's nod to Brecht are laid out like a luscious charcuterie platter of comedic delight. This play is very real and very important, and every city needs to produce it because it's a study in how anti-democractic ideas spread, morph, and metastasize.

  • Hallie Palladino: Everything, Devoured by Katherine Gwynn
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    This play is hilarious and packs a punch. Katherine's imagination and the play's premise is just the right mix of dangerous, playful, political, and surprising. I got to hear this play when it was in development at A Red Orchid's "Orchid Studio" and I have been a huge fan of it from the start.

    This play is hilarious and packs a punch. Katherine's imagination and the play's premise is just the right mix of dangerous, playful, political, and surprising. I got to hear this play when it was in development at A Red Orchid's "Orchid Studio" and I have been a huge fan of it from the start.

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  • Hallie Palladino: Catacombs by Katherine Gwynn
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    I saw the Chicago premiere of Catacombs and LOVED it. Katherine is one of the most exciting playwrights working in Chicago right now. And yes, I'm a sucker for time travel romance. This one really delivered. It was exciting, moving, and the site specific setting in an actual underground queer bar was genius. I left feeling uplifted, entertained, and charmed.

    I saw the Chicago premiere of Catacombs and LOVED it. Katherine is one of the most exciting playwrights working in Chicago right now. And yes, I'm a sucker for time travel romance. This one really delivered. It was exciting, moving, and the site specific setting in an actual underground queer bar was genius. I left feeling uplifted, entertained, and charmed.

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  • Hallie Palladino: LOVE by Kate Cortesi
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    Caught LOVE at the 2019 Ojai Playwrights Conference. Cortesi shows exactly how incredibly charming womanizers have gotten the art of serial seduction down to a science and asks compelling questions about intimacy, desire and accountability. When the costs of telling the truth are high (like career endingly, marriage endingly high), this play makes the argument that perhaps the benefits of telling that same truth just may be even higher. A delicious, disturbing and paradigm shifting visit to the oh-so-recent pre-MeToo workplace.

    Caught LOVE at the 2019 Ojai Playwrights Conference. Cortesi shows exactly how incredibly charming womanizers have gotten the art of serial seduction down to a science and asks compelling questions about intimacy, desire and accountability. When the costs of telling the truth are high (like career endingly, marriage endingly high), this play makes the argument that perhaps the benefits of telling that same truth just may be even higher. A delicious, disturbing and paradigm shifting visit to the oh-so-recent pre-MeToo workplace.

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  • Hallie Palladino: Welcome to Matteson! by Inda Craig-Galván
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    A flawless take on the dinner party play. Uproariously funny dialogue this play is a send up of bourgeois posturing and weaponized manners. It grapples with class bias within the black community atop the powder keg of economic anxieties produced by a century of systemic housing discrimination, CHA’s shuttering of Cabrini and the subsequent displacement of families. Regina and Corey, an enviably in sync couple delightfully school their materialistic hosts on communication, love, graciousness and the true meaning of making a home. Also some magic.

    A flawless take on the dinner party play. Uproariously funny dialogue this play is a send up of bourgeois posturing and weaponized manners. It grapples with class bias within the black community atop the powder keg of economic anxieties produced by a century of systemic housing discrimination, CHA’s shuttering of Cabrini and the subsequent displacement of families. Regina and Corey, an enviably in sync couple delightfully school their materialistic hosts on communication, love, graciousness and the true meaning of making a home. Also some magic.

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  • Hallie Palladino: John Proctor is the Villain by Kimberly Belflower
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    This play brilliantly unpacks hundreds of years of language that shames, blames and destroys young vulnerable girls who have been sexually and romantically exploited by powerful men (and they often do come as a package deal). Watching young women learn how to resist these narratives, band together, turn their male classmates from bystanders into allies or at least potential ones, and educate each other is hopeful, powerful and so heartbreakingly real. This play is the play we need right now. Young people are gonna save us. The future is inclusive! Produce this play. Every teenager needs to see...

    This play brilliantly unpacks hundreds of years of language that shames, blames and destroys young vulnerable girls who have been sexually and romantically exploited by powerful men (and they often do come as a package deal). Watching young women learn how to resist these narratives, band together, turn their male classmates from bystanders into allies or at least potential ones, and educate each other is hopeful, powerful and so heartbreakingly real. This play is the play we need right now. Young people are gonna save us. The future is inclusive! Produce this play. Every teenager needs to see it.

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    ”