Author: Max Langert

Each year, The Workshop Theater commissions four writers to create short plays inspired by prompts related to a non-profit organization. We’re thrilled to welcome this year’s playwrights for Words Matter:

Monet Hurst-Mendoza
Mariana Carreño King
Phanésia Pharel
Caridad Svich

This year, we’ve partnered with Veteran’s Spouse Project. Each playwright was paired with a veteran spouse from VSP and created a new play based on those conversations. The four new plays are cast and produced for an evening celebrating the work of that non-profit, with contributions directly benefiting Veteran’s Spouse Project.

We hope you’ll join us on The Intrepid on May 4, 2026 to celebrate the artistic collaboration of Veteran’s Spouse Project and The Workshop Theater.

Tickets and more details HERE.

Words Matter is a unique annual initiative where The Workshop Theater partners with a non-profit organization doing critical work in the community. We commission four groundbreaking playwrights to create new plays inspired by that organization’s mission. The writers learn about the nonprofit’s work – its people, challenges, and triumphs. They then craft stories illuminating and amplifying the heart of that mission. The plays are cast and produced for an evening celebrating the work of that non-profit.

Previous collaborations benefited the work of New Sanctuary Coalition, Invisible Hands, Judges & Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert, and Rehabilitation Through the Arts. This year, we are proud to partner with the Veteran’s Spouse Project, who are dedicated to sharing the stories of generations of military spouses, uniting the military and civilian communities in friendship and understanding. This year’s reading will be held on May 4, 2026 at the Intrepid Museum.

This abridged version of playwright Caridad Svich’s new play, created during her 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship, asks who we will be in the next 100 years. This multimedia performance piece, supported by student design fellows, asks audiences to imagine, against all odds, there is a future that is not foreclosed.

Directed by Professor Courtney Ryan
Design by Professor Jake Salgado

Performed at the Williams Center for the Arts · Lafayette College

Details and ticket info HERE.

Strawdog Theatre Company has announced the cast for the final production of its 38th season, 12 Ophelias, written by Caridad Svich and directed by Strawdog co-artistic director, Kamille Dawkins*.

The production features Tierra Matthews as Ophelia, Dryden Zurawski as Rude Boy, Molly Kempfer as Mina, Rafael Gray Lopez as H, Jillian Leff as R, Jared Sprowls as G, and Eileen Dixon as Gertrude.

Understudies for this production are Fiona Walsh Calton as Ophelia (Understudy), Andrew Freeland as Rude Boy (Understudy), Shay Gordon* as R (Understudy), Makari Robinson-McNeese as H and G (Understudy), and Isa Grofsorean as Gertrude and Mina (Understudy).

In this play with broken songs, Shakespeare’s Ophelia rises out of the water dreaming of reclaiming her life. She finds herself in a neo-Elizabethan Appalachian setting where Gertrude runs a brothel, Hamlet is a Rude Boy and nothing is what it seems. In this mirrored world of word-scraps and cold sex, Ophelia cuts a new path for herself.

The production will run April 17 – May 24, 2026, with previews April 10 – 12. Shows are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 2pm at The Factory Theater, 1623 W. Howard St. Chicago, IL 60626. Tickets will go live at strawdog.org on February 23, 2026. Tickets are sliding scale between $10-$80.

The production team includes Becca Levy* (Movement and Intimacy Director), Maureen Azzun* (Assistant Director), Rose Johnson (Scenic Designer), Chris Stopka (Technical Director), Leo Bassow (Props Designer), Emily N. Brink (Costume Designer), Ellie Humphrys (Lighting Designer), and Heath Hays* (Sound Designer) with Stage Management from Phil Claudnic and Production Management from Shelby Burgus. Co-Artistic Director, Noah Elman* is Producer.

*Denotes Strawdog ensemble member

Listing on ChicagoPlays.com HERE.

Weber State University will produce Ushuaia Blue as part of their 2026 season. You can read more about the play HERE and get tickets on the Weber State site HERE.

Show details:

Feb. 13, 14 & 18-21 at 7:30 p.m. and Feb. 21 at 2 p.m.
ASL Interpreted Performance Feb. 19
By Caridad Svich

Ushuaia Blue is a haunting and poetic journey through memory, love, and loss. Set at the edge of the world in the windswept landscapes of Tierra del Fuego, the play follows a grieving couple as they search for connection in the wake of unimaginable tragedy. With lyrical language and raw emotion, Ushuaia Blue offers a moving exploration of what it means to remember, to endure, and to hope.

The Larking House in Anaheim will feature a reading of future emergencies on Saturday, November 1st.

Check their website to get the Zoom link to attend:

https://www.thelarkinghouse.com/playwrightsintensive

A new published interview with UK’s Open University can be found on their website HERE.

A snippet:

With the Greeks it’s more about stepping into something so old. It’s pre-Christian. For me, that’s a really fascinating space to be in. A lot of Western drama tends to be built around a kind of Christian model. I’m interested in stuff that’s pagan. I’m interested in ritual and ceremony in that sense. But I’m also interested in the fact that a lot of Western drama also comes from places that mimic or echo some of the deep problems in current society. Classical Athens was built on slave labour, right? There were people excluded from seeing the plays, it was for a very specific crowd. I think that all those things are mimicked in US culture. I want to acknowledge that because I think sometimes what happens with ancient Greek plays is that they’re divorced from their contexts. They’re seen as pristine artefacts. They’re not pristine. They’re actually quite dirty. I like the dirtiness of it, and I mean dirty in a socio-political sense. It’s dirty, it’s messy, it’s weird. 

From the Hollywood Beat:

Fugitive Dreams unfolds like a fever dream along the rails of America—unsettling, poetic, and deeply human. Directed by Jason Neulander and adapted from Caridad Svich’s play, this 2024 release invites viewers into a fragmented journey across a dreamscape America, carried forward by the trembling hope of two lost souls. The film does not follow a traditional plot; instead, it drifts between moments of empathy, despair, and quiet grace, with a non-linear narrative that feels fittingly disorienting.

Read the full review HERE.

Carnations is printed in the July publication of Something Other:

Carnations

Caridad has a new Substack which you can subscribe to, and the first post, I miss when plays were just plays, can be found HERE.

A snippet:

My concern lies with the needs of the MOMENT overriding the needs of a play and moreover the necessity of what a play can do, in its own humble manner, to achieve the elusive state of wonder that so many ascribe to this form of media. If the play speaks sideways to the NOW, is it suspect? Is it not meeting its moment? or Is it meeting its potential audience in a different way to contemplate human existence?