Conceived and Produced by Prop Thtr Artistic Director Olivia Lilley, the Playwrights’ Workshop
For the past year, four Chicago and Midwest-based playwrights have been meeting
weekly to develop brand new plays with. In addition to working on their craft, these playwrights are working on building their audience and taking ownership over the entrepreneurial aspects of being an artist. Producer Olivia Lilley has helped to gather international teams of actors and directors to make these brilliant artists visions come to life.
Our playwrights and their plays are:
Hallie Palladino / “PROXIMITY PLAY”
Director: Erica Wray.
Cast: Lucy Carapetyan, Lynnette Li, Brandon Rivera, and Nate Faust
Seeking community post-quarantine, Nicole volunteers for the Sunday night toy cleaning crew at The Learning Co-Op where preschool parents covertly socialize under a COVID-acceptable halo of sanitation. There, she falls for the ruggedly reassuring Logan, a hot, practically-divorced super dad who can build a house, fix a stroller, and bake a mean pie. To get close to him, she becomes TLC’s star volunteer, causing the burnt-out founders to tap her as their replacement. But, behind the scenes, infighting, betrayal, and deception threaten this idyllic community. PROXIMITY PLAY is a dark comedy about friendship, loyalty, and parents behaving badly.
凌玥 lingyue / “平凡女人 无名女人[Ordinary Woman, Nameless Woman]”
Director: Olivia Lilley
Cast: Harmony Zhang
Dramaturgy: Tanuja Jagernauth
On the seventh day of her Mother’s death, a Chinese American Woman sits down to tell the life story of her Mother in attempt to guide her Mother’s spirit home. While waiting for her Mother’s spirit to arrive, a pair of unruly voices begin to interrupt her storytelling.
Aida Peerzada
“Children of the Wise”
Director: Priyanka Shetty
Rafi was born in 1889. Ida was born in 1999. Can they work together despite living at opposite ends of the 20th century?
Ida is struggling with her identity as a 2nd generation Pakistani-American when she is confronted by the memory of her enigmatic grandfather, Rafi. Through family and fantasy she learns of his life as an anti-colonial activist in British India, a theater maker in Berlin, a Bollywood film star in pre-partition India, and a subversive playwright in Pakistan. Inspired by Rafi’s tenacity and strife Ida is pushed to make a drastic decision about how she can move forward, and what it means to be our ancestors wildest dreams.
This play is based on the real life story of Pakistan’s first modern dramatist, Rafi Peer, as collected through oral accounts, interviews and recordings from his children, by one of his granddaughters: the playwright.
Chris Vanderark
(The Rat Cage) directed by NYC based, Shannon Sindelar