Chicago Dramatists Announces Five New Resident Playwrights

Chicago Dramatists has announced its new slate of resident playwrights. Read a message from Artistic Director of Chicago Dramatists, Carson Grace Becker

I am pleased and honored to introduce our new company of Resident Playwrights at Chicago Dramatists. This year's selection process started last fall. Through professional nominations, garnered from local theaters, literary managers, and our current resident playwrights, we have elected the following writers into our fold.

During this unique and challenging time, we welcome them with recognition and gratitude, for their diverse and myriad gifts; with hope and confidence, in the new and relevant work they will undoubtedly generate; and joy and commitment, as together they move us forward in our mission to support a broad and promising spectrum of new American Playwrights. Upon the re-opening of our theater, we will host a showcase of their work. And we'd love to see you there. Until then, please keep safe and sound and in touch."

Todd Bauer is a visually impaired playwright, whose work has been performed in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and at the Kennedy Center. Recent productions include: Downsizing Camus at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music (BAM), New York, and The Bird Feeder Doesn't Know, Raven Theatre, Chicago. He was a finalist for the 2017/18 Goodman Theatre Playwrights Unit, was awarded an NEA Grant, received a fellowship from the Ragdale foundation, and was nominated twice for a 3Arts Artist Award. Todd has taught British and American drama at the Newberry Library in Chicago for over ten years, and is an ensemble member of Apothetae Company in New York. He has twice lived with indigenous tribes, once in the Amazon and once in Indonesia, and he has witnessed both a tornado and a volcano.

Hannah Ii-Epstein (she/her/hers), was born and raised on the North Shore of Oahu, and received her MFA in Writing for the Screen + Stage at Northwestern University in 2018. She is a creative writer, dramatist, and Co-Artistic Director of Nothing Without a Company (NWaC). Since 2007, over twenty of her plays and musicals have been produced in Hawai'i by Kumu Kahua Theatre and in Chicago by NWaC, About Face Theatre's Babes on Stage, Random Acts' Scary Stories, and more. In 2016 Hannah and her play, Not One Batu, was honored with six awards by Hawai'i State Theatre Council Po'okela Awards, and in 2018 Not One Batu was Reader and Jeff Recommended in Chicago. In 2019 her short film, Redesign Your Life, won 5 awards, including Best Film Runner Up at 48HFP Chicago. Hannah is a founding member of BearCat Productions, a board member of Aloha Center Chicago, and member of the Ke Ali`i Victoria Ka`iulani Hawaiian Civic Club and the Ke Kula Kupaa O Ka Pakipika Hālau.

Before joining the resident playwright roster at Chicago Dramatists, Derek McPhatter was an inaugural member of the Tutterow Fellowship program, developing Real Talk with Auntie B, a satire on American ambition in the age of social media. His recent residency at The National Black Theatre (NYC) incubated Serious Adverse Effects, his futuristic play on technologies of healing. Derek has written five musicals for The Lyric Opera of Chicago's Lyric Unlimited division. Bring the Beat Back is his queer, black, sci-fi, music-theatre passion project, recently a featured presentation in the Polyphone Music Festival (Philadelphia), followed by a concert production run with Otherworld Theatre Company. Organizations that have presented his work include The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Prop Thtr, Hi-ARTS, JACK, the Djerassi Artists Residency, and The Drama League. Derek is a founding playwright with The Fire This Time Festival and an inaugural playwright in the 48 Hours in Harlem Festival, two Obie-winning programs in NYC. Beyond theater, Derek has co-created digital programming for numerous platforms, such as HIVE, a sci-fi anthology series in development with OTV | Open Television. He's originally from Pickerington Ohio and is happy to call Chicago home.

Fouad Teymour is a Chicago-based Egyptian American playwright. He is an associate artist of Silk Road Rising, and a board member for International Voices Project (IVP). The Jeff-recommended world premiere of his play Twice, Thrice, Frice..., directed by Patrizia Acerra, was co-produced by Silk Road Rising and IVP. It was listed among Chicago Best Plays 2019 by Picture this Post. His play Blue Fish in A Tall Clear Vase, directed by Jason Smith, was produced at Three Cat Productions (2017) where he had previously collaborated on The Other Side of Christmas (2016), and Holiday Stories (2015), and where his play An Afternoon With My Mother (2015) was featured in the Chicago New Work Festival. Twice, Thrice, Frice... was part of the Crescent and Star Staged Reading Series at Silk Road Rising (August 2017), the New American Voices Series at Queens Theater, NY (October 2018), and a semi-finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival BAPF 2018. He translated Ahmed Serag's The Castle and The Sparrow from Arabic (Performed in IVP 2014. Published in 2015 by Dar Ibda'a in Egypt). Fouad is a former Network Member with Chicago Dramatists.

Emilio Williams is an award-winning writer and educator. His critically-acclaimed plays have been produced in Argentina, Estonia, France, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington DC. As an international communications expert and journalist, he has worked for CNN, the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago. He has been a visiting artist at the University of Portland, Georgia State University, Mary Washington University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he is currently teaching creative writing.

For more details, please visit Chicago Dramatists Resident Playwrights

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