Go To Productions Hosts The 2024 Go To New Play Fest: An Inaugural Celebration Of Original Works

Go To Productions has announced the launch of its inaugural 2024 Go To New Play Fest, a dynamic showcase featuring seven short plays by acclaimed playwrights Darren Canady, Stuart Day, and Douglas Post. Directed by the talented Justice Ford, Rachel Slavick, and Scott Westerman, this festival promises a compelling array of narratives that traverse from frenzied airports and tense boardrooms to the vibrant heart of Times Square and crisis-riddled homes.

Go To Productions is a visiting company renowned for its innovative projects that explore the intersection of live theatre and film. Committed to creating art that is accessible both practically and intellectually, Go To Productions strives to connect a diverse community of audiences and artists.

Join in for the 2024 Go To New Play Fest and embark on a journey to known destinations with unknown destinies. Experience the fusion of live theatre and film, and witness the birth of new stories that resonate with the pulse of our times.

The 2024 Go To New Play Fest runs September 26th and 27th at 7:30 pm, September 28th at 8:00 pm, and September 29th at 3:00 pm at Theater Wit. Tickets are available now. For more information and to purchase tickets, please contact the Theatre Wit box office at www.theaterwit.org/tickets/productions/527/performances or 773-975-8150.

The cast includes: Annie Hogan as Hattie in F.U. Air, Julia Zuniga as Liberty and Patrick Zielinski as Hank in Talk!, Harold Lloyd as Hez and Michael Stejskal as Jackie in Tum Tum & Mabel, Trell Winters as Ferguson in Number 163, Annie Calhoun as Jane and Ian Deanes as James in Bounce!, Alexis Primus as Renee and Alexandria Moorman as Mama in Let It Sear Blister and Burn, and Tricia Rogers as Gwen in A Passenger's Bill Of Rights.

The Go To New Play Fest Production Team includes Catalina Nino (Set Designer) Petter Wahlback (Sound Designer), Bryan Back (Lighting Designer), Frank Nall (Production Manager) and Devon Carson (Assistant Production Manager).

Access: Theater Wit is wheelchair accessible. Please email boxoffice@theaterwit.org to ensure we can reserve the right seat for your access needs.

Visit www.gotoproductions.org for more information, including content warnings, and news of special events. Find and follow the company on social media @goto_productions on Facebook and Instagram

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS

Darren Canady (he/him Playwright of Tum Tum & Mabel and Let It Sear Blister and Burn), Darren Canady's work has been produced at Sound Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theatre, Aurora Theatre, the Alliance Theatre, Congo Square Theater, Horizon Theatre, London's Old Vic Theatre, M Ensemble, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, American Blues Theater, and others. His awards include the Alliance Theater's Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Award, Chicago's Black Excellence Award, the Black Theatre Alliance Award, and the American Theatre Critics Association's Osborn Award. His work has been developed at the Fremont Centre Theatre, Premiere Stages, and Playwright's Realm. He is an alum of Carnegie Mellon University, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and The Juilliard School. He is also an alum of Primary Stages' Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group, the Playwright's Center's Core Writer Group, and the Midwest Dramatists Center. He is an artistic affiliate with American Blues Theater. He currently teaches playwriting at the University of Kansas.

Stuart A. Day (he/him Playwright of Talk! and Bounce!), is an alumnus of Northern Arizona University, the University of Arizona, and Cornell University. He is an award-winning teacher, mentor, and playwright, who currently leads the KC Metro campus of the University of Kansas, a satellite that serves first-generation students, transfer students, and working adults. Day is an advisor to higher education leaders across the US, Dean of the School of Professional Studies, and Managing Editor of the Latin American Theatre Review. In his role as Professor of Spanish, he has taught and published extensively on Mexican and Latin American political performance; recent books and editions include Outside Theater: Alliances that Shaped Mexico (University of Arizona Press) and Performances that Changed the Americas (Routledge). He also disseminates theater through the publication of numerous anthologies that are used widely in teaching Latin American theater, and through play productions.

Douglas Post (he/him Playwright of the F.U. Air, Number 163, and A Passenger's Bill of Rights), Douglas Post's plays, which include Bloodshot, Cynical Weathers, Drowning Sorrows, Earth and Sky, and Murder in Green Meadows, and musicals, which include God and Country, The Real Life Story of Johnny de Facto and The Wind in the Willows, have been produced in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Canada, England, Wales, Germany, Austria, Russia, China and South Africa. He has also been commissioned to write screenplays for Warner Bros. and NBC, teleplays for WMAQ-TV, and several radio adaptations of his scripts. On three occasions, he has been selected to develop his work at the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and once at the O'Neill National Music Theater Conference. He has received the L. Arnold Weissberger Playwriting Award, the Midwestern Playwrights Festival Award, the Cunningham Commission Award, the Blue Ink Playwriting Award, and three Playwriting Fellowship Awards from the Illinois Arts Council, and has been nominated for three Joseph Jefferson Awards, a Suzi Bass Award, and an Emmy Award. Mr. Post lives in Chicago where he has composed songs and incidental music for over twenty-five productions, teaches playwriting and theatre appreciation at the University of Chicago Graham School, and serves on three committees for the Dramatists Guild of America.

ABOUT THE DIRECTORS

Justice Ford (she/her, Director of Talk! & Let It Sear Blister and Burn) is an actress, arts educator, writer and so much more hailing from the Southside of Chicago. In Bronzeville, she grew a passion for the arts that lead her down the halls of ChiArts, as a student in their inaurgural class (2013). After high school, college life wasn't too promising so she tried her hand as a teaching artist and fell deeply in love with it. Justice has worked with a local organization that teaches theatre to youth impacted by the juvenile justice system, the August Wilson Outreach Program, and is a currently an acting teacher at her alma mater. She also has been a finalist in Complex Magazine's "Good Looking Out" series for her podcast "unapologetic." (2018), a recipient of the Golden Key Award from the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards (2010), regional winner of The Goodman Theatre's "10-Minute Play Festival" (2012), and most recently has been invited to direct a number of shows across the city, including The Artistic Home Theater and Congo Square Theatre. Justice believes wholeheartedly that art saves lives, and as she continues to allow that to manifest in her life she hopes that she is allowed continually opportunities to live out her purpose: to share stories and heal through art.

Rachel Slavick (she/her, Director of Bounce! & Tum Tum & Mabel) is Go To Productions' board president, is a TTS alum (MFA Acting) and adjunct professor, as well as a founding teacher at The Chicago High School for the Arts (Chiarts). As a director and actress in the Chicago Theatre community, she is most proud of her work with playwright Hannah Ii-Epstein, having directed the mainland premieres of the first two of the North Shore Trilogy: Not One Batu and Pakalolo Sweet. She is also the board chair at Jackalope Theatre, where she has been privileged to both act and direct. She is the mother of two adult children, Isabelle Ruby and Leo Isaiah.

Scott Westerman (he/him, Director of F.U. Air, Number 163, and A Passenger's Bill of Rights), is the founding Artistic Director of Go To Productions, a 501©3 nonprofit which develops projects that explore the nexus between live theatre and film. He created and directed the web series Hamlet & Ophelia which won Best Mobile Series at the 2022 New Media Film Festival. As an actor in Chicago, Scott has worked with Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Northlight, Lookingglass, Nothing Without A Company, Filament, The Artistic Home, Chicago Dramatists, Strawdog, Lifeline, Stage Left, Apple Tree, A Crew of Patches, Mary Arrchie, and Festival Theatre of Oak Park. Outside of Chicago, he has done shows with The Shakespeare Theatre Company and Ford's Theatre in DC, Everyman Theatre in Baltimore, The Warehouse in South Carolina, and Barter Theatre in Virginia. Film credits include Chicago Fire, Prison Break, and Machine Gun Preacher. ScottWesterman.org

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