UT & TAPS
Greater Chicago
Greater Chicago (Permanent Recordings)
Outside Chicago
Do you have events you would like to include or advertise for in next month’s newsletter? Email UTheaterNewsletter@gmail.com to submit items—and be sure to note any UT members participating!
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Play Reading List | Selections by Omar Almakki
Community play reading lists are a chance for UT members to select and showcase some of their favorite plays for everyone to enjoy. We hope that you will take some time to read the scripts that interest you!
Swimmers by Rachel Bonds (ISBN-13: 978-0573706714)
Swimmers is my favourite play that I’ve ever read, and I think it’s not hard to see why. The occult background of the world potentially ending, coyotes in the industrial park, and strange women in huts on the greenway meets the mundane foreground of a typical sales company in this play that ascends the company building, moving from the basement to the roof as the characters work through loneliness, jealousy, mental illness, addictions, embarrassment, and love. The characters talk like normal people, eat too many Reese’s Pieces, and generally allow us to fall in love with the simple beauty of human connection in a single day.
Peerless by Jiehae Park (ISBN-13: 978-0573705878)
Peerless is a play that managed to surprise me, which doesn’t happen too often. The rapid-fire delivery of all the lines as well as the speed of the plot doesn’t give you time to think as you follow two Asian-American twin high-schoolers who are trying their best to get into The College, and won’t let anything or anyone stop them. The Shakespearean story plot meets modern day language and reasoning, and the comedy quickly turns to a much darker and insane story, that ends with a tinge of recursiveness.
 Arcadia is in a way, standard Stoppard fare. Way too long, too intellectual, and absolutely full of wonderful twists and turns with amazing character interactions and lovely messages and themes. This recursive play spans two different time zones (the 1810s and the present day) within the same room of the same house, as the aristocratic Coverly family handles difficulties in past and present. Thomasina Coverly and her tutor in the past attempt to figure out mathematics, nature, and physics, as Valentine Coverly in the present day is also studying the mathematics of grouse, as two scholars battle over what happened in the 1810s as we see it occurring in the past scenes, and come together with two pairs dancing at the end of the play.
The Wolves is a play that breaks many of the standards of typical sta ge plays. Its all-female and unnamed cast of soccer players work on practicing for their next match as they discuss all manner of things, from the political to the personal. Identified only by their numbers and their personalities, this coming of age story allows a viewpoint into one of America’s most ignored demographics, teenage women. The action of them talking while doing drills requires both a cast of intensely powerful actors, but also strong athletes, and very little actual action happens onstage, rather the characters discuss things that occur between the weeks of their practice, and work on how they deal with stress, grief, and the hierarchy of their own team.
Would you like to submit some of your favorite plays for a future newsletter? Email UTheaterNewsletter@gmail.com with 3-5 titles and a description of why you have chosen and/or love each. Each list must feature at least one work showcasing an underrepresented playwright or narrative (you may decide what matches this criterion).
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Committee has continued to discuss winter and spring programming options, and we have formalized several initiatives in the past month:
- We have released a new proposal form for funding student productions next quarter! There are two different funding opportunities:
- Cycle 1 (due Jan 15, proposal meeting Jan 18): Recommended for proposers who a) are proposing for a substantial amount of funding or b) are hoping for any in-person elements in winter.
- Cycle 2 (due Feb 5, proposal meeting Feb 8): Recommended for proposers who are proposing a) for less substantial funding and b) all-remote activities in winter.
Proposers must fill out the proposal form, which includes meetings with Committee and members of Pro Staff. The proposal form with more details can be found here.
- Committee has launched a University Theater Discord community. Click here to join us for play viewing parties; to discuss plays, projects, and UT; to easily interface with Committee; and more!
- A few new subcommittees have formed to address smaller programming initiatives. They include:
- New Designer Mentorship Subcommittee (Fred Dan, Allegra Hatem, Melaina Leung, Mary Mouton, Leo Wehner, Isaiah Zwick-Schachter)
- Monologue Festival II Subcommittee (Zander Galluppi, Caitlyn Klum, Lynneah McCarrell, Emily O’Heir)
- Chicago Directors Subcommittee (Jahnee Armstead, Caitlyn Klum, Lynneah McCarrell, Mary Mouton): This subcommittee is exploring hiring Chicago area directors to direct a student reading
- Play Viewing Subcommittee (Jahnee Armstead, Allegra Hatem, Melaina Leung, Lynneah McCarrell, Spencer Ng): This subcommittee is working on extending more options for students to see virtual plays
Newsletter Subcommittee
Last month, we sent a call to recruit a community member to work with us for next quarter, and we are delighted to welcome Brandon Zang to the Newsletter Subcommittee!
Since UT and Committee will soon be adjourning for winter break, our next publication will be at the end of the first month of Winter Quarter around January 29.
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Steep Theatre Company: Moony
