Freshly Brewed is a program co-produced by The Understudy Coffee and Books and Pocket Theatrics in community collaboration with Raven Theatre.
Freshly Brewed is a monthly new-play reading series featuring work by emerging Chicago-area playwrights and directors. Contributing playwrights, directors, dramaturgs, actors, and producers receive a stipend for their work.
Interested in taking part? Choose the form that matches your role.
Production History
Explore the artists and creative teams who have developed new work through Freshly Brewed. Select a title to view its playwright, director, producing team, dramaturg, cast, and additional collaborators.
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Synopsis
After twenty-eight months apart following a family tragedy, Margaret expects her estranged daughter to return home for Christmas. The person who arrives at her door, however, is not the daughter she remembers. Austin's home follows a family confronting identity, grief, and whether reconciliation is possible when the past and the person returning have both changed.
Production Credits
Written by Jesse Robkin
Co-directed by Bryan Barboka and Adam Crawford
Produced by Joel Willison
Cast:
Mikee Walden
Shariba Rivers
Darren Jones
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Synopsis
Crush(ed): The One Woman (Not Really) Show invites the audience inside Maria's constantly circling thoughts about attraction. Adapted from an intimate romance podcast, the play revisits the delight, embarrassment, fantasy, and emotional excess of having a crush. Its shifting voices turn one person's memories into a theatrical collage that feels both deeply personal and recognizably adolescent.
Production Credits
Written by Maria Arreola
Directed by Karina Patel
Produced by Joel Willison
Dramaturgy by Emma Durbin
Cast:
Tatiana Bustamante
Rich Estaban
Casey Whisler
Sahar El Dika
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Synopsis
Across 1880, 1960, and 2020, Echo faces puberty while the boys around her claim her ideas, dismiss her voice, and turn her life into their story. Accompanied by a teenage Satan and fueled by long-suppressed rage, she begins to challenge the histories that have pushed her aside and considers what it might mean to unleash her own power.
Production Credits
Written by Juliet Kang Huneke
Directed by Daira Rodriguez
Produced by Emma Durbin, Nadya Naumaan, and Joel Willison
Dramaturgy by Emma Durbin
Cast:
Kandace Mack
Jett Pasia
Andi Muriel
Bennet Petersen
Rick Hischer
Sunnie Eraso
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Production Credits
Written by Connor Ermir Bradshaw
Directed by Danny Fender
Dramaturgy by Madie Doppelt
Movement and intimacy direction by Madgdalena Dalzell
Intimacy shadow: Alina Burgos
Sound design by Adam Crawford
Produced by Emma Durbin and Joel Willison
Cast:
Sam Boeck
Omer Abbas Salem
Kenny Hamilton
Keimon Shook
John Drea
Donovan Session
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Synopsis
Romantic hopefuls compete for love and prize money on a wildly popular British reality series. Although every contestant enters the same game, one Black woman discovers that the rules do not produce the same experience for everyone. Using confessionals, eliminations, and reality-TV spectacle, Island of Love examines racism, colorism, belonging, and who gets framed as desirable.
Production Credits
Written by Felicia Oduh
Directed by Allie Woodson
Produced by Joel Willison and Emma Durbin
Cast:
Charence Higgins
Kathleen Sullivan
Elena Victoria Feliz
Ilana Weiner
Anthony Baldasare
Jamaque Newberry
Ian Maryfield
Spencer Diaz Tootle
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Synopsis
After a man dies, four self-involved friends enter his apartment to retrieve the suit in which he will be buried. Instead, they discover a woman tied up in his closet and a problem that cannot wait. Dark, fast, and farcical, Service/Play asks how far people will go to protect a dead friend's reputation when loyalty collides with responsibility.
Production Credits
Written by Mak Declet
Directed by Regina Victor
Produced by Joel Willison
Dramaturgy by Madie Doppelt
Cast:
Kandace Mack
Shelby Marie Edwards
Madelyn Loehr
Sam Boeck
Jeffrey David Thomas
Ben Rezko
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Synopsis
Inspired by Adrienne Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro, Ocean and Her Madness enters the shifting interior world of a woman dismissed as "mad." Space, time, and music move in and out of alignment as the work considers how Black womanhood is seen, contained, and interpreted. The play treats madness as both dissonance and a form of synchronization.
Production Credits
Written by Lydia Moss
Directed by Liv Morris
Produced by Emma Durbin
Dramaturgy by Madie Doppelt
Cast:
Jazzy Rush
Adam Schulmerich
Laila Rodriques
Kandace Mack
Laura Rojas
Uche Nwansi
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Synopsis
Kore proposes summoning a demon as a way to survive a world already burning. Her lover, her best friend, and a ghost from 1989 agree, only to confront Ronald Reagan returned as a demonic drag queen. Blending horror, camp, politics, and queer community, Everything, Devoured becomes a summoning, an exorcism, and a reckoning with inherited damage.
Production Credits
Written by Katherine Gwynn
Directed by Mikael Burke
Produced by Joel Willison
Dramaturgy by Madie Doppelt
Cast:
Jojo Brown
Mo Shipley
Alec Phan
Keimon Shook
Dinah Berkeley
Teri Talo
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Synopsis
In 2019, Corbin and his aunt Rhonda struggle to keep their Seattle sports-card shop afloat. When a transgender teenager pulls a potentially life-changing basketball card, collectors race to control its value. The Pilon uses the volatile market around one card to explore masculinity, commerce, chosen family, queer love, and the identities people inherit or rebuild.
Production Credits
Written by Zach Barr
Directed by Kidany Camilo
Lead produced by Emma Durbin
Dramaturgy by Cori Lang
Cast:
Lisa Antonia Cruz
Rio Ragazzone
Harsh Gagoomal
Kevin Aoussou
AC Rakotoniaina
David Goodloe
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Synopsis
In an eighteenth-century-ish Europe, women considered difficult are sent to a remote seaside treatment center run by the suspicious Mr. Doctor. Five new patients soon question both his methods and the system that confined them. Through irreverent comedy, musical improvisation, and collective resistance, We Sent Her to the Sea asks what progress requires when its roots are rotten.
Production Credits
Written by Maddie Powell
Directed by Hershey Suri
Produced by Nadya Naumaan
Dramaturgy by Karina Patel
Cast:
Sunnie Eraso
Olivia Pryor
Hayley O'Toole
Juliet Kang Huneke
Sonia Goldberg
Micah Mabey
Zihan Xiong
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Production Credits
Written by Rachel Herriges
Directed by Brandii Champagne
See One Act Night Ensemble for the shared producing team, dramaturg, and cast.
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Production Credits
Written by Moon Abbott
Directed by Mikee Alexis Parangalan
See One Act Night Ensemble for the shared producing team, dramaturg, and cast.
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Production Credits
Written by Kandace Mack
Directed by Erin Sheets
See One Act Night Ensemble for the shared producing team, dramaturg, and cast.
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Production Credits
Produced by Emma Durbin
Dramaturgy by Madie Doppelt
Shared Ensemble:
Kevin Blair
Ben Murphy
Jojo Brown
Adelina Marinello
John Payne
Angel Page Smigielski
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Synopsis
Three shipping-warehouse coworkers approach an unforgiving holiday season surrounded by hollow inspirational slogans. When the usually silent Cate invites Newton and Kyle to her cold home for Thanksgiving, comfort food and alcohol erode their professional boundaries. As they take inventory of their lives, the group confronts loneliness, meaning, and the courage required to say what actually matters.
Production Credits
Written by Keegon Schuet
Directed by Tyler Struble
Produced by Joel Willison
Dramaturgy by Madie Doppelt
Cast:
Stephanie Shum
Jasper Johnson
Winter Olamina
Maliha Sayed
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Synopsis
In the center of Death Valley, an improbably manicured golf-course community faces mounting pressure from climate activists. MIRAGE uses dark comedy, horror, and satire to examine the fantasies required to sustain luxury in an unforgiving landscape. As protest disrupts the community's manufactured calm, environmental crisis and denial begin to collide.
Production Credits
Written by Jeffrey Baker
Directed by Gus Menary
Produced by Joel Willison
Dramaturgy by Katy Scambiattera
Cast:
Christoipher Meister
Ethan Sarpan
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