The Greenhouse Theater Center, which launches its first subscription season as a producing company next month after years as a rental venue, is making another move to demonstrate its commitment to developing and producing plays. The Greenhouse today announced it’s established the MC-10 Playwrights Ensemble, a group comprising some of Chicago’s most prominent “mid-career” playwrights, and will commit to producing at least one play by a member of the group in every season, beginning with the 2018–2019 slate.
The MC-10 members include Thomas Bradshaw, Philip Dawkins, Sandra Delgado, Lydia Diamond, Zayd Dohrn, Rebecca Gilman, Brett Neveu, Julie Marie Myatt, Tanya Palmer and Laura Schellhardt. Nearly all of the writers have had their work produced extensively around the country, and most have strong ties to Chicago; more than half of the group teaches at Northwestern University in some capacity.
The name MC-10, in addition to “mid-career,” also cheekily references the Greenhouse building’s pre-1969 life as home to the Monte Carlo Bowling Alley, before it became an early incubator of Chicago theater as the Body Politic (and later, the longtime home of Victory Gardens Theater).
The MC-10 will make its public debut on September 23 with Use It Or Lose It: Ten Short Plays About Your Rights, an evening of short works by the member playwrights inspired by, and benefiting, the ACLU. Tickets are pay what you wish. The Greenhouse’s revival of Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal begins performances August 11.
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