Chicago Dramatists

At Chicago Dramatists, we pride ourselves on being one of the best places for playwrights to not only learn and practice their craft but also build their artistic community. Enrolling now, Site-Specific Theatre, with Jenni Lamb, offers a great way to do both. You'll meet in a furniture store in Andersonville, and over six sessions, you will draft, revise and present a short play. Here, Jenni shares her process for creating site-specific work and previews how this innovative new class, beginning May 6, will provide inspiration and fresh tools to bring specificity into your writing

CD: Jenni we are really excited about this new on-site class. Can you tell us about your history making site-specific theatre? What led you to this way of working?

Jenni: When I was getting my MFA at Northwestern, I took an amazing class with Michael Rohd on devising and creating site-specific theater. We created and presented work for locations around campus with actors and directors from the theatre department. There was something inspiring and freeing about the process of creating outside of a traditional theater space. I found that dialogue, character, and even plot came more easily as we drew from these non-traditional sites like the lobby of Kellogg, a chapel, or the beautiful outdoor areas around the lake. And the imagery and specificity that comes to your writing when you’re spending real time in a setting rather than an imaginary one is undeniable. The class was also where I met Chad Eschman who was a founding member of Living Room Playmakers where I continued to create site-specific plays.

CD: How does the process work?

Jenni: It’s fairly simple. It starts by spending time in the space and because we often create with other writers we agree on a theme or two that we’d all like to touch on. We operate from a place of respect for the location and community but also give writers license to bring their own viewpoints to the space. From there, each writer comes in with two to three pitches for a short piece. These can be any genre, era, or style but pieces need to take place in the location we’re working in. For instance, we don’t typically do work where the furniture store suddenly becomes a beach for example. From there, we’ll discuss pitches and writers will workshop two more drafts before we share them publicly. Traditional playwriting can take years from page to stage, but our process is quick and we typically go from page to stage in six months.

CD: How does that experience shaped the work you are doing today?

Jenni: My first show with Living Room Playmakers was Last Call which took place at a bar in Lakeview where my good friend and frequent collaborator Jessy Lauren Smith lived after grad school. It was one of the best collaborative experiences I’ve ever had. It was so joyful to share the stage with six writers, who are also my friends. Also like many writers, I love constraints that keep me on task. Creating work for a physical location is a natural constraint and so the challenge becomes finding the endless possibilities in one location rather than imagining one. This helps immensely with things like tension and urgency because you can’t send your characters somewhere else. They need to deal with each other and their environment.

CD: Some of the spaces you created work for were an apartment, a furniture store, a bar, and a church basement. Can you talk about the different inspiration or story lines they gave rise to?

Jenni: I’ve worked in District on three different occasions and for the first show, writers each chose a different piece of furniture. I chose a dresser. That dresser led to two short plays and a short film about sisters. One sister lived in Chicago, and one sister who was visiting from Detroit taking a break from caring for their terminally ill mother. The dresser became a metaphor for their shared history. It also became a point of conflict as the Chicago sister wanted to purchase the dresser as a gift to make up for the fact that she hadn’t been

there to help with their mom. In the bar, I wrote about a stand-up comedian and her fatigue at couch surfing, and the church basement was a class reunion and so I wrote about jealousy over a partner’s first love. When you don’t have to work so hard to create a setting, I’ve found you can dive deeper into the richness of relationship.

CD: Having done this work for some time now, what do you look for in a site that makes you want to select it for the work?

Jenni: Two things are key: inherent theatricality and an owner who is excited to collaborate with us. We’ve been so lucky in Chicago to find enthusiastic shop owners like Chris (owner of District) who has been so generous and trusting with Second Site. We’ve also recently worked with Freyja Salon in Ravenswood and the owner Sarah was extremely generous and also thrilled to host us. There is a lot of trust that you have to build and respect for the space. But it’s been so exciting to work with local business owners and institutions in Chicago to create new work.

CD: You will return to District furniture store for this class. What are you excited for your students to experience there?

Jenni: A furniture store is extremely rich and it’s why we’ve come back multiple times. There is so much that goes into considering furniture that reflects our taste, culture, identity, and values (particularly in how we view and have access to money). I’m really excited to see what students find in this store.

CD: How will class prompts and assignments lead to a scene that is performed during the last class? Will playwrights be able to invite friends to the performance?

Jenni: After spending time in the space and speaking with some of the District folks, we’ll create a prompt together with thematic questions and constraints like cast size and page length (up to 10 pages). From there, we’ll workshop two drafts before the final draft will be presented on June 24. And yes to friends!

Register at chicagodramatists.org/classes

Live On Location: Site Specific Writing With Jenni Lamb In Person: District (furniture store), Chicago 6 Wednesdays May 6, 13, 20, 27; June 03, 24 No class June 10,17 6:00pm - 9:00pm Central Time

The Chicago Dramatists Network Playwright 2026 PlayFest! See staged readings of
seven new one-act plays from Network Playwrights:

Little Women, by Nina Dellaria
Tables Turned, by Elizabeth DeSchryver
Delayed Confessions, by Betsy Dudak
How to Make a Video, by Bill Hyatt
When I was a Kid I was Mexican, by Carl Maronich
Blood, by Lawrence Keller
Auditing, by Mike McGeever

Directed by Julia Diefenbach and JJ Gatesman

Guest Judge Melanie Coffey

https://chicagodramatists.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events?path=%2Fportal%2Fevents%2F40197