To celebrate their 30th Anniversary and to heed 2020's call to reimagine what is possible, Kitchen Dog Theater dedicated its entire season this year to new plays by BIPOC writers, including a reimagined NWF Staged Reading Series called In the Works, featuring commissioned new plays by four emerging playwrights of color.

Kitchen Dog’s artistic staff is working hand-in-hand with these four incredible playwrights over the first six months of 2021 as they craft brand new scripts. The plays will be presented virtually and performed by KDT friends and alums from across the country.

Schedule of events

• June 4: how to catch a ghost by Erin Malone Turner - Four 20-somethings cross paths during the off-season at a Louisiana State Park where things are getting stranger each day. A ghost story with lots of Southern comfort food, this speculative fiction play explores Black familial ties and the connection between nature and people, and asks questions about faith and the ways we hold ourselves back.
• June 6: Sugar by Tara Moses - Set in Dallas, a young woman of color is attempting to navigate the world without a family, support system, or access to opportunity. She finds herself working over 90 hours a week at three jobs to pay rent, bill collectors, student loans, and manage one meal a day – and she still comes up short every single week. That is, until she is presented with an opportunity that she cannot say no to. Taking agency over her life is the only reason she needs to enter the Sugar Bowl.
• June 11: my guidance counselor looks like jeffrey dahmer & he's helping me through shit by Haygen-Brice Walker - Ramon and Luna are the bestest of friends. They do everything together, but their favorite after-school pastime is watching Unsolved Mayhem, a true crime show highlighting only the most lurid unsolved murders. It's Ramon's dream to be on the show (not as a murder victim or murderer but like as the friend of someone who was disemboweled) so he can meet his idol, the host (and Latina goddess) Carmen Santiago Ramos de la Cruz [think Eva Longoria, but mean]. During one of their after-school hangouts, Luna makes a rash decision. A rash decision that gives Ramon a twisted idea. A twisted idea that could get Ramon and Luna face-to-face with Carmen Santiago Ramos de la Cruz. Oh, and the new guidance counselor is really hot, but like in a vintage-scary way.
• June 13: Fucked Up Pen Pal Poet by Ruben Carrazana - This play is about a break-up. A really bad break-up. Like the worst. And about time. And how time heals. And how, sometimes, it doesn't. A play about moving on. And not moving on. A comedy. A comedy about pain and suicide and pizza bites and the United States Postal Service. A love letter to getting your heart crushed, because sometimes, you deserve it.