AUGUST 9, 2025
Join us for our annual Blue Ink Festival of new plays. Celebrate the 2025 Blue Ink Award recipient Alyssa Haddad-Chin and featured finalists Erlina Ortiz and LaDarrion Williams. Festival passes and individual tickets can be purchased HERE or by calling (773) 654-3103. Festival passes are $30 – includes all three readings + reception. Individual tickets are $12 per play. Pay what-you-can and industry tickets, subject to availability, should be requested via BoxOffice@AmericanBluesTheater.com. Refreshments and beverages will be served.
All readings take place at our theater – 5627 N. Lincoln Ave. More information about the plays and artists are below.
Limited seating capacity – this festival will sell out.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
10:00 AM – Doors open for the 2025 Blue Ink Festival
10:30 AM – YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY by Alyssa Haddad-Chin *winner of 2025 Blue Ink Award*
12:00 PM – Reception
1:30 PM – SHE WORE THOSE SHOES by Erlina Ortiz
4:30 PM – HURT PEOPLE by LaDarrion Williams
Learn more about the 15th annual recipient Alyssa Haddad-Chin of the Blue Ink Award HERE!
About the Plays
YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY
by Alyssa Haddad-Chin
directed by Helen Young
Saturday, Aug 9 at 10:30 AM
Featuring TBD ( Poh Poh) & TBD (Jenny)
“Well, there’s a lot more that’s closed than what’s open.”
Poh Poh teaches her granddaughter, Jenny, to make dumplings for the Lunar New Year in her Chinatown apartment. As Jenny learns more about her culture, history, and family, she discovers that there are some secrets Poh Poh won’t share, and the changing neighborhood isn’t leaving space for them.
To request a perusal script, please contact the Susan Gurman Agency.
Alyssa Haddad-Chin (she/her) is a Lebanese American, playwright, educator and arts facilitator. She is a 2024-’25 Target Margin Theater Institute Fellow, commissioned by Keen Company for their 2024-’25 Keen Teens series, and a 2025 artist at the Mercury Store. Her play, The Newlywed Game, won B Street Theatre’s 2023 New Comedies Festival and received its World Premiere in June 2024. Other plays include The Ancestry Dot Com Play (Developed with The Playwrights Realm, Premiere Stages at Kean, Art House Productions), Off-White; Or the Arab House Party Play (Developed with New York Theater Workshop, Backstitch Story Arts). She has been a finalist for American Blues Theater Blue Ink Award, Leah Ryan Award, Amphibian SparkFest, The Playwright’s Realm, Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship, Ensemble Studio Theatre Youngblood and a semi-finalist for American Blues Theater Blue Ink Award, Rattlestick Theater Terrence McNally New Works Incubator, Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Princess Grace Award, Bay Area Playwright’s Festival, and others. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist, a Resident Artist at Breaking and Entering Theater Collective, and the Company and Community Manager at Target Margin Theater. A collection of her short plays, And Now a Little Something for the Ladies (among others), is published with 1319 Press. She holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. alyssahaddad.com
SHE WORE THOSE SHOES
by Erlina Ortiz
directed by TBD
Saturday, Aug 9 at 1:30 PM
Featuring TBD
“Thank you for calling the VA. All representatives are helping other callers. If you wish to be called back, please press 2, otherwise please stay on the line. Your estimated wait time is: Three. Hours and. Twenty five. minutes”
Inspired by the documentary The Invisible War, Erlina Ortiz’s She Wore Those Shoes explores the prevailing issue of sexual assault within the United States military and the silence, stigma, and negligence that survivors often face. Protagonist, Yudy, a strong and confident young Latina woman, excitedly joins the armed forces in pursuit of the military pride and prowess that her respected older brother Abraham represents. Yudy’s high regard for her military “family,” however is deeply tarnished in the aftermath of trauma, as silence, disbelief, and betrayal ensue. Through memory, cadences, creative movement and unexpected humor, we follow Yudy’s journey as she navigates being a woman of color and veteran as well as something more than a victim of our pervasive rape culture.
To request a perusal script, please contact JDL@wmeentertainment.com
Erlina Ortiz (she/her/ella) is a Dominican-American playwright and theatre maker from Reading, PA. Her heartfelt and humorous plays have been presented across the US and with Power Street Theatre where she is proud to be Resident Playwright and Co-Artistic Director. In 2018 her play Las Mujeres received The Bonaly Award for Creation of Community Joy and in 2019 Morir Sonyando was nominated for six Barrymore Awards including Outstanding New Play. In Fall 2021 Young Money premiered at Azuka Theatre and went on to receive the ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award Citation. In 2022 her play La Egoista was selected for the LTC Comedy Carnaval in Denver going on to win the 2022 National Latine Playwriting Award, premiering at Actors Theatre of Louisville and Skylight Theatre and being featured on the 2023 Kilroy’s WEB. It went on to premiere at Philadelphia Theatre Company in October 2024 in association with Edgewood Entertainment. Erlina has embarked on the Amtrak Writer’s residency where she traveled across the US in an Amtrak sleeper car, the Signal Fire Residency Outpost Residency where she lived on the side of a mountain for a week, and in 2019 she gave the Keynote Address at the Delaware Writer’s Conference on the importance of nurturing your artistic community. Erlina was a member of NEXUS with New York Stage and Film and is a two time recipient of the Leeway Art and Change Grant and the 2021 Leeway Transformation Award. In 2023 she was named as a Dramatist Guild Foundation Catalyst Fellow. Erlina has taught theatre and playwriting with the University of the Arts, Power Street Theatre, and Blue Stoop. She currently serves as secretary of the board for Theatre Philadelphia. Her new musical, Siluetas, was developed for the O’Neill National Musical Theatre Conference and premiered with Power Street Theatre in June 2024. It went on to be nominated for 7 Barrymore Awards. Erlina believes being an artist is a superpower, she believes in using her powers for good. erlinaortiz.com – @erlina6ortiz
HURT PEOPLE
by LaDarrion Williams
directed by TBD
Saturday, Aug 9 @ 4:30 PM
Featuring TBD
“Black men have to carry themselves in a certain manner just to avoid their sexuality being questioned.”
“Thirty-year-old, Marcel Bennett, has come back home to Birmingham, Alabama, to unlearn the things that shaped him, which are deep-seated childhood issues that seep into his artistic endeavor. When Marcel catches up with his old high school friend, old feelings arise, and an emotional truth must be sacrificed for Marcel to move on and begin anew. In this coming-of-age story, this play takes on the art of Black masculinity, sexuality, and how true the saying ‘hurt people, hurt people’ is.”
To request a perusal script, please contact Amy Wagner at Stewart Talent Literary Division (212) 315-5505.
LaDarrion Williams hails from the small town of Helena, Alabama; he is a self-taught playwright, filmmaker, author, and screenwriter committed to shaping a new era of Black fantasy. His theatrical work has garnered attention at notable venues, including the Echo Theatre Playwrights Lab, the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha, TSU’s Black and Latino Playwrights Festival, and the Boise Contemporary Theater BIPOC Playwrights Festival. An esteemed alum of the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, LaDarrion’s play Hurt People was selected for the 2024 conference, further solidifying his place as a bold and necessary voice in contemporary theater. His play Coco Queens was featured in the 2019 Sundance Institute’s Playwriting Intensive, won the New Works@theWorks Playwriting Award, and celebrated its world premiere at Playhouse on the Square in July 2024. His Jeff Award-nominated play Boulevard of Bold Dreams—a poignant exploration of Hattie McDaniel’s historic Oscar win—debuted at TimeLine Theatre Company in Chicago, had its East Coast Premiere at Greater Boston Stage Company in March 2023, and was part of the Orlando Shakes Theater Signature Series in October 2023, with plans for national productions in 2024-2025. Beyond theater, LaDarrion has directed three short films featured on YouTube and made his mark as a debut author with Blood at the Root, a New York Times and USA Today Bestseller. Through storytelling across multiple mediums, he continues to craft narratives that amplify Black voices, history, and imagination.
We wish to express our gratitude to the Performers’ Unions:
Actors’ Equity Association
American Guild of Musical Artists
American Guild of Variety Artists
SAG-Aftra