Recent Posts and Upcoming Events:
Thank you Boston Globe, for this fantastic coverage of our collective project It Can't Happen Here - Again, coming to a theater, bookshop, park, living room, community center, church, temple, and/or art space near you this summer on July 19th. JOIN US! www.bostonglobe.com/2024/06/14/opinion/it-cant-happen-here-play-donald-trump/Excerpt: “It’s a literal expression of collective action,” author and poet Rachel DeWoskin, chair of WDA’s Michigan chapter, said in an interview. DeWoskin hopes the productions will motivate Americans to shake off their political exhaustion and get involved. “That’s what art does.”As of this writing, “It Can’t Happen Here — Again” already is slated in more states than the 1936 version. “It’s kind of magnificent what’s starting to happen,” said author James Carroll, who is on the WDA steering committee and co-wrote the adaptation with DeWoskin and Wesley Savick of Suffolk University’s theatre department. “It’s citizens finding a way to do something, rather than jump off the roof.”
A new plot for America - The Boston Globe
The 1936 play “It Can’t Happen Here” is adapted for our times.
Raisa Tolchinsky has been a uniquely fierce & thoughtful poet since she was a kid - I remember her spending her teenage weekends at literary events in Chicago, working through books and the world like a small warrior. Her first collection, Glass Jaw, just came out - and it is a thrilling debut. Don't miss the chance to read her poems, and please join us for a reading, conversation, and celebration tonight at Women & Children First. 7 pm. xo, rdw
In-Person: GLASS JAW by Raisa Tolchinsky
Please join us for a poetry reading celebrating Glass Jaw by Raisa Tolchinsky! The author will be in conversation with Rachel DeWoskin.
Want to participate in a global agit-prop play project I'm working on with my favorite organization, Writers For Democratic Action? All you need are five people and this script. Please do a reading on July 19th with us - anywhere. In your living room, at your local indie bookshop, community center, park, library, boat with a goat, mouse with a house, you get it! We have dozens of productions already taking shape across the US and beyond. Here's our inspiration: in 1936, IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, a stage adaptation by Sinclair Lewis of his own bestselling novel, opened simultaneously on 21 stages in 17 states across America one week before that year’s presidential election. It served as a warning against the rise of fascism in America. Our IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE is an homage to the 1936 production and a call to action now, in 2024. JOIN US!! Here's a link to our invitation, the script, and a way to sign up to be part of this giant, collective democratic action. ONWARD. Love, rdw for wda
It Can't Happen Here — Writers for Democratic Action
IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE JULY 19, 2024 A NATIONWIDE EVENTPresented by WRITERS FOR DEMOCRATIC ACTION& Our Partners Across America In 1936, It Can’t Happen Here, a stage adaptation by Sinclair Lewis o...
Join us for a Poetry Reading this Friday, March 29 @ 7:00 PM @ 2145 W Walton. This is a private house reading, so please RSVP to the host: [email protected]About the readers: Rachel DeWoskin is the author of five critically acclaimed novels: Banshee; Someday We Will Fly; Blind; Big Girl Small; and Repeat After Me; and the memoir Foreign Babes in Beijing; along with the poetry collections absolute animal and Two Menus. Her essays, poems, reviews, and translations have appeared in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Sunday Times Magazine of London, Condé Nast Traveler, Asian Wall Street Journal, Far Eastern Economic Review, Agni, Ploughshares, New Delta Review, New Orleans Review, Seneca Review, and numerous journals and anthologies. She is on the core creative writing faculty at the University of Chicago and affiliated faculty in Jewish and East Asian Studies. DeWoskin serves on the national steering committee of Writers for Democratic Action (WDA).Lisa Dordal is a Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University and is the author of Mosaic of the Dark, which was a finalist for the 2019 Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry; Water Lessons, which was listed by Lambda Literary as one of their most anticipated books for 2022; and Next Time You Come Home, which was listed by Lambda Literary as one of their most anticipated books for 2023. Lisa is a Pushcart Prize and Best-of-the-Net nominee and the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, the Robert Watson Poetry Prize, and the Betty Gabehart Poetry Prize. Her poetry has appeared in The Sun, Narrative, Image, Best New Poets, New Ohio Review, Greensboro Review, RHINO, and CALYX. Her website is lisadordal.com.Ben Meyerson is the author of Seguiriyas, published by Black Ocean, as well as four poetry chapbooks: In a Past Life, Holcocene, An Ecology of the Void, and Near Enough. He holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota and an MA in philosophy from the Universidad de Sevilla. He is currently a PhD candidate in comparative literature at the University of Toronto and splits his time between Canada and Spain. His poems, translations and essays have appeared in several journals, including Interim, PANK, Long Poem Magazine, El Mundo Obrero, Great River Review, The Inflectionist Review, Rust+Moth, and Pidgeonholes.Jose-Luis Moctezuma is a xicano poet based in Chicago. He is the author of a chapbook, Spring Tlaloc Seance (Projective Industries, 2016), and two poetry books, Place-Discipline (Omnidawn, 2018) and Black Box Syndrome (Omnidawn, 2023). His poetry and literary criticism have most recently appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review, Tyger Quarterly, Peripheries, Postmodern Culture, Fence, Jacket2, Chicago Review, Modernism/modernity, and elsewhere.March 29.jpg
This Friday night at 6! Join me at The Goodman Theater to hear & talk about poetry and plays. I'll read my new poem, "Meanwhile, What the Dead Suggest," a response to Margaret Atwood's stunning play, "The Penelopiad." Then stay and see the show, which is amazing & getting rave reviews.
Play On Words Conversation with the Poet Rachel DeWoskin - Goodman Theatre
Our MissionCommitted to producing both classic and contemporary works, giving full voice to a wide range of artists and visions.