We are SO back!!!
Despite 2025 ending on a whimper, 2026 has started with a bang! We are SO back, baby!
Q1 of this year has been one of the most prolific I’ve had in ages, and I’m so proud of the work I’ve done - not because it’s all perfect and instantly producible, but because I have finally been creating consistently! It feels GOOD to finish projects, and to always have a play to return to when I’m feeling the need to mess around in one of my theatrical worlds!
Let’s go month by month!
January
First, I was commissioned to write a brand new transhistorical adaptation of a much beloved classic novel. The nostalgic vibes are strong with this one, yet it feels wholly original, too! I don’t want to say too much about it yet, but we’ve already scheduled the first public reading… and it’s going to be held at one of the COOLEST venues I could possibly imagine (hint: the reading itself will be held in a ballroom!!!). It’ll be thematically resonant, FREE, and, hopefully, a ton of fun! So, watch this space for details about THAT!
The first draft is the FIRST of SEVERAL new play I finished in 2026, and we’ll be gathering to read it for the first time ever in early May! In the meantime, I’ve been working on tightening and revisions. I will say, almost every time I open the document to tweak something, I get sucked in and end up reading all the way to the end… which has led to several nights where I was late for my own bedtime! Now I’ll cross my fingers that my collaborators find it as compelling as I do!
Just a girl and her annual.
I finally received my copy of the Smith & Kraus Best Ten Minute Plays of 2025 anthology. My ten-minute play, The Psychopomp, is included. I hope a lot of students find the piece through the anthology!
I also learned that I’ll have two pieces in Smith & Kraus anthologies in 2026. My ten-minute play, Persephone Wasn’t Hungry That Day was selected for the Best Ten Minute Plays of 2026. Medea’s childbirth monologue from Murdering Medea was selected for the Best Women’s Monologues of 2026. Both will be available in print in late 2026.
Later this year, my plays reANIMA and Two of Every Animal will also be included in a new anthology of previous SATE Aphra Behn Festival selections. That’s going to be a really cool book of super eclectic work written by gender minority playwrights - I’m excited to get my hands on a copy!
February
February was a short month, but it was a BUSY month for writing… and other playwriting fun!
The cast & crew (and playwright!) of The Care and Feeding of Restless Spirits at SDSU
Last year, I had to cancel a lot of the travel I had planned due to health stuff, so I was SO GLAD that I finally got to go on a playwriting trip! I flew to the plains to take part in South Dakota State University’s Festival of New Plays!
I got to work on an old favorite, The Care and Feeding of Restless Spirits, and the team did an incredible job! We actually started with Zoom rehearsals, then I arrived on campus (after a quick, unintentional stop in Dallas - I don’t wanna talk about it) and we hit the ground running! I was AMAZED by the beautiful facilities at the university, the warmth of the faculty (despite the frigid winds), and engagement of the student artists.
Here are some photos from our dress rehearsal:
The Care and Feeding of Restless Spirits was directed by Melissa Hauschild-Mork and stage managed by Thomas Alpers and featured:
Kally Brinkman as Annie
Nick Forster as Sully
Quinn Benz as Emmabeth
Brooklyn Mauch as Lottie
Chloe Karst as Violet
Nathan Dressel reading stage directions (aka “The Planchette”)
About to present a workshop!
However, one of the highlights of my time on campus was working with the students, including teaching two workshops: an ideation workshop, and a ten-minute play bootcamp. I missed teaching a LOT, and it was so fun to answer questions and talk creativity with these incredible young artists!
The playwright (me) and the playwright (Willem)!
I also got to work one-on-one with a student playwright, Willem Lim, as part of the university’s One Day Play Festival. Each of the student playwrights worked with one of the professional playwrights on campus and had the luxury of a TWO HOUR dramaturgy session! Then, they had time to make revisions before the plays opened THAT WEEKEND! So, I got to see Willem’s VERY FIRST PLAY, Saltine Crackers, go from first draft to the stage! Check out this final image, folks:
Eating the rich in Saltine Crackers by Willem Lim!
I felt like a proud parent! It was really the most rewarding part of the whole week for me!
We also ate at pretty much every restaurant in Brookings, visited a life-sized dinosaur, ground corn at a tractor museum, and ate ice cream straight from the cow! And when my trip was extended until my birthday due to a sudden blizzard back home, I had cupcakes and a spa day - never a dull moment! All to say… I had SO MUCH FUN! I am so glad a trip finally worked out, because it was a much-needed break!
Grinding corn at a tractor museum, as one does.
Writing-wise, in February, I focused on finishing my new original play, The Light Fantastic, which I started at the end of last year. I won’t know if it’s a long one-act or a full-length until I’ve seen it on its feet because, as you can imagine, it has a lot of movement! It’s a play about creating authentically as a chronically ill/disabled artist in a world with AI, and touches on a lot of my core topics and themes - AI ethics, queer bodies, virtual relationships and authenticity, etc. It needs development, but I think it’s pretty cool…I just need to figure out where to send it!
I also participated in the 2026 Playwright’s Delight challenge with Playwrights Thriving. Our shared title this year was “Erstwhile,” but I’m a rebel and changed my title as soon as the challenge ended! I haven’t written a ten-minute play in a(n erst) WHILE, so it was nice to complete something short and sweet! You can read my take on the prompt, called The Prime Cut, on NPX.
February ended with what might be my favorite production of The Psychopomp of all time…
The Psychopomp with The Artful Codgers
A group called The Artful Codgers in Shepherdstown, WV produced the play and raised over $1,500 for a local food bank! I am all about this unconventional casting choice… and you gotta LOVE the car!
March
March was extra special, because I finally got to see a production of one of my favorite longer one-acts, SHE GOT BETTER. This is one of my older plays but, because it’s a bit niche (a fairytale eating disorder memory play about an adult Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood meeting at an in-patient treatment center), it never got a lot of action. I always believed, when the right director discovered it, it would get the production it deserved, and I was not disappointed.
SHE GOT BETTER at Nebraska Wesleyan University
SHE GOT BETTER was produced by Nebraska Wesleyan University. It was directed by Milla Fiedler and stage managed by Lauren Johnson. It featured Aolani Wilson as Gia (Goldilocks) and Kami Robinson as Scarlett (Little Red). And it was gorgeous:
Directly inspired by this production, in March I worked on something VERY special to me. True Aly Kantor fans know that, one of my earliest plays was a full-length piece called Lovely Assistants. We’re talking, like, my third play ever. It has always been one of my favorite conceits for a play of all time, but I never felt like I could get it right, so almost nobody has read it.
A VERY old Lovely Assistants graphic. The bird has been cut, alas.
Basically, this play is like the Rosetta stone of Aly Kantor plays - so many of the plays I’d go on to write were present in that script - it’s a little The Care and Feeding of Restless Spirits, a little The Practice Room, a little reANIMA, a little She Got Better, and even a dash of They have become the forest… and probably a bunch more. It’s about bodies, and obsession, and magic! There’s blood AND sparkles! There’s dancing and illusions and women being absolute creepy weirdos!
Anyway, I decided two things: 1. I needed to start over from scratch with new wisdom, and 2. I needed to aim for a shorter runtime (it used to be a two-hour long behemoth). So, this month I wrote a BRAND NEW one-act Lovely Assistants! Many darlings were slaughtered in the pursuit, but I am delighted and overcome by the idea that I might FINALLY be able to share this play with the world, because it has lived in my head and heart for years and years! It definitely needs a little work, but it EXISTS now, which is how it all starts! Every gorgeous production begins with a shitty first draft!
Don’t worry - the dead bird got work in They have become the forest.
And FINALLY (yes, there is more!), I completed my revisions on They have become the forest for my Cimientos workshop! I have changed a LOT, and those who know the piece might be scandalized, but I am crossing my fingers that it’s stronger and ready for a New York City audience! Though the festival schedule has not been publicly announced, please save the date: the afternoon of June 13th, 2026! I would love, love, love to see you there!
Other things I’ve worked on including revisions on my play Jaw, Lips, Teeth, Tongue (in essence, a starving vampire walks into a blood bank… looking for someone else to feed), and a new ten-minute play about how to feel heroic during turbulent times when you’re broke as hell. Weirdly, ten minute plays are more intimidating to me than full-lengths lately (every word counts so much!), so it has been slow going, but I am hopeful that I will finish it by the end of April! I would love to refresh my collection of shorts, especially since I’m running out of longer plays to work on!
Because I have been writing, I have not been submitting. I am not a huge submitter, but this has been a slump, even for me! I am not that upset about it… you need to WRITE to have work to submit, after all…and you get a lot fewer “Unfortunately…” emails that way! At the moment, I want to bask in the creativity and make cool stuff with my friends and enjoy the smaller scholastic productions around the country!
What’s next? We’ll see! I just hope this creative quarter wasn’t a fluke! See you in the summertime!
