Calamity West has been named the 2026 recipient of the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award for her play FEAST!. This $150,000 national prize supports the premiere production of a new work while honoring bold, socially engaged American playwriting. Originally developed in New York at Primary Stages through the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group, and subsequently workshopped at the Lucille Lortel Theatre and Goodman Theatre, FEAST! will make its world premiere in Chicago at the Goodman in 2027.

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Over the past fifteen years, West has built a consistent track record of creating new work in both Chicago and New York. Her plays have been produced, commissioned, or developed by leading institutions including The Public, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Primary Stages, the Lucille Lortel Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, and Jackalope Theatre Company - to name a few.

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From 2022 to 2026, West is an invited member of Primary Stages’ Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group, where she has written FEAST!, Sgt. Hank Cole’s Drama Club of Algona, and PARALLAX. Sgt. Hank Cole’s Drama Club of Algona received staged readings in both Chicago and New York. PARALLAX, set during an HOA meeting in the aftermath of an act of vandalism, examines power, fear, and the fragile social contracts that hold communities together. It is scheduled for its first public presentation through Primary Stages in April 2026.

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Additional plays by West include but are not limited to: In the Canyon, Engines and Instruments of Flight: A Fantasia in Three Acts, Give It All Back, Rolling, Greetings from Moscow: A Love Story, and Inside the World of Somewhere Else.

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At the core of West’s artistic practice is a conviction that bold theatre is necessary in moments of political and social fracture. In an era marked by democratic instability and the rise of global authoritarianism, she approaches the stage as a site of inquiry, dissent, collective imagination, and free expression.