"Calamity West is one of the best playwrights in Chicago. Or maybe the country. Or the universe." - Chicago Reader
CALAMITY WEST
THOUGHTS ON
CALAMITY'S WORK
“West, a Chicago writer with an ebullient sense of theatricality, is the real deal."
- Chicago Tribune
"West is a colossal talent with a formidable intellect."
- Chicago Tribune
“Calamity West is, without question, a name to watch.”
- Chicago Tribune
“Calamity West manages to hook you in and get you comfortable
only to take you places no one wants to see clearly.”
- Third Coast
“West writes like a vise, slowly tightening the screws
until her characters are trapped and her audience is rapt.”
- Windy City Times
“…an essential voice…”
- Chicago Tribune
“West’s writing really hits the zeitgeist. She’s an important voice in the world.”
- PerformInk
“…a leading aesthetic innovator of storefront realism as well as a
tough-as-nails moralist.”
- Chicago Reader
Calamity West is the 2026 recipient of the Laurents / Hatcher Foundation Award for her play FEAST!, a $150,000 national prize supporting the premiere production of a new play and recognizing bold, socially engaged American playwriting. Developed in New York at Primary Stages through the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group and presented in partnership with the Lucille Lortel Theatre, FEAST! will receive its world premiere at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. West is also a recipient of a $25,000 3Arts Award in Theater from 3Arts, recognizing her contributions to Chicago’s performing arts community.
Over the past fifteen years, West has built a sustained record of producing and developing new work across Chicago and New York, with consecutive professional productions and recurring invitations from major institutions. Her plays have been produced, commissioned, or developed by The Public Theater, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Primary Stages, the Lucille Lortel Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company (through Roundabout Underground), the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, and Jackalope Theatre Company - to name a few.
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 presentation at Primary Stages in April 2026.
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.
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, and collective imagination.
