"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 a playwright and educator whose plays have been developed and/or produced at The Goodman, Primary Stages, The Public, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Roundabout Underground, The Lucille Lortel Theatre, Red Yes Studios, the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, and Jackalope Theatre - to name a few. She is a three time honoree of The Kilroys List and a recipient of the 3Arts Award.
From 2022 to 2026 West is in residence at Primary Stages in New York as a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group where she has written FEAST! and Sgt. Hank Cole’s Drama Club of Algona. FEAST! received further development through the Lucille Lortel Theatre’s Alcove program in 2024. She is concluding her residency with her newest play Parallax (2026), an examination of community, power, and the fragile order of contemporary HOAs.
Her body of work includes a commission from the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, where the Clifford Odets Ensemble Play Commission supported the development of her one and only pandemic play, The Last Supper and Three Years Later. Her other plays span more than a decade of productions including - but not limited to: In the Canyon, Hinter, Give It All Back, Rolling, and The Peacock. Recent developments include: Greetings from Moscow: A Love Story with Northlight Theatre and the University of Chicago and Inside the World of Somewhere Else, a surreal exploration of digital life and self-erasure, with Red Yes Studios in New York.
As an educator, West teaches Writing for Performance at the University of Chicago, the Einhorn School of Performing Arts, and Webster University. In 2018 she founded the Playwrights Lab at Jackalope Theatre Company, establishing a long-running creative home for early career playwrights. A Jackalope company member since 2014, she continues to mentor emerging writers across the country.
Upcoming: West’s play FEAST! will be featured in The Goodman Theatre’s New Stages Festival during the company's centennial season, directed by Artistic Director Susan V. Booth.
