The Understudy

The Artist's Way 12 Week Book Club & Creative Work Space
2025-09-24 19:00 - 22:00, 2025-09-17 19:00 - 22:00, 2025-09-10 19:00 - 22:00 (America/Chicago) | The Understudy Coffee and Books, 5531 N Clark St, Chicago, IL, 60640, United States
A 12-Week Book Club for the Artist’s Way and an evening workspace for creatives. Every Wednesday @ The Understudy from 7PM-10PM.

The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays Vol. II Book Launch Party!
2025-09-22 19:30 - 22:00
A night of celebrating the release of The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays Vol. II with Chicago playwrights Shualee Cook and Will Wilhelm

Come join us for a night of celebrating the release of The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays Volume II – an anthology that offers eight new plays by trans playwrights. This book is full of plays that center trans characters, trans life, and gender diversity all the while featuring two of Chicago’s very own playwrights Shualee Cook and Will Wilhelm.
There will be readings of excerpts from Cook’s Cercle Hermaphroditos and Wilhelm’s and Murray’s Gender Play, or what you Will followed by a talk back.
Doors open at 7PM. Reading starts at 7:30PM. This event is free.

Meet the Playwrights
Shualee Cook (she/her) writes plays and musicals as a way of asking questions and figuring out possible answers within a community. She is the recipient of a 2024 LA New Play Project grant, a 2023 Nancy Dean Lesbian Playwriting Award, the 2021 Chesly/Bumbalo Award, The 2020 RAC Artist Fellowship, and the 2019 Parity Commission. She has been a resident playwright in the Confluence Regional Writers Project, Stage Left Theatre, and Tesseract Theatre. She has also been a finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Her work has been developed by About Face Theatre, Breaking the Binary Festival, The New Coordinates, The Road Theatre, The Idle Muse Athena Festival, Campfire Theatre Festival, National Queer Theatre, After Hours Theater Company, and the St.Louis Shakespeare Festival, among others. Plays receiving public readings or productions include Tempest in a Teapot, And Certain Women, Cercle Hermaphroditos, Choleramusik, Earworm, and An Invitation Out.

Will Wilhelm (they/them) is a trans/non-binary actor, writer, and educator based in Chicago. Will is the co-creator and performer of Gender Play, or what you Will, which premiered with About Face Theatre and garnered the artist two Jeff Award nominations: Best Solo Performance and Best New Work. Gender Play has also been presented by Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Shakespeare Theatre Company/Theater Alliance in DC, Indianapolis Shakespeare Company, and Island Shakespeare Festival in Washington. Gender Play marks their playwriting debut.
A Michigan native, Will became the first openly non-binary company member at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2018, where they reimagined genderqueer characters in As You Like It, Macbeth, and Bill Rauch’s queer Oklahoma! Other regional credits include RENT (Portland Center Stage) and Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (STC). Select Chicago credits include work with Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Theater Wit, Oak Park Festival Theatre, and Chicago Children’s Theatre. Will is an Artistic Associate with About Face Theatre.
As an educator, Will has been invited to teach and share work at universities across Chicago, the US, and Europe.
A proud Northwestern graduate, Will is represented by Gray Talent Group.
IG: @mx.willwillhelm www.WillWilhelm.com

Erin Murray (she/her) is passionate about multi-generational stories with a delicious femme center. She is currently Interim Artistic Director at Island Shakespeare Festival. With 20 years of experience as a freelance director, her work has been seen across the Northern Hemisphere.​
Credits of note include: co-creating Gender Play, or what you Will (2023 Joseph Jefferson Best New Work nominee) and directing the world premiere at Chicago’s About Face Theater; adapting and directing Cyrano de Bergerac (Island Shakespeare Festival 2022, Kilroys List 2020), directing Anne Washburn’s The Internationalist (Steppenwolf Garage), and Tour Director for Ireland’s Opera Theater Company. Erin worked with Seattle artivist Ana Maria Campoy to adapt and direct Seattle Shakespeare Company’s first bilingual statewide tours Taming Of The Shrew/La Fierecilla Domada and Twelfth Night/Duodécima Noche.

Common Grounds: Black Artist Affinity Night by Freshly Brewed
2025-09-15 19:00 - 20:30
Calling all Black artists in Chicago! Join us for an affinity night for Black artists to connect, network, and vibe.

The industry we work in doesn’t always allow for spaces for affinity groups to connect. Projects come and go and those relationships can come and go with them. For the first time, Freshly Brewed is hosting an all Black space for Black artists in Chicago to gather and be in community with one another! Join us on Monday September 15th from 6:30-8pm to hang with fellow Black artists and build lasting connections and networks that will foster Black artistry in Chicago. We’ll head to Pizza Lobo after to continue the party!
See you Monday~

Hosted by
Kandace Mack (she/her)
Winter Olamina (they/them)
Keimon Shook (he/him)
