WHAT’S THE POINT?
The Plotter is a magazine for theatre criticism at home in Chicago, IL.
The Plotter gathers the theatrical community to survey the past, present, and future implications of our work — so we may plot a more intentional future.
Gather
We deserve a space to share and exchange our thoughts, beliefs, and our work.
We believe that by publishing the work of a diverse, humble, and passionate group of critics, we can build a healthier landscape for making theatre.
Survey
We believe our theatrical equation is out of balance without a record of how work is received, the impact it creates, and the questions it unspools — intentional or not.
With each piece and each play, we want to know: What is this art trying to do? And, more broadly, what can art do? Criticism is the medium we use to engage with those questions.
Plot
By looking at our work in aggregate, we can see a trend line — where does this work point us? Do we want to keep going where we’re headed, or will we shift course?
We believe that criticism is a medium in which we can co-conspire on our possible futures.
OUR PLOTTERS
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ZACH BARR
CONTRIBUTOR
Zach Barr (they/them) is a multidisciplinary theatre artist. They serve as Literary Manager at Red Theater, and previously worked as Literary Associate at the late Sideshow Theatre Company. Their playwriting work includes The Pilon, Quinlyn Can Paint, and Enduring Jest. As a critic, they have previously written for Newcity Stage, Scapi Magazine, and Chicago Theatre Review. They also run the video essay channel And Now They Sing on YouTube, and were a presenter at BroadwayCon 2024. @admiralzachbarr. zach-barr.com. -
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MADIE DOPPELT
CONTRIBUTOR
Madie Doppelt is a Chicago-based theater and circus artist. Works include THE MODEL PLAY (Snails on a Bike; O’Neill Semi-Finalist), SUB-CULTURE (Interrobang Playwriting Initiative Fellowship), and VILLETTE. As a performer and dramaturg, Madie has worked at theaters including Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Lookingglass Theatre, The Actors Gymnasium, and Snails on a Bike Theatre Collective.
BFA Playwriting/BA English Literature, The Theatre School at DePaul University.
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KRISTIN IDASZAK
CONTRIBUTOR
Kristin Idaszak is an internationally produced and award-winning playwright, essayist, and dramaturg whose recent work explores the intersection of climate change and disability. She is a 3Arts Awardee, two-time Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow, and the former Shank Playwriting Fellow at the Goodman Theatre. Kristin has received commissions from the Goodman, EST/the Sloan Foundation, Cleveland Play House, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, and others. Her play Second Skin received the Kennedy Center ACTF Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, and her play Another Jungle was a Relentless Award Honorable Mention. Her essays appear in The American Scholar, Fourth Genre, and elsewhere. She is the Interim Head of Dramaturgy/Criticism at The Theatre School and was previously a Visiting Scholar at FLAME University in Pune, India. MFA: University of California, San Diego. kristinidaszak.com
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HANNA KIME
CONTRIBUTOR
Hanna Kime (she/her) is a Jeff-Nominated Chicago-based playwright and screenwriter originally from St. Louis, Missouri. Her full-length work has been presented with companies such as Benson Drive Productions, the Goodman, Berkeley Rep, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, Dacha, Steep, [producingbody], Bramble, Sideshow, where she was an ensemble member, First Floor, where she previously served as Literary Manager, among others. Recent Chicago productions include THE TARGETED at A Red Orchid Theatre, DOGS at Red Theater, and THE BEST DAMN THING at The Understudy: Coffee and Books. Kime is a two-time O’Neill Finalist, a Seven Devils Finalist, was the winner of OKC Rep’s New Voices Contest, and has been named a semifinalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Ashland New Play Festival, and Premiere Stages Play Festival. She holds degrees from the University of Chicago in English and Gender and Sexuality Studies. She is represented by UTA and managed by Curate. -
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YASMIN ZACARIA MIKHAIEL
CONTRIBUTOR
Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel (she/they) is a Chicago-based dramaturg, arts journalist, and cultural producer. As a queer, Iranian-American femme, their praxis across producing live, digital, and print media centers audience experience that is community-focused, responsive, and vibrant. Mikhaiel’s arts writing and research explore possibility models for a more inclusive and sustainable theatre culture and industry (American Theatre magazine, the Chicago Reader, In These Times, Teen Vogue). As a new play dramaturg, their work centers narratives at the intersections of queer family drama and diaspora, especially of the SWANA region. Mikhaiel holds a M.A. in Performance as Public Practice from The University of Texas at Austin and a B.F.A. in Dramaturgy/Criticism from The Theatre School at DePaul, where they currently serve as faculty and a production practice consultant. They recently founded BIYA BIYA Productions, a creative agency facilitating cross-cultural exchange, collaboration, and arts management to intergenerational artists. Learn more at www.yasminzacaria.com or www.biyabiyaproductions.com
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NETTA WALKER
CONTRIBUTOR
Netta Walker is an award-winning actor, playwright, screenwriter, and activist who began her career in Chicago theater. She is best known for starring as Keisha McCalla for three seasons on The CW’s All American: Homecoming and All American. Onstage, she won a Jeff Award for her performance in Yen and was named one of the Chicago Tribune’s "Hot New Faces."
As a writer, her play keerah won Definition Theatre’s AMPLIFY Festival and is currently making its world premiere there. This October, The Gift Theatre will produce her play Hayward, a 2025 Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference semifinalist. Her short film Balik won the Hollywood Just4Shorts competition, and both Balik and Baby Gay received Best Script Awards honors in London. Additionally, her series House of Dixie was named a WeScreenplays Quarterfinalist. Walker is a Pearl Cleage workshop alumna and trained at The LIR and RADA.
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CONNOR ERMIR BRADSHAW
CO-FOUNDER; EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Connor Ermir is a Chicago-based, Midwestern-raised playwright and poet. Connor has worked — or had work developed — with Timeline Theatre, Victory Gardens Theatre, Jackalope Theatre, Shattered Globe Theatre, Poetry East, Playground Theatre, Citadel Theatre, iO Theatre, Theatre L’acadie, Raven Theatre, and The Understudy. Their play, BRAWL! (Ojai Playwrights Conference, Finalist; Seven Devils Playwriting Conference, Semi-Finalist, Eugene O’Neill NPC, Semi-Finalist) serves as a distillation of their artistic focus: rural America and the tension between the devil you know and the one you don’t. Connor’s newest play, Gnawbone can additionally be seen in Redtwist’s TwistedFest.
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ADAM TODD CRAWFORD
CO-FOUNDER; EDITOR
Adam Todd Crawford is a Chicago-based writer, editor, designer, photographer, and theatre artist from Columbus, Ohio.
Adam is also the co-owner and operator of The Understudy Coffee and Books.Adam was named one of Newcity Magazine’s Players 50 for 2026.
The PLOTTER MANIFESTO
for current readers, future scrollers, interested writers, and everyone in between (and beyond)
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We encourage writers to openly, unabashedly, share themselves. This means inviting perspectives that may, within the same issue, present contradictions.
Our aim isn’t to reconcile them; it’s to lay them bare so the broader arts community can see the diversity of thought happening within its literal, and metaphorical, boundaries.
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Each article is one point on the plot. No single piece is a complete graph, and no single voice is paramount. There is a broader artistic collective at work here — within and beyond the city.
Our platform is intended to operate in conversation with the myriad ways our community engages itself. This work is highly contextual; and that means offering it up to others in the past, present, and future.
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We are after the ideas that arose from, or spawned, days/weeks/months of frantic Google searches and winded diatribes.
Our work is not reactionary; it is contemplative. It asks its readers to spend a tiny fraction of the time it took to ideate and create the work.
AI DISCLOSURE
The Plotter does not use, or accept work that leverages, AI. If you ever feel the need to use AI to write a piece for The Plotter, please chat with us about how we can best accommodate you. We will not dead-internet-theory ourselves into obsolescence!
CHARTING A BETTER ARTISTIC FUTURE
A running collection of The Plotter’s (additional) beliefs and values.
People are inherently good.
Our capacity for disagreement is the measure of a healthy community.
Rupture is inevitable; repair is intentional.
Attention is a measure of love for the thing we collectively do: create and comment on art.
FINANCIAL STRUCTURE
The Plotter is currently done on a volunteer basis. Writers are offered compensation via a bartering system.
We believe labor, in its own right, is a noble thing. An equitable, diverse, and better artistic world isn’t built on capital investment. It’s built with community-building and resourcefulness.
This, however, does not mean we will not eventually explore longer-term, traditional compensation avenues. In the meantime, we commit to the following:
Public disclosures of any donation
Clear and public disbursements of funds
Good-faith attempts to offer services/favors roughly commensurate with time invested in article writing
Allocating all funds received to our base of contributors
Ensuring all artists maintain copyright of their work — as well as the right to rescind access to their published articles