Article by Toni Tresca for Westword
The twentieth annual Colorado New Play Summit, set for February 14-15, will feature staged readings of new plays by Alyssa Haddad-Chin… Summit writers spend a week rehearsing with directors, actors and dramaturgs before presenting readings to the public twice over the weekend, using the room as a kind of live diagnostic to determine what’s working and what needs work.
Alyssa Haddad-Chin’s You Should Be So Lucky began with a moment of recognition in an art gallery. The Brooklyn-based Lebanese American playwright was participating in a writers group tasked with creating a one-act inspired by pieces in the gallery when she came across an artwork depicting a market that seemed familiar. She photographed it and showed it to her husband, who is Chinese-American and grew up in New York City. He recognized it right away; he had visited that market with his grandmother, and it no longer existed.
That disappearance became the play’s catalyst… The play began as a short, thirty-page one-act “that was a place to put this energy,” but it quickly became clear that it needed more space. Since 2022, the script has evolved into a full-length work shaped by Haddad-Chin’s recurring interest in “generations of women trying to find ways to come together and pass on tradition.”
“Opportunities like the New Play Summit are priceless for playwrights,” she says. “In an industry that is shrinking, these new play festivals are so important to the cultural fabric of the theater industry. Also, as playwrights, we cannot make work without an audience. That’s impossible, and the Summit and festivals like it — although this one is particularly special, giving folks a chance to interact with new plays.”