In the wake of a tumultuous presidential election, this year’s One-Minute Play Festival at the Den Theatre puts politics at center stage. In its seventh year, the festival—this edition is titled “America Is . . . “—features dozens of minute-long performances that comment on the state of both the country and the city of Chicago under the Trump administration.
The One-Minute Play Festival travels all across the United States and makes an effort to include and highlight diverse perspectives. Last year’s fest featured an entirely female-identifying cast, and the show aims to showcase artists of various ages, races, and cultures. The Chicago leg of the tour, curated by Dominic D’Andrea and Caitlin Wees, takes this mission to heart, presenting more than 60 local playwrights and directors who occupy different identities.
“The opportunity to gather the community of artists, activists, and citizens and focus on ways that we might begin to design the world we want to live in is a beautiful and necessary action,” D’Andrea said in a statement.
Each of the screenwriters and directors participating in the festival brings a personalized story to the stage, but one of the most noteworthy moments in this year’s show comes from Coya Paz, a writer, director, and self-proclaimed “lip-gloss connoisseur” who’s passionate about art’s ability to incite social change. As the artistic director of Free Street Theater—one of the first racially integrated theaters in town—and a cofounder of the Proyecto Latina collective, Paz has devoted the bulk of her life to celebrating Latinx arts and culture.
One-Minute Play Festival: American Is . . . Tue 2/21-Wed 2/22, 8 PM, Den Theatre, oneminuteplayfestival.com, $18.