About Play Club

Play Club offers a rare backstage pass to the exciting world behind the curtain.

[photo credit: Stefano Stacchini]

House lights dim, stage lights rise, and a world comes to life. For a few hours, you are transported to another place and time.

This imaginary world first took shape in one person’s mind.

Playwrights are architects of live experiences, creating a map for their collaborators—directors, designers, and actors—to follow. Each production is unique, each performance is ephemeral. But the script endures, to be read, discussed, and celebrated as a captivating literary work.

If you’ve read or studied Shakespeare, you know how to read a play. Play Club invites you into the minds and imaginations of living playwrights, who are writing about our world today from a multitude of diverse experiences.

Buy your ticket, take a seat, and join the Play Club ride.

SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY MEMBERSHIP: $50 / 5 months (March-July 2022) - sign up by February 28th.

Starting in September:

Annual membership: $120 / year($10 a month, plus purchasing the plays*) - brings you 12 plays & playwrights in 12 months!

Each month you will receive:

  • an insider newsletter about the featured playwright, where to buy that month’s play, and much more

  • 3 weekly Zoom discussions with other Play Club members, richly facilitated by theater professionals, exploring the play’s themes and ideas

  • 1 live, virtual event with each Featured Playwright with a Q&A hosted at the end of the month

  • membership in the Play Club online community with online discussions, writing prompts, and Zoom recordings

*Members purchase their own copies of the plays, using links provided in the monthly email. You may find some plays at your local library. Published plays generally cost $5–$20, and purchasing them supports the Featured Playwright!

founder & playwright

Amy Wheeler thrives on collaboration, bringing people of all ages together to create inspiring productions and spirited events imbued with a social justice message. Play Club springs from her passion to champion playwrights, especially womxn, LGBTQIA+, and BIPoC theatre artists, and to inspire a growing audience for new theatrical work. Her own play are being produced and developed, and two are published in the Rain City Project Manifesto Series. Amy led the pacific northwest nonprofit Hedgebrook for 13 years, expanding it into a global community of influential women writers authoring change in every sphere of arts and culture, politics and social justice. As a producer of Hedgebrook’s Women Playwrights Festival, she was thrilled to incubate hundreds of plays, discover talented emerging voices and encourage prominent playwrights to explore exciting new territory. Amy holds an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Cornish College of the Arts. She lives with her wife Kate in a historic dance hall on Whidbey Island, where they host play readings on the halls’ original stage.

communications & playwright

Paul Kruse tells Queer love stories. As a playwright and media artist from Western Wisconsin, his work flows from his Catholic roots and ever-evolving experience of family. He is a founding member and resident playwright of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective, co-founded with Adil Mansoor and Nicole Shero. Paul often writes collaboratively, drawing from his years of experience as a videographer and documentarian. He is a cohort member of Audible’s third Emerging Playwrights Fund. His work has been produced by Adjusted Realists in Brooklyn, NY; Quantum Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA; the Vortex Theater in Austin, TX; and in high schools around the country. Paul has developed work at The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, Yaddo, the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, and Middlebury College. Paul recently completed his MFA at UT Austin where he was a fellow with the Michener Center for Writers. Learn more about paul at www.paulwkruse.com.