Cast and Creative Team Set for FIRES, OHIO at The Alliance Theatre

The Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition continues to spotlight the best emerging playwrights with a full production for the 22nd competition winner. Fires, Ohio, written by Beth Hyland, an MFA graduate of the University of California San Diego, with Direction by Marissa Wolf, Artistic Director of Portland Center Stage, will have its world premiere on the Hertz Stage at Alliance Theatre Feb 25—Mar 22, 2026. 

As wildfires rage closer and closer to a small Ohio college town, the mopey grown children and second wife of a sort-of-mediocre professor are threatened by another kind of crisis: a visit from a family friend that threatens to bring all of their tensions to a towering inferno. Now, each of them will be forced to choose: stay and smolder, or leave and burn? Inspired by the classic family drama Uncle Vanya, Fires, Ohio, updates a beloved story for our painfully absurd present, taking a hilarious and heartfelt look at the natural (and personal) disasters that transform our everyday lives.

The cast of Fires, Ohio includes Chisom Awachie as Erin (Horizon Theatre: The Wolves, The Cake), David de Vries as the Professor (Alliance Theatre: A Christmas Carol; Netflix: Ozark), Tiffany Denise Hobbs as Elena (Actor’s Express: Doubt; CBS: Elsbeth), Rebeca Robles as Sonia (Horizon Theater: The Wolves; Synchronicity; The Hero’s Wife), and Billy Harrigan Tighe as John (Alliance Theatre: Millions; Broadway: PIPPIN). Understudies include Maddie Compton, Rial Ellsworth, Warren Levi Haney, Lizzie Liu, and Irene Polk.

The creative team of Fires, Ohio is led by Director Marissa Wolf, with Playwright Beth Hyland, Set and Costume Designer Lex Liang, Lighting Designer Robert J. Aguilar, Sound Designer Madeliene Oldham, Intimacy Coordinator Laura Hackman, and Fight Choreographer Jake Guinn.

“Being selected the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition winner is a dream come true,” said Hyland. “New works, new plays are risky and expensive and for young playwrights at the beginning of our careers, one can easily get stuck in the workshop pipeline. As a launching pad, the Alliance/Kendeda Competition is the best-case scenario for anyone stepping out of grad school and onto the regional theater landscape; a dream scenario in the best way.”

The Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition solicits plays from the leading MFA graduate programs in the United States and then conducts a rigorous selection process to find four finalists and one winning play.  The winner receives a full production as part of the Alliance Theatre’s regular season.  The winner and four finalists also receive development opportunities for their works including staged readings with industry professionals.  A one-of-a-kind opportunity for emerging playwrights, the Competition transitions student playwrights to the world of professional theatre. 

Past winners of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition have become some of today’s most exciting playwrights and writers including Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue inspired the 2017 Academy Award-winning film for Best Picture, Moonlight; a.k. payne, whose Alliance/Kendeda Competition-winning play Furlough’s Paradise was the winner of the 2024 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and received subsequent productions in Los Angeles and Washington D.C.; Mansa Ra, whose winning play Too Heavy For Your Pocket received multiple productions including an Off-Broadway production; and Marcus Gardley, who wrote the recent film adaptation of the musical, The Color Purple.