Announcing The 85th NNPN Rolling World Premiere: HERLAND By Grace McLeod

National New Play Network, the country's alliance of nonprofit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, announces its 85th Rolling World Premiere (RWP): Herland by Grace McLeod. The Roll kicks off in San Diego at MOXIE Theatre (January 20-February 17, 2019), then heads to Chicago's Redtwist Theatre (March 16-April 14, 2019), and concludes in Los Angeles at Greenway Court (May 31-June 23, 2019).

In an NNPN Rolling World Premiere, the Network provides production support to the playwright and the partnering theaters, including assistance with the creation and the contracting of the premiere agreement, collaborative interactions between the theaters, and travel and housing funds for the playwright to further develop the play in each city.

After graduating from high school, Natalie gets a summer internship working for Jean, a recently-divorced woman in her 70s who has no plans to move into a typical retirement home. Natalie helps Jean and her two best friends design an alternative: a DIY utopia where they can live out the next chapter of their lives. They plot the future together inside Jean's garage, where relics of Jean's ex-husband (and his locally famous Bruce Springsteen cover band) still linger. Herland is a play about women growing up, growing old, and rocking out to the beat of their own drums.

Grace McLeod is a Chicago-based playwright and screenwriter. She has developed her full-length plays with First Floor Theater, Greenhouse Theater Center, The New Colony, and Commission Theatre, and has had the pleasure of writing short plays for Chimera Ensemble, American Blues Theater, and the Victory Gardens College Night series, among others. Grace was the recipient of the 2018 Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Prize for Playwriting and a 2017-2018 playwright-in-residence at the Greenhouse Theater Center as part of the Trellis Residency Initiative, where she developed her play Herland, which will have its National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere this year at MOXIE Theatre in San Diego, Redtwist Theatre in Chicago, and Greenway Court Theatre in Los Angeles. She was a 2013-2014 Tribeca Film Fellow and wrote and directed the short film Under the Table, which premiered during the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival. Grace is a recent graduate of the University of Chicago.