What's Happening!

  • OUR 2024 SEASON HAS COME TO AN END

    The last six months were the busiest in our history. We started with Winterworks at Houghton Hall in January, followed by six weeks of Grief Hotel at the Public in the spring, and we rounded it all out with Summerworks at the Wild Project, where we managed to cram in 47 performances over seven weeks.

    Some of you saw it all, some just a piece, and some met our work for the first time. We were thrilled to share it with all of you.

    Here are some photos and essays from the season, to tide you over until we have work to share again in the fall (or when we see you at our gala honoring dots!)

    Lastly: We had our most successful season at the box office ever. If you were there, you know it was full to overflowing. And you might remember that your ticket was pretty affordable—maybe even free. That’s important to us.

    But what that means is, even when we sell out all the time, tickets only cover a fraction (about 1/7th) of what it all costs, especially considering we pay people better every year (That’s important to us too!)

    Throughout the year, we support hundreds of artists, mostly early in their careers, whether in our writers or directors groups, readings, workshops, commissions, retreats, or in production. So, if you can, make a donation today and be a part of our effort to pay artists, to make beautiful, affordable work, and to do it even better next year!

  • SAVE THE DATE FOR OUR ANNUAL GALA

    As we prepare to tech our 10th collaboration with the design collective dots – and as they prepare for the Tony Awards this week – we are thrilled to announce we’ll be celebrating them at our gala on October 7th! The annual gala is a fundraising cornerstone, as well as a stylish, fun and deeply-felt event, which will be held once again at the industrial chic Etsy headquarters. Tickets at info HERE

  • ANNOUNCING SUMMERWORKS 2024

    We’ll be back at the Wild Project May 16th through June 29th with the 27th iteration of SUMMERWORKS, featuring: Usus by T. Adamson, directed by Emma Miller; Coach Coach by Bailey Williams, directed by Sarah Blush; and Find Me Here by Crystal Finn, directed by Caitlin Sullivan. Tickets on sale now! Learn more & get yours here

  • MEET THESE WRITERS DURING SUMMERWORKS

    Join us during Summerworks for free afternoon readings of plays by 10 exceptional playwrights. First, we’re teaming back up with Brown University’s MFA Playwriting Program in the Department of Theatre Arts & Performance Studies to present readings of plays by two graduating playwrights. CLICK FOR MORE

     

    Then we’ll present eight readings of work-in-progress by the 23/24 Early-Career Writers’ Group. CLICK HERE TO RSVP

  • GRIEF HOTEL'S MAGNIFICENT ENCORE RUN AT THE PUBLIC THEATER

    We were thrilled to bring Summerworks 2023’s Obie-winning hit production Grief Hotel back for a six-week run at The Public Theater, in partnership with our friends New Georges. It was very special to dig back into the play and production with the exceptional group of artists who made it, and such a joy to share it with so many more people. We had a tremendous run – sold out, extended and beloved by critics and audiences – thank you to all who attended and to all who made it possible. CLICK HERE TO READ ESSAYS AND MORE ABOUT THE SHOW

  • CONGRATULATIONS - AND A SAVE THE DATE

    This weekend, we were delighted by the news that Maryann Plunkett, dots, Liza Birkenmeier and Tara Ahmadinejad had all received Obie Awards for their work on Summerworks. Richly Deserved!

    Maybe you are one of the many many people who heard how amazing Liza, Tara and dots’ work on Grief Hotel was, and were sorry to have missed it??

    WELL GUESS WHAT! It’s coming baaaack…. this spring! Location to be announced when ticket sales open — but SAVE THE DATE!

  • WINTERWORKS 2024 HAS COME TO A CLOSE

    Thank you to the hundreds of people who joined as at Houghton Hall for the 9th annual Winterworks. We were so proud of the work these amazing artists made — and we managed to cram everyone in to share it.

  • MEET THE INCOMING COHORTS OF OUR EARLY-CAREER WRITERS' GROUP AND NEW PLAY DIRECTING FELLOWSHIP

    We’re back in action with two new groups to introduce you to! Meet the Early-Career Writers – with whom we’ll convene for play reading and dinner eating, often joined by one of their estimable mentor writers – by CLICKING HERE. During Summerworks we’ll present readings of their plays-in-progress, so join us then to get to know their work.

     

    And get to know the directors and writers in this season’s New Play Directing Fellowship by CLICKING HERE. Program mentors Anne Kauffman and Daniel Aukin, along with Clubbed Thumb staff, will support these new play processes in two phases: first with Playwrights Horizons Theater School students this fall, then in quick and scrappy workshop productions at Winterworks in January. Stay tuned for more info on that and more!

     

  • OUR NEW ANTHOLOGY - ON SALE NOW

    We’ve been eager to put out a second anthology since Funny, Strange, Provocative was published in 2007, and the last year finally provided us with the time to take on this long-awaited project. We are thrilled to announce that Unusual Stories, Unusually Told, published by Bloomsbury/Methuen, is now available!

    In it you’ll find seven Clubbed Thumb plays that span 18 years of our history, as well as essays and interviews about the work, and the often atypical processes that led to their productions.

    Read more about the book and get your discounted copy (and our first anthology) HERE

A Note From Crystal Finn, playwright of Find Me Here

I wrote Find Me Here in the early months of the pandemic, in a house in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, near where I grew up. The house had been my Grandparent’s for decades and was the place they both had died.  It is not an especially remarkable house. But the view from the house is remarkable.  To the front is a forest of pine and cedar and high mountain scrub. The rear extends a few yards from the house before reaching a cliff which drops sharply down to the California Feather River. Penman Peak, the highest of a ridge of sloping mountains in the Mohawk Valley, cradles the river and is a constantly shifting canvas of grey and purple.

I had never seen the house change from winter to spring. It took a long time. The snow was deep that year.  Gold Lake Highway, which is the only road up to Lake’s Basin, where my grandparents had run a boys camp for twenty-five years, and where my mother and her sisters had spent their childhoods, was not even passable till May. 

The first day the road opened up we drove to the lakes and tried to hike up to the lowest spot we could below the Buttes. One mile up, through the snow, it started hailing and my daughter cried that it was a sign from the sky to turn back. Before we did, we caught a glimpse of the first lake, buried half in snow, the water black and dark along the shore. 

When the snow finally melted, the grass in the front yard emerged already bright green. A family of deer started coming every day at noon to lie in the shade, and my daughter and I would eat our lunch by the window, watching them. Then she would leave for the bedroom to listen to her Harry Potter audio book, and I would stay put, sometimes for hours.  

There was nothing to do. My life was on pause. Theater was dead. I watched the river. I marked the snow-pack each day. I looked at the mountain which always was its least beautiful in mid-day, and tried to find the source of each impression of color it gave to me: trees were green, boulders were grey, an unidentifiable blending of sky and rock was purple. Thin clouds would move in in the late afternoon and curl around the peaks, diving them into segments. The tops became bright with the sun, the bottoms dull brown under the shadow of the clouds.

My Grandmother had told me that when her sister, my great Aunt, had died, they scattered her ashes at the top of that peak and had put a light there to mark the spot, so that when my Grandmother did the dishes she could look out the window and see the light.

At night, in the house, I washed the dishes at the same sink and looked out at the same peak. I didn’t see any light. But I thought of my grandmother and her two sisters. And I thought of my mom and her two sisters.

The mountains in Find Me Here aren’t named.  Neither are the lakes. They could be a lot of mountains, a lot of lakes. In the end,  the play I wrote wasn’t really about those places. It was about the people who lived there. It was about what they saw. The mountains, the river, the lakes belong to them.