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About the Book

This trailblazing collection of works by first- and second-generation immigrants to the U.S. unites seven exhilarating new voices of Lebanese, Nigerian, Korean, Bengali, Polish, and Mexican descent. Echoing beyond the stage, their stories draw on common experiences of displacement, alienation, and the sense of living in suspension; sometimes torn between two worlds, sometimes plummeting into the spaces between them. Amid the tangled relationships, vengeful landscapes, and buried family mysteries something universal flickers: the search for safety and the promise of home. Both haunting and galvanizing, What This Place Makes Me will be a vital touchstone for years to come.

Praise for what this place makes me

“You are going to face here the web of cultural quandaries of family, home, place, and most of all, Being. Multisensory and multivocal forces will drag you across the immigrant and stage universe. Bilingual breath will surround you—India, Africa, Middle East, Korea, and the triturating screams of river-crossing water in its borderland phantasmagoria. You are going to be loved, and pulled, teased, blurred, mud-mashed, and sculpted by stories, longings, losses, and migrant-soaked river blood. A new grammar, a new rhythm of writing, speaking, performing, sounding, movement, and Queer speakers will thrash you—is this the immigrant experience? Is this America? Arrival? Accommodation? Is this Transcendence? Or is this Immigrant Liberation? Fractured spaces, cultures, and the gone shackles of true persons call for a new Freedom. Wait until you meet La Sirena, the border river, freakish Mermaid riding your back—part Virgen de Guadalupe, part Llorona, part Mouth-spirit of the migrant drownings, howling through the fences of ‘Fascist’ Border Guards. I bow to these brave writers. Each play and voice steps toward Humanity, Unity, Deep Reality, Borderland-Talk, the Unknown that America fears. We have been waiting for such Enlightenment, Art & Love. We are not ‘Invaders.’ Bravissimo, a Miracle, a ground-breaking, prize-winning set and chorus of Truth.”

—Juan Felipe Herrera, Poet Laureate of the United States, Emeritus

“This ground-breaking anthology shows us the people we are becoming; a nation of multilingual intimacies, our hearts split between homelands. The bold, visionary playwrights in What This Place Makes Me shatter stereotypes, and reveal the deep and beautiful human truths inside the immigrant experience.”

—Héctor Tobar, author of Our Migrant Souls

“This vibrant and thrilling collection of groundbreaking plays explodes well-worn twentieth-century tropes around immigration to show that movement across borders is central to the story of humanity. These plays make us feel, make us think, open up new worlds, and exemplify some of today’s best dramatic writing.”

—David Henry Hwang, Tony and Grammy Award–winning playwright

“This extraordinary assembly of plays speaks to the range of brilliant writing on the many meanings of being an ‘American.’ Each text projects a unique voice and a revelatory vision of immigration, belonging, and what it means to make a home in this nation. Stavchansky’s selections resonate off of each other, and lead to a luminous portrait of how the theater can tell the stories that make us who we are, and help us see each other more clearly.”

—Melia Bensussen, Artistic Director of Hartford Stage

ABOUT THE INTRODUCER

Luis Valdez  is regarded as one of the most important and influential American playwrights and filmmakers living today. His internationally renowned and Obie award–winning theater company, El Teatro Campesino (The Farm Workers’ Theater), was founded by Valdez in 1965 in the heat of the United Farm Workers (UFW) struggle and the Great Delano Grape Strike in California’s Central Valley. His involvement with Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the early Chicano Movement left an indelible mark that remained embodied in all his work even after he left the UFW in 1967. In 1978, he wrote and directed Zoot Suit, the play that re-exams the Sleepy Lagoon Trial of 1942 and the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, two of the darkest moments in LA urban history. It is considered a masterpiece of the American Theater as well as the first Chicano play on Broadway and the first Chicano major feature film. Valdez’s numerous feature film and television credits include, among others, the 1987 box office hit, La Bamba, starring Lou Diamonds Phillips. Valdez’s hard work and long creative career have won him countless awards, including the prestigious George Peabody Award for excellence in television, the Governor’s Award for the California Arts Council, and Mexico’s prestigious Águila Azteca Award, given to individuals whose work promotes cultural excellence and exchange between US and Mexico. In September 2016, Valdez was awarded the National Medal of the Arts by President Obama at the White House.

about the editor

Isaiah Stavchansky is a Mexican-American actor, writer, editor, and educator. His work has been developed and performed with The Workshop Theater, Atlantic Acting School, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Tank NYC, and Kenyon College. He has performed at The Williamstown Theatre Festival, Chautauqua Theater Company, and The Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater. He is a graduate of Kenyon College and Atlantic Acting School.

about the contributors

Shayok Misha Chowdhury is a many-tentacled writer and director based in Brooklyn. A Mark O’Donnell Prize and Princess Grace Award recipient, Misha was an inaugural Project Number One Artist at Soho Rep, where he directed the world premiere of his play Public Obscenities (one of three finalists for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize and a New York Times Critic’s Pick). Misha was also awarded a Jonathan Larson Grant for his body of work writing musicals with composer Laura Grill Jaye; their most recent collaboration, How the White Girl Got Her Spots and Other 90s Trivia, was awarded the 2022 Relentless Award. Other collaborations: Brother, Brother (New York Theatre Workshop) with Aleshea Harris; SPEECH (Philly Fringe) with Lightning Rod Special; MukhAgni (Under the Radar @ The Public Theater) with Kameron Neal; Your Healing Is Killing Me (PlayMakers Rep) with Virginia Grise. Misha is also an alumnus of New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Fellowship, The Public Theater’s Devised Theater Working Group, Ars Nova’s Makers Lab, New York Stage and Film Nexus, the Sundance Art of Practice Fellowship, The Drama League’s Next Stage Residency, and Soho Rep’s Writer Director Lab. BA: Stanford. MFA: Columbia.

Hansol Jung is a playwright from South Korea. Productions include Wild Goose Dreams (The Public Theater, La Jolla Playhouse), Wolf Play (NNPN Rolling Premiere: Artists Rep, Mixed Blood, Company One), Cardboard Piano (Humana Festival at ATL), Among the Dead (Ma-Yi Theatre), and No More Sad Things (Sideshow, Boise Contemporary). Commissions from The Public Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Seattle Repertory Theatre, National Theatre in UK, Playwrights Horizons, Artists Repertory Theater, Ma-Yi Theatre, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Her work has been developed at Royal Court, New York Theatre Workshop, Hedgebrook, Berkeley Repertory, Sundance Theatre Lab, O’Neill Theater Center, and the Lark. Hansol is the recipient of the Hodder Fellowship, Whiting Award, Helen Merrill Award, Page 73 Fellowship, Lark’s Rita Goldberg Fellowship, NYTW’s 2050 Fellowship, MacDowell Artist Residency, and International Playwrights Residency at Royal Court. She is a proud member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, NYTW’s Usual Suspects, and The New Class of Kilroys. MFA: Yale.

Martyna Majok was born in Bytom, Poland, and raised in New Jersey and Chicago. She was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Cost of Living, which was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play in 2023. Other plays include Sanctuary City, Queens, and Ironbound, which have been produced across American and international stages. Martyna studied at Yale School of Drama, Juilliard, University of Chicago, and New Jersey public schools.

Mona Mansour is a Lebanese-American playwright and television writer based in Brooklyn. Her plays include Unseen (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Gift Theater); We Swim We Talk We Go to War (Golden Thread); The Way West (Labyrinth Theater, Steppenwolf). The full-length version of The Hour of Feeling was at Actors Theater of Louisville’s Humana Fest; An Arabic Translation was presented at NYU Abu Dhabi in 2016. Urge for Going was presented at The Public Theater and Golden Thread. Mona Mansour was a member of The Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group. With Tala Manassah she wrote Falling Down the Stairs, an EST/Sloan commission. Their play Dressing is part of Facing Our Truths, commissioned by the New Black Festival. Awards include: 2020 Kesselring, 2020 Helen Merrill Award, 2014 Middle East America Playwright Award. Residencies: MacDowell Colony, Space on Ryder Farm, Sundance Theater Institute, New Dramatists Class of 2020. Mona writes for NBC’s New Amsterdam, and is working on a script for AMC International. In 2019, she formed the theater company Society with Scott Illingworth and Tim Nicolai.

Charlie Oh’s plays have been developed at Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Rep, The Lark, Second Stage, The Goodman, the BMI Lehmen Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, and the American Music Theater Project. His play LONG won the Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Award In Playwriting, placed second for the Mark Twain Prize for Comedic Playwriting, and was a 2019 Honorable Mention for The American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award. His play Coleman ‘72 won the Kennedy Center’s Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award and premiered at South Coast Rep in the spring of 2023, directed by Chay Yew. He holds commissions from Manhattan Theater Club and South Coast Repertory theater, and is a member of Ars Nova’s Play Group, Page 73’s 73 Writers Group, and Ensemble Studio Theater’s Youngblood. He is a recent graduate of The Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. BA: Northwestern University.

Mfoniso Udofia, a first-generation Nigerian-American storyteller and educator, attended Wellesley College and obtained her MFA from the American Conservatory Theater [A.C.T.]. While at A.C.T., she co-pioneered THE NIA PROJECT, which provided artistic outlets for San Francisco youth. Productions of her plays Sojourners, Runboyrun, Her Portmanteau, and In Old Age have been seen at New York Theatre Workshop, American Conservatory Theater, Playwrights Realm, Magic Theater, National Black Theatre, Strand Theater, and Boston Court. She’s the recipient of the 2021 Horton Foote Award, the 2017 Helen Merrill Playwright Award, the 2017–18 McKnight National Residency and Commission and is a member of New Dramatists. Mfoniso’s currently commissioned by The Huntington Theatre, Hartford Stage, Denver Center, ACT, and South Coast Repertory. Her plays have been developed by Manhattan Theatre Club, A.C.T, McCarter Theatre, OSF, New Dramatists, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, Hedgebrook, Sundance, Space on Ryder Farm, and more.

Jesús I. Valles (they/them) is a queer Mexican immigrant, educator, writer-performer from Cd. Juarez/El Paso. Valles is the winner of the 2023 Yale Drama Series, selected by Jeremy O. Harris (Bathhouse.pptx), the winner of the 2022 Kernodle Playwriting Prize (a river, its mouths), and the 2022 Emerging Theatre Professional, selected by the National Theatre Conference. As a playwright, Valles received support from The Bushwick Starr, Clubbed Thumb, The Flea, The Kennedy Center, The Lortel, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Theatre Workshop, OUTsider Festival, The Playwrights’ Center, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Teatro Vivo, and The VORTEX. As a poet, Valles received fellowships from CantoMundo, Community of Writers, Idyllwild Arts, Lambda Literary, Tin House, and Undocupoets. Valles is a Core Apprentice of the Playwrights’ Center and received their MFA in writing for performance from Brown University.  

Book details

Paperback • $22
ISBN: 9781632062277
eBook ISBN: 9781632062284
Publication date: Apr 8, 2025
6" x 9" • 352 pages
Drama / Anthologies
Rights: World English (non-exclusive)