The advocacy group for women and TGNC playwrights presents a new iteration of their online resource uplifting makers and champions of new plays.
By American Theatre Editors | November 18, 2025
NATIONWIDE: The Kilroys have launched The Web 2025, an interactive platform and living archive aimed at spotlighting an ecosystem of innovative, daring, and risk-taking artists shaping the American theatre today. Designed as a non-hierarchical, choose-your-own-adventure resource, where visitors can click on a name to see who that person champions and who championed them, it aims to celebrate underproduced plays by women, trans, and nonbinary playwrights.
“The Web—much like the rehearsal room—is alive,” the Kilroys said in a collective statement. “By inviting visitors to interact with The Web, the Kilroys aim to create a space for collective action. At a time when arts funding is being decimated, theatres are retreating to the status quo, and plays by women, nonbinary, and trans playwrights continue to seek homes, the Kilroys’ Web serves as a reminder that it takes all of us to shape an equitable and inclusive future for the American theatre.”
As previously reported, The Web was originally conceived by the Kilroys 2.0, who expanded the original Kilroys Lists from their original incarnation as a list of underproduced plays by women and TGNC playwrights to include not only playwrights but their champions and collaborators. Inspired by adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy, this 2025 edition was designed by the 2.0 cohort, and serves as their “final action” before their baton passes to the next generation.
“New plays aren’t fostered in a vacuum,” outgoing Kilroy and playwright Chelsea Marcantel said in a statement. “The new-play development process is truly an ecosystem, and if that ecosystem isn’t healthy, it doesn’t matter how good the plays are on paper. We wanted to build The Web as a way to demonstrate that new plays require a comprehensive infrastructure of support to get produced. It’s not enough just to say, ‘Here are the plays, go do them.’ We have to get support and shine to all of these people, and all these different jobs that are making them happen.”
The Web 2025 took shape through waves of nomination-gathering, with the Kilroys reaching out to the outermost ring of The Web in 2023. Those artists were asked to nominate unproduced plays by women, trans, and nonbinary writers. Then the playwrights of nominated plays were asked to nominate champions: individuals in the field whose advocacy, mentorship, and support impacted their journey. Each champion of The Web 2025 is represented with a portrait drawn by illustrator Vexx Daniel and given a tribute on the website.
The incoming Kilroys 3.0 have supported the 2.0 cohort in this effort. For incoming Kilroy Santiago Iacinti, who championed two new voices in 2023 and is recognized on the 2025 Web as an artistic leader, the initiative reminds them “that I’m in great company,” they said. “I am here to be of service. To know that the other artists around me feel supported tells me I’m doing something right. This is what it takes. We have to lift each other up. It’s not about clout, it’s about holding space for our collective artistry.”
Artists named on the 2025 Web reflected on the recognition. For playwright and performer Alex Lin, because “it means greater visibility for the stories I aim to tell, which is all I can ever ask for as a playwright.” Playwright Molly Beach Murphy said the Web is about showing risk-averse producers “good theatre is being made everywhere by brilliant artists they should pay attention to.”
Playwright, connector, dramaturg, and educator L M Feldman said being listed on The Web “made me cry. It made me feel belonging. It made me feel visible. It made me feel of value,” they said. “All of which, for me, are the antidote to the kind of professional despair and existential terror (among other things) of this time. It also made me feel lifted up. Which makes me want to lift up others. And feel like I actually can.”
The Kilroys are a collective of theatre artists, producers, educators, and organizers who are done talking about gender parity and are taking action. They mobilize others in the field and leverage their own power to support one another. The current cohort is Celia Mandela Rivera, Esperanza Rosales Balcárcel, Hannah Wolf, Jasmine Sharma, Karron Karr, Melissa Mickens, Minita Gandhi, Nikki DiLoreto, O’Malley Steuerman, Rosie Glen-Lambert, Santiago Iacinti, Scarlett Kim, T. Tara Turk-Haynes, and Tanya Everett. The outgoing cohort is Jaclyn Backhaus, Hilary Bettis, Jennifer Chambers, Claudia de Vasco, Emma Goidel, Christina Ham, Jessica Hanna, Monet Hurst-Mendoza, Hansol Jung, Chelsea Marcantel, Caroline V. McGraw, Bianca Sams, and Gina Young.
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