Local Theater Piece: Second Thought Devotes Season to Plays Written by Dallas Artists Focusing on Mourning
When the Second Thought Theatre produced Oak Cliff-raised Will Arbery's Heroes of the Fourth Turning last year, the play about a reunion of young conservatives caught the attention of the local crowd. Arbery's family is known in the Dallas community - his parents used to teach at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, and his sister, Lucia Simek, serves as the executive director of the Dallas Contemporary art museum.
Artistic director Carson McCain remarked, "So many people were excited about Will. 'Oh, he's from Dallas. I know his family. I know the people he has written about. I know these stories.' It became a question for me and Parker - if we have playwrights who can create works as good as anything else, why aren't we giving all our opportunities to them?"
This question led to an entire season of dramas by local playwrights. Gray's Incarnate, set for this summer, follows the debut of Jenny Ledel's My Wife's Dead Body in the fall. Actors first, Gray and Ledel have become familiar faces on North Texas stages.
The season opened with Blake Hackler's Healed, a story about a woman who seeks a mysterious, cult-like retreat in the Texas Hill Country when conventional medicine fails to cure her illness. This is Hackler's fourth show for Second Thought - besides being a member of the Dallas Theater Center's resident acting troupe, he heads SMU's theater program. McCain directs.
During a Zoom interview with Gray and Ledel, McCain expressed her viewpoint, "When I'm not directing, I'm a therapist, and I am more and more convinced that we are grieving every life we're not living. I've been seeing this with my clients. Then reading Parker's play and feeling passionate about producing Incarnate led me to the season theme of grief. It's a universal experience."
Incarnate revolves around a 50-year-old man who kidnaps a 25-year-old woman, believing she's his father reincarnated. Though it received a reading at Undermain Theatre in 2022, Incarnate is yet to be produced on stage.[4]
Gray, who currently stars in Undermain's h*llo k*tty syndrome, didn't start writing plays until after his father's death in 2017. "Then I felt I had something to say, I had something to prosecute within myself," he explained. "How do I deal with these feelings?"
He attributes his writing process to overcoming grief - "Go listen to all those old voicemails. Put on a sad song in the car. Don't let anyone tell you there's shame in experiencing those things," he advised.
Ledel's My Wife's Dead Body, set to run in July, deals with a terminally ill woman who uses AI to extend her life, merging her personality into an algorithm to inhabit another body after her death. Ledel admires plays that challenge her emotionally, commenting, "Theater is a way for us to come together to discuss big, scary topics."
In 2019, Gray took a playwriting class at Theatre Three with Matt Lyle, after which he wrote his first play at the break of 2020. However, he chose not to write about the pandemic directly, instead focusing on horror as his niche. "There's something exciting about a group of people being absolutely terrified together in a room with the thing they're terrified of," Gray expressed.
The trend of producing locally written plays in Dallas has been growing for years. Ochre House Theater, led by Posey, is an example of this commitment - the theater only puts on shows written by its ensemble and other members. Upcoming shows like Moving Creatures demonstrate their dedication.[4]
The Dallas Theater Center’s rigorous writing program, inaugurated around 2013 under Will Power's leadership, was a catalyst for local playwrights like Jonathan Norton, Kara-Lynn Vaeni, and Janielle Kastner.[4] These workshops and collaborative partnerships have helped establish Dallas as a hub for local playwriting talent.
The 2025-2026 Dallas Theater Center season, curated by Norton, emphasizes regional partnerships and premieres of new works, showcasing institutional support for homegrown talent.[4]
Overall, theaters in Dallas play a crucial role in fostering and supporting local playwrights, continued efforts towards mentorship, and collaborations have fostered an active and thriving playwriting scene in the city.
Disclaimer: The mentioned plays and their scheduling are based on the time stamp of the article (2023) and may have variations in their actual production dates.
Sources:[1] Dallas Morning News, “Second Thought Theatre gives voice to local playwrights in its 2023-2024 season”, [accessed March 16, 2023] (https://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/arts/2023/02/03/second-thought-theatre-gives-voice-to-local-playwrights-in-its-20232024-season/)[2] D Magazine, “Second Thought Theatre’s New Season is All About Grief and Trauma”, [accessed March 16, 2023] (https://www.dmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/theater/2023/03/second-thoughts-new-season-is-all-about-grief-and-trauma/)[3] The Dallas Morning News, “Malcolm X and Redd Foxx Washing Dishes…”, [accessed March 16, 2023] (https://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/arts/2023/05/05/dallas-theater-center-announces-20252026-season)[4] OnStage Dallas, “Parker Gray: Undermain’s New Play Label”, [accessed March 16, 2023] (https://onstagedallas.com/2023/01/parker-gray-undermeins-new-play-label/)
- The growth of producing locally written plays in Dallas can be seen in theaters like Ochre House, which only stage plays written by their ensemble and members.
- The Dallas Theater Center's writing program, started around 2013, has been instrumental in nurturing local playwrights, such as Jonathan Norton, Kara-Lynn Vaeni, and Janielle Kastner.
- Drama topics in Dallas extend beyond news and lifestyle to include science fiction, like Parker Gray's play, Incarnate, where a man kidnaps a woman believing she's his father reincarnated.
- Community support for local talent is evident, as shown by theater artistic directors like Carson McCain, who prioritizes giving opportunities to playwrights, like Will Arbery, who create works as good as anything else.
- Home-and-garden topics don't typically feature in plays, but Jenny Ledel's My Wife's Dead Body defies this norm, exploring a woman using AI to extend her life and merging her personality into an algorithm to inhabit another body after her death.
