Set in the heartbeat of modern America, Shorts: The Worker brings audiences face-to-face with the lives, struggles, and triumphs of those who keep our world moving. Through six bold world premiere short plays, this year’s festival offers a raw, intimate, and often surprising portrait of the American workforce from moments of quiet resilience to flashes of humor, frustration, and hope. Each story captures a different voice, a different job, and a different truth, reminding us that behind every voice is a deeply human story.
Presented at the Paul Harris Theatre March 6 - 15, Shorts: The Worker invites audiences into a theatrical mosaic shaped by contemporary language, urgent themes, and unforgettable characters. Written specifically for Las Vegas by today’s most exciting American playwrights, these new works reflect a city and a nation navigating change, ambition, sacrifice, and survival. With each piece, the festival celebrates labor not only as employment, but as identity, dignity, and purpose.
“Shorts: The Worker continues NCT’s tradition of championing new voices and innovative storytelling.” says Executive Director Kirsten Brandt. “I am grateful for the The David and Stephanie Vondrak Short Play Festival Fund which enables us to commission these phenomenal writers: Eugenie Chan, Kristina Wong, Josefina López, Maya Mayan-Gonzalez, Lisa Marie Rollins, and AJ Schaar. Each one offers a unique and rich perspective that honors the people who build, serve, teach, protect, create, and persevere. It is not just a play festival; it is a tribute to the spirit of work itself, and to the humanity found within it.”
La Limpia, Chop Chop: A Fable, and Just a Worker are directed by SaMi Chester who recently played “The Narrator” in A Christmas Carol 1941 for NCT. “There is a slow burning beauty about the three plays I have the honor of directing for this festival. So much so that when Kirsten asked if I'd be interested in directing I jumped at the opportunity! You learn a lot about the 'soul' of a country by the way it treats its workers. These three plays walk us through the mind set and the landmines of the worker. The playwrights have gifted us with a theatrical feast. The actors are working hard to find their voice. This tree will bear amazing fruit. in no small part by the students on stage and the creative support of an amazing production team.”
WOMB, Tweets and Consequences, and Mr. Mud E. Shoe are directed by Maythinee Washington, who says “As the director of Act II, I frame these three plays through a central question of ‘Can We Come Together?’ across three snapshots in time, each offering its own response. In Womb, set in a dystopian, near-future where neighbors navigate scarce resources to support each other through life and limb, counters with ‘...But Should We?’ Tweets & Consequences, by Pulitzer Prize nominee Kristina Wong (Sweatshop Overlord) follows up with ‘...So, Are You With Me?’ through a wry comedy that mirrors the charged rhetoric of the present moment. And the production closes set in a past where a man faces isolation and degradation in every facet of his life in the allegorical Mr. Mud E. Shoe which retorts, ‘...At What Cost?’ This evening of short plays prompts the audience to question their relationships to self, community, and society through these theatrical glimpses set in the past, present, and future.”
About the plays
La Limpia by Maya Malan-Gonzalez
A writer struggling with infertility travels to meet an elderly curandera and muralist for what she hopes will be both a career-defining interview and a healing journey. But when dementia clouds the 85-year-old healer's memory, Brenda must navigate the gap between expectation and reality, discovering that sometimes the most profound wisdom comes from accepting what we cannot control. A tender exploration of hope, disappointment, and the stories we tell ourselves.
Chop Chop: A Fable by Eugenie Chan
In a commercial kitchen where workers slice, dice, and stir for pennies a pound, three laborers endure the watchful tyranny of their Boss and his snarling dog. When workplace injuries are met with threats of deportation and sexual harassment, the workers must decide whether to accept their exploitation or turn the Boss's own cruel commands against him. A rhythmic, physical fable about labor, power, and collective resistance.
Just A Worker by Josefina López
When two Latina friends are harassed by a racist customer in a mall café, a young worker named Kevin finds himself caught between doing what's right and following orders. As the confrontation escalates and police arrive, Kevin must decide whether being "just a worker" is enough of an excuse to stand by while injustice unfolds before his eyes. A timely examination of bystander complicity, workplace power dynamics, and the courage required to take a stand.
WOMB by Lisa Marie Rollins
In a dystopian future women have lost the right to vote, three radical midwives operate a secret clinic disguised as a traveling farmers market in the California desert. On the day the Supreme Council votes on whether a person’s third child must be surrendered to the state for medical experiments, Asha, Ananda, and Jaye face an impossible choice when a desperate pregnant woman seeks refuge. A fierce, urgent vision of reproductive justice under fascism that asks: who owns our bodies, our babies, our futures?
Tweets and Consequences by Kristina Wong
At a struggling family-owned boutique in Henderson, Dahlia faces an unexpected visitor: a conservative "watchdog" demanding she fire a friend over a social media post. As the visitor threatens to destroy their already failing business, Dahlia must weigh loyalty to her friend against her mother's dream—while discovering how algorithmic surveillance and political extremism can reach even the smallest corners of American life.
Mr. Mud E. Shoe by AJ Schaar
Based on Nikolai Gogol's "The Overcoat," this darkly comic fable follows a downtrodden copy clerk through a gauntlet of exploitation by those who should help him. When Mr. Shoe finally acquires a fine new suit that transforms how the world sees him, his brief ascent into respectability ends in an encounter that exposes the brutal machinery beneath civilized society.
Content Advisory: This production contains mature themes, adult language, adult themes, immigration (ICE), violence, abortion, racism, white supremacy, hate speech and imagery.
About the shows
BIOS
Playwrights:
Eugenie Chan (Chop Chop:A Fable)is artistic director of Eugenie Chan Theater Projects (ECTP), dedicated to telling the untold stories of Chinese in the American West. Theatres that have produced or developed her prize-winning plays include Crowded Fire, Houston Grand Opera, The Public, Playwrights Horizons, Cutting Ball, Magic Theatre, Centenary Stage, Perishable, Thick Description, Northwest Asian American Theatre, East West Players, and ECTP. Recent collaborations: SHOUT IN THE DARK: A Guide to Hope & Good Grief, Deborah Slater Dance Theater; Sojourner ZY, ShadowLight Productions & Paul Dresher; Songs About Trains, Radical Evolution, NYC. Alumna Resident Playwright: East West Players, Crowded Fire, New Dramatists, Playwrights Foundation. Lecturer, San José State University. Feature film The Truer History of the Chan Family debuted 2025, Arts Emerson with the Boston Asian Film Festival, Houston Asian American Pacific Islander Film Festival, Tigertail Asian Film Festival (Best Female First Time Filmmaker). www.eugeniechantheater.org
Josefina López (Just a Worker) (Writer/Theater and Film Producer) is best known for authoring the play and co-authoring the 2002 SUNDANCE AUDIENCE AWARD WINNING film Real Women Have Curves. Born in San Luis Potosi, Mexico in 1969, Josefina Lopez was five years old when she and her family migrated to the United States and settled in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. Josefina was undocumented for thirteen years before she received Amnesty in 1987 and eventually became a U.S. Citizen in 1995. Josefina is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago, has an MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film & Television. Josefina is the Founding Artistic Director of Casa 0101 Theater and has produced over 200 plays celebrating Latinos, immigrants, and the LGBTQ and BIPOC communities. The musical Real Women Have Curves opened on Broadway April 27, 2025 and had a World Premiere at American Repertory Theater at Harvard in 2024. She is currently working on a play about the Madrigal vs. Quilligan illegal sterilization of Mexican women case and working on her next musical celebrating Mexican Braceros titled Men with Guitars and writing a one woman. Check out www.Josefinalopez.biz & www.CASA0101.org for more information.
Maya Malan-Gonzalez (La Limpia) (she/ella) is known for her work as storyteller, performer and teatrista. Her produced plays include Blast Off, Huelga, Worry Dolls, A Christmas Treat, and A Xmas Cuento Remix (a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere). She has been commissioned by University Nevada Las Vegas, Portland Opera, Cleveland Public Theatre, and Milagro Theatre. Her writing is featured in “Not So Merry and Bright: A Christmas Mixtape by Studio Luna”. Her piece, “Sunshine” is in “The Inbetweens” presented at El Centro Del Sur: Latinx Theatre Festival and her story “Down the Side of the Mountain” is featured in Teatro Luna’s Audible Original audiobook, “Talking While Female and Other Dangerous Acts”. She is a lifelong member of Milagro in Portland and an ensemble member with Studio Luna in Los Angeles. Maya received her B.F.A in Acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University, she is an alumni of the Candela Playwriting Fellowship, and the NALAC Leadership Institute.Visit www.mayamalangonzalez.com to learn more.
LisaMarie Rollins (WOMB) is a playwright, director and theater maker. She has been a writing fellow with Hedgebrook, Djerassi, CALLALOO London, VONA and more. She was a Wallace Gerbode Playwright Fellow awardee and is a 24-25 Core Writer in the Susan Fairbrook Playwright Group at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. She has been a Resident Artist with Brava Theater and Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco. She is a Member of Dramatist Guild and Stage Directors and Choreographers (SDC) . Selected directing & dramaturg credits include Sundance Institute Theatre Lab (Directing), New York Stage and Film, Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Ground Floor, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Arizona Theater Company, Hedgebrook Women’s Play Festival, Crowded Fire Theater, American Conservatory Theatre SF, Magic Theatre. She leads the IRIS LAB, a residency & new work incubator for global majority theater makers located at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Amanda Jane Schaar: (Mr. Mud E. Shoe) Acclaimed comedic playwright and award-winning author, A.J. Schaar began writing for performance in the experimental theatre circuit; her work is included in books of 21st century avant garde art (EU). Her first “traditional” play, Rummy Starker Love Fest was produced by her college, ASU, and then professionally in downtown Phoenix (“best avant garde” Tribune award). Her next play, Kill Socrates received a series of starry public readings before being produced at the Don Bluth Front Row Theatre (all artists nominated for awards). Her new interpretation of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters has likewise enjoyed starry readings with the New Fortune Theatre in San Diego, and Studio 34 in LA. Her Twelfth Night of the Living Dead was produced by Loud Fridge Theatre. Her American Monkeys was presented by New Fortune Theatre in partnership with The Library Foundation. Schaar’s other published works include the plays Triumph of Moriarty, Oggetto Metallico, WE THE PYRATES, and her novella, Storybook Coroner (“indie book we love” award, LoveReading, UK). To read these works free, order copies, or learn more, visit AJSchaar.com. She is honored to be making her Las Vegas debut here at the Nevada Conservatory Theatre with Mr. Mud E. Shoe. https://www.ajschaar.com/
Kristina Wong (Tweets and Consequences) is a Doris Duke Artist Award winner, Guggenheim Fellow and the first Asian American woman to be named Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama. She’s a performance artist, comedian, actor, writer and former elected official who has been presented internationally across North America, the UK, Hong Kong and Africa. Notable solo shows include: Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Wong Street Journal, Kristina Wong for Public Office, and the now touring Kristina Wong #FoodBankInfluencer. Her role in accidentally starting the Auntie Sewing Squad, a national mutual aid mask sewing network during the Covid-19 pandemic, was the subject Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord— a New York Times Critics Pick that premiered off-Broadway at New York Theater Workshop. That show was the 2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama and winner of the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Solo Performance. Auntie Kristina’s Guide to Asian American Activism will be published Spring 2026 from Beaming Books and is co-written with the producers of Radical Cram School, the web series she has created for kids. www.kristinawong.com
Directors
SaMi Chester (director: La Limpia, Chop Chop: A Fable, and Just a Worker ) Director, actor, writer, educator, and activist SaMi Chester was born on Chicago's Westside. His impressive credits include Godspell (Original Chicago Company), Hair (European and US National Tour), Native Speech (Soho Rep.), The Skin of Our Teeth (Dallas Theater Center), Five on the Black Hand Side (Kuumba Workshop), FAUST (Kingston Mines Theatre Co.), Trojan Women (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble), and a host of others. He has guest starred on numerous television shows including NYPD Blue, Law and Order, and Quantum Leap, and was a series regular on his own short-lived series Human Target. SaMi is the founder and artistic director of BeBop Theatre Collective and the co-founder and artistic director of STUDIO ONE, a multicultural space in New York City's Lower East Side. He has directed over 30 theatrical productions, and currently has two of his own works on the drawing board—one for TV and one for the stage. Aside from his artistic life, SaMi continues to fight for social justice.
Maythinee Washington (director: WOMB, Tweets and Consequences, and Mr. Mud E. Shoe )
Maythinee Washington is a director, performer, and teaching artist from Las Vegas. She directed and devised Kylie’s Twenty-First (and Last), a dinner theater murder mystery experience produced by UNLV’s world-renowned School of Hospitality, A Devil in Memphis: a Black Southern Gothic, adapted from Doctor Faustus for The University of Memphis, and The Medusa Project, rethinking the monsters of Greek mythology with the students of the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts. She served on Grammy Award winner Usher’s creative team as the dramaturg and associate director/resident director for the VIP immersive theater pre-show for his Vegas residency, curating an unforgettable experience honoring African American artistry from the past, present, and future. Amongst her eight original solo shows deconstructing lore and memories includes the sci-fi short, The Astronaut, and her meditation on grief, Mother Tongue—both of which debuted last year. Her rumination on internalized racism, WHITE GIRL, (inspired by the Gordon Parks doll test and 1950s media) was a featured performance at TEDx Fremont East Women. Maythinee is an alumna of Brown University and has an MFA from University of Washington and an MA from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Cast List
“SHORTS: THE WORKER”
Creative Team
Directors: Maythinee Washington and SaMi Chester
Stage Manager: Shayla Smith and Christian Martinez Marquez
Assistant Stage Manager: Tiberius Wilson
Lighting Designers: Jeniel "J" Alcain and Marcy Snyder
Scenic Designers: Dana Moran Williams, Andrew Taylor, Momoka (Momo) Sugawara, Daniel Ly
Projection Designers: Andrew Taylor, Lily Burtis,
Costume Designers: Saiyeda Dastagir, Eleos Chester, Jocelyn Davis Coronado, Jasmine Boyce
Sound Designers: Caitlin Fieldler & Bryn Christopher
Cast
Mr. Mud E. Shoes
Mud E. Shoe – Camryn Moody
Colleague 1 & Thug 1 – Jack Herrera
Colleague 2 & Thug 2 – Sadie Dayley
Banker & Landlady – Amaiyah King
Loan Shark & Police Officer – Lee Robbins
Tailor & Doctor – Elle Collura
Secretary – Sofia Virden
Good Manager & Bad Manager – Rydia Freeman
Tweets & Consequences
Dahlia – Angie Campagne
Greg – Camryn Moody
The Working Womb
Asha – Nikayla Nash
Ananda – Mahtab Zargari
Girl – Tammi McMaster
Jaye – Rai Hunter
Guardsman – Jack Herrera
La Limpa
Brenda-Natalie Lainez
Emilio- Ryan Peralta
Lupe- Amethyst Garcia
Mauri- Jonathan Esquivel
Chop-Chop: A Fable
Worker #1- Jonathan Esquivel
Worker #2- Nicole Van Oman
Worker #3-Angie Campagne
Boss - Austin Parrales
Maxie - McKinley Silence
Just A Worker
Kevin- Austin Parrales
Rosa- Jeremy Ulloa
Maria- Ari Moreno
Jen- Amber Wisely
Cop- Ryan Zecchino
Cop – Faith Hardman
