Hello!
I’m Erin (they/them) and I’m a writer, director, facilitator and social worker based in Chicago, IL. My favorite stuff to work on lives at the intersection of art and mental health, whether I’m borrowing social work’s “person-in-environment” approach to more deeply understand a character, making art that might offer some company in times of uncertainty, discomfort or growth, conceptualizing workshops that strive to improve mental health in artistic spaces, or creating space for folks to make meaning of their lives through the stories they tell. I hold a MSW from Loyola University Chicago and am currently working towards an ALM in Extension Studies with a focus on Creative Writing and Literature from Harvard University.
If you’d like to learn more about my approach to therapy, take a look over here!
My newest play, You’re a Weirdo, Annie Best, is a rare polyamorous rom-com in the style of Nora Ephron’s beloved canon. Annie Best has been workshopped and developed by the SheATL festival (Atlanta, GA,) Unheard Of Company (Chicago, IL,) and the Fresh Fruit Festival (NYC). I’ve also developed two plays (Revival and Chaos Theory, or something about butterflies) with the Jackalope Playwrights Lab. As a director, credits include: Grace, or the Art of Climbing and Everybody (Brown Paper Box Co.); Cabaret; Annapurna (staged reading) and The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (No Stakes Theater Project). Assistant Directing and Dramaturgy credits include productions at the Goodman, Jackalope, TimeLine, A Red Orchid, Northlight, and Remy Bumppo.
Currently
June 2024
Happy Summer! These days, I’m spending much of my time engaged in preliminary work for my Masters thesis, as well as gearing up to spent much of July in Cambridge as part of Harvard’s summer residency for dramatic writing. I’m also hugely excited to share that I’ll be dramaturging Duncan Macmillan’s Every Brilliant Thing at Writer’s Theatre this fall.
On the therapy front, I’ve recently added BCBS of IL to my accepted insurance plans and have moved my in-person practice to a new space in Ravenswood.
February 2024
The latest session of the Anti-Racism Accountability & Consultation Group for White-Identifying Mental Health Clinicians is up and running! This is the third time I’ve had the opportunity to co-facilitate this group, which was developed by Marion Malcome, LCSW and Brit Holmberg, LCSW in an effort to create a space for white folks in the mental health space to hold each other accountable. A third of the proceeds go to support the Treatment Not Trauma campaign, which aims to create a city-wide, non-police mental health crisis response.
Writing
