Will Arbery in conversation with Lucia Arbery Simek

Will Arbery and Lucia Arbery Simek will be in conversation to celebrate the publication of Corsicana / Evanston Salt Costs Climbing, a double-volume of plays that explore communities of outsiders who strive to help one another persevere in the face of despair.

In this two-play volume, acclaimed playwright Will Arbery explores the dynamics within tight-knit communities of outsiders working together to persevere against despair, whether intimate or cosmic. From wildly different angles, Corsicana and Evanston Salt Costs Climbing both examine the shape-shifting specters of grief, the pull of desire and dreams, and the universal human need for receiving and giving care.

Copies of Corsicana / Evanston Salt Costs Climbing will be available for purchase.

Will Arbery is a playwright and screenwriter. His play Heroes of the Fourth Turning was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, as well as the recipient of an OBIE Award, Lortel Award, New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and Whiting Award. His plays Corsicana (Playwrights Horizons) and Evanston Salt Costs Climbing (The New Group) both had acclaimed productions in 2022. Other plays include Plano, Wheelchair, and You Hateful Things, which will be produced next year by Jeremy O. Harris. He's currently under commission from Manhattan Theatre Club, Adventureland, and The Metropolitan Opera. He was a writer and producer on Succession on HBO, and his episode ("Living+") was the recipient of a WGA Award for best Episodic Drama. His screenplay Sacrifice is being directed by Romain Gavras later this year, starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Evans.

Lucia Arbery Simek is an artist, writer and curator and currently serves as executive director at Dallas Contemporary. She has exhibited her artwork both locally and internationally, and has published widely on contemporary art. As a curator, she has mounted exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art and The Reading Room, among others, and as well as having curated a permanent collection of works for the historic Adolphus Hotel in downtown Dallas, where she also organized a highly acclaimed series of public talks with artists and writers. Arbery Simek is currently working on a book of essays about the Texan landscape and mid-century artists Forrest Bess, Myron Stout and Alberto Burri, to be published by Deep Vellum.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Dallas Contemporary, 161 Glass Street, Dallas, United States