2023 Winner
Hypotheticals
by Rebecca Anne Nguyen

Set in current-day Chicago, this play is about a beautiful but misanthropic woman who kisses a stranger in an elevator on her way to mandatory psychotherapy. When the stranger turns out to be her new therapist, they’re forced into a professional relationship where the intimate environment is as fertile for romantic tension as it is for personal growth—until the revelation of a mutual secret threatens to bind them together or tear them apart. In an age where up to 20% of the world’s population is neurodivergent, this story shatters stereotypes about neurodiversity and Autism, arguing that neurodivergent brains are not faulty and that there’s no wrong way to be human.