Witch

by Jen Silverman

A charming devil arrives in the quiet village of Edmonton to bargain for the souls of its residents in exchange for their darkest wishes. Elizabeth should be his easiest target, having been labeled a “witch” and cast out by the town, but her soul is not so readily bought. As the devil returns to convince her – and then returns again – unexpected passions flare, alliances are formed, and the village is forever changed. An inventive retelling of a Jacobean drama, this sharp, subversive fable debates how much our souls are worth when hope is hard to come by.

"Witch" premiered in Glencoe, Illinois at Writers Theatre on September 27, 2018. Directed by Marti Lyons, the production featured David Alan Anderson, Audrey Francis, Steven Haggard, Ryan Hallahan, Arti Ishak and Jon Hudson Odom.

“If you’ve seen the bumper sticker ‘well-behaved women don’t make history,’ you’ll have a sense of what Silverman is shrewdly and passionately exploring here: If your unsold soul is so disrespected by your community, then why not give some handsome devil a try? It cannot, arguably, be worse.” – Chicago Tribune

“Jen Silverman’s exceedingly smart new comedy… casts an intoxicating spell. The playwright’s ear for patterns of speech, and the halting language of longing, is marvelous here.” – Chicago Sun Times

“Silverman’s dialogue accomplishes so much, so succinctly, that it establishes itself right away as the biggest star of the Geffen Playhouse’s starry production.” – LA Times

“Darkly humorous... thematically current... a spell worth casting.” – The Hollywood Reporter

About Jen Silverman

Jen Silverman (they/them) is a playwright, novelist and screenwriter. Plays include: The Roommate (Broadway: The Booth Theatre; Regionally: Williamstown Theatre Festival, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival, Steppenwolf, South Coast Repertory Theatre, etc.); Highway Patrol (The Goodman); Spain (Second Stage Theater); Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties (Woolly Mammoth, MCC, Southwark Playhouse London); The Moors (Yale Repertory Theatre, The Playwrights Realm) and Witch (Writer’s Theatre, The Geffen, The Huntington). Books include: the debut novel We Play Ourselves, story collection The Island Dwellers and novel There’s Going to be Trouble from Random House. Silverman also wrote the bestselling narrative podcast The Miranda Obsession for Audible, starring Rachel Brosnahan.

Silverman is a three-time MacDowell Fellow, a member of New Dramatists and a Scholar of Note at the American Library in Paris. They write for TV and film, including Tales of the City (Netflix) and Tokyo Vice (Max). Their OSCAR® qualifying short film Troy screened at 70 festivals internationally, including the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and is featured online in The New Yorker’s Screening Room. Honors include fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim. More info at www.jensilverman.com.