UMD has partnered with the Big Ten Conference schools to create a new playwriting and performance initiative. Known as the Big Ten Theatre Chairs, the group will commission, produce and publicize new plays in an effort to influence the national dialogue about women playwrights and aim to produce higher-caliber plays that are effective tools for teaching theatre students.

The program’s first commissioned work, Good Kids, is written by Naomi Iizuka, one of the nation’s most acclaimed young authors and head of playwriting at the University of California, San Diego.

Good Kids explores a casual sexual encounter gone wrong, and its very public aftermath. Who is telling the truth? Whose version of the story do you believe? What does that say about you? This play responds to actual events that went on to generate a national dialogue.