About Ego Productions Chicago Playwrights Tai Palmgren Colby Turner Terry Selucky Tom Horan Adam Simon Sean Quirk Lizz Leiser Portland Playwrights Andrea Algiers Hannah Ballou Mark Bridges Ricardo Delgado Johanna Droubay Jaime Lee Lizz Leiser Eden Nelson Dave Stefani JR Wickman Lee Williams Chris Woolsey New York Playwrights Lizz Leiser Lizz Leiser and Tai Palmgren founded Ego Productions in 1999 while attending the playwriting program at DePaul University. Ego Productions, dedicated to producing entertaining new works by emerging playwrights, produced two full length plays while still in Chicago: "The Unspeechable Curse of Kaptain Kreepee" and "The Jack Slate Radio Show" (a four part comedy performed in the style of a noir radio show). Both plays were written collaboratively by Palmgren and Leiser. Also in 1999, fellow playwright Terry Selucky organized a collection of solo monologues for a DePaul playwriting festival. Colby Turner, Adam Simon, and Tom Horan joined the project along with Lesier and Palmgren. After the show concluded the six playwrights decided they had enjoyed working together and arranged to meet weekly as a writers group. During regular writers meetings they devised the “writing in the round” exercise and soon began using it exclusively as it produced the most fresh and interesting results. After being cast in Ego Productions' "The Jack Slate Radio Show" Liz Bagby was added to the group along with another comedy writer/ actor, Sean Quirk. The short plays that resulted from these meetings were eventually revised and put into a compilation that was featured at DePaul playwriting festivals and then, in it’s later incarnation, as the basis for a long running sketch comedy show called, "The Spinkleteen Machine". The purpose of the writing meetings was never to form a sketch comedy group. The group was simply a happy accident caused by the excitement generated over uncovering a technique that killed writers block, offered the freedom of collaborative writing, and created a team feeling unique to playwriting. Spinkleteen ran for several months and featured new sketches frequently as the performances continued. Leiser and Palmgren each took a year off and then relocated Ego Productions in Portland. After producing a new condensed version of "The Jack Slate Radio Show" Palmgren returned to Chicago. Leiser wanted to produce a sketch comedy show in Portland using the wealth of actor/writers cast in "The Jack Slate Radio Show". Cast members Chris Woolsey, Ricardo Delgado, Eden Nelson, and Nathan Markiewicz were recruited to act in a collection of revised Spinkleteen sketches renamed, “Superego: Your Life is In Danger”. They brought with them fellow actors Ben Van Diepen and JR Wickman. When the show ended Woolsey, Nelson, Wickman. Delgado, and Andrea Algiers (Portland Ego Productions managing director) wanted to continue as a writing group. Leiser taught them to write in the round and Superego took on it’s own life. Superego still occasionally works with the Spinkleteen playwrights. Turner, Selcuky, and Bagby have started their own company, Sansculottes, that utilizes the writing in the round exercise to create sketch comedy showcases. Following "Your Life is in Danger" Superego produced four completely new hour long sketch comedy shows: "Team Awesome", "Let if Burn", "Blaze of Awesome", and "In the Name of Awesome". Palmgren left the group in June 2005 moving back to Chicago to pursue work with Sansculottes and other Chicago theater companies. Leiser left for New York after the closing of "Blaze of Awesome". She still works with Superego via the phone and Internet writing and advising the group on production. Superego writes once a week inviting everyone in the company: actors, directors, technical staff, guest writers from other companies, and anyone interested in the collaborative process to participate. Submissions Policy: Ego Productions is not taking script submissions at this time.