What is ReproEco?

ReproEco is a collection of six powerful short plays about our health, our bodies, communities, our future, and the need for air, soil, and water free of toxins.

These plays, commissioned by ReproFreedomArts.org use imaginative theatrical storytelling to explore the intricate intersection between reproductive freedom and environmental justice.

Playwrights: Diane Breeser, Cindy Cooper, Alinca Hamilton, Mildred Inez Lewis, Cassandra Medley and Laura Shamas (read more, below).

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ReproEco: Six Short Plays with Dance 2025

Short Plays with Dance in collaboration with MultiStages (Lorca Peress, Artistic Director), Jennifer Chin Dance, and CultureLab LIC

Playwrights: Diane Breeser, Cindy Cooper, Alinca Hamilton, Mildred Inez Lewis, Cassandra Medley and Laura Shamas (read more, below)

Directed by Allison Astor-Vargas and Lorca Peress

Choreography by Jennifer Chin, Music by Sun Hee Kil

Featuring performers:

Gena Bardwell, Jean Brookner, Jolie Cloutier, Joyce Griffen, Nina Mehta, Valorie Niccore, Abigail Ramsay, Laura Riveros-Sefair, Celeste Sena and Donnell E. Smith with dancers Adele Carlson, Jennifer Chin and Maya Lam

Sept 19 and 20, 2025

At CultureLab LIC: 5-25 46th Ave, Long Island City, Queens, New York, NY

Funding Made Possible by The Puffin Foundation

This event was presented as part of UNGA Healing Arts Week, an NYC-wide celebration of arts and health during the 80th Session of the UN General Assembly, produced by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab in collaboration with the World Health Organization.

Full program here.

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The Writers

The ReproEco Writers

Diane Breeser has spent most of her life involved in theatre. Years of research culminated in her one-act, Goddess on the Mountaintop about primatologist Dian Fossey. In 2017 Diane co-founded an award-winning theatre group, The “Alternative Truth” Project, which performed free monthly play readings about cultural issues such as reproductive freedom, LGBTQ+ rights, guns, and book-banning. In the Spring of 2025, she produced all six ReproEco plays in her hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin. A former teacher and librarian, Diane lives near the Mississippi River with her husband Randy and various critters.

Cindy Cooper is a playwright, journalist and author. Her plays have been produced in the US, Canada and Europe. In New York, her work has been at Primary Stages, The Women’s Project (How She Played the Game), Wings (Strange Light; Slow Burn), Vaclav Havel Library Foundation (Stones of Tiananmen), Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio, MultiStages, EST, Town Hall (The World at Your Fingertips), Anne Frank Center USA (Silence Not, A Love Story), Sheen Center, Center for Jewish History, WOW Café, Chain Theatre, elsewhere, and in Chicago, Minneapolis, DC, Philadelphia, Boston, LA, Maryland, Texas, Florida, Montreal, Budapest, Helsinki, elsewhere. A two-time Jerome Fellow, her plays are in 17 volumes and have won awards from Pen & Brush, Samuel French, Malibu Int’l Festival, Quixote Foundation, Equity Library Theater, others. She is the founder of ReproFreedomArts.org. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, she lives in New York.

Alinca Hamilton is a holistic creator working across stage and screen. Select acting credits include: January (MultiStages), Clyde’s (Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Arkansas Rep); Mud Row (Premiere Stages); Gong Lum’s Legacy (New Federal); Julius Cesar (Classic Stage), Growing Up (Disney+). Her writing has been recognized as a semi-finalist for the NYSCA/NYSFA Artist Fellowship and the Fresh Voices Competition. She is a founding member of Squeaky Wheelz Productions, whose work has appeared at The Tank, Ars Nova, Edinburgh Fringe, Twin Cities Film Festival, International Black Theater Festival, and Berlin Indie Film Festival (Award – Best Artist Short). A New Yorker to her core (please don’t ask her to drive). M.F.A. – Acting, Columbia University. alincahamilton.com

Mildred Inez Lewis writes and directs for theater, screen and audio. A Dramatists Guild member, she writes with the Colony Theater, EST-LA, PlayGround-Los Angeles, Rogue Artists Ensemble and Towne Street Theatres. She’s been commissioned by A Different Myth (Asheville, NC), Lifeline Theater (Chicago), the Lucille Lortel Foundation/Harlem9/National Black Theatre (NYC), Ohlone College and SCI@SPARC (Livermore, CA). Honors include the AGE Legacy Award, L.B. Williams Festival (New Circle Theatre Company), and Humanitas’ PLAY LA. Her plays are published by Applause Books, Broadway Play Publishing, NextStage, and Smith & Kraus. Educated at Oberlin College and UCLA. Mildred teaches writing at Chapman University.

Cassandra Medley is a playwright and teacher whose works have been produced across the U.S., including Fannie Lou Hamer Opera (libretto), A Walk in YaYa’s Garden, Motherless Child, March 13, 2020, Martha’s Vineyard Theater, Celebrating Our Community, Gatekeepers Collective, 2020, Mrs. Palmer’s Honey, Bread and Roses Theater. Cell, Playing On Air 2018, Take My Advice, 2017, Survive, 2017, Cell, the full-length, Molelo Theater-2015, American Slavery Project, 2012-13, NYC, Cell, the one act, Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon 2011, Daughter, Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon 2009, Noon Day Sun, August, 2008, Diverse City Theatre Company, Relativity, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Ensemble Studio Theatre, 2004. She has won many awards, including the Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, the August Wilson Prize, the Ensemble Studio Theatre Life Achievement Award, Theatrefest Regional Playwriting Award for Best Play, National Endowment for the Arts Playwright Award, and a New York Foundation for Arts Fellowship. https://www.cassandramedleyplaywright.com/

Laura Shamas was born in Oklahoma. She is a 2023 Los Angeles New Play Project Playwriting Award winner ($20,000) for Four Women in Red, which was produced at the Victory Theatre in Burbank in early 2025. This play was published in June 2025 by Broadway Play Publishing. It was performed in the 2022 Festival of New Plays at Native Voices at the Autry. Shamas’ plays include: Circular, Picnic at Hanging Rock (adaptation), Portrait of a Nude, Lady-Like, Chasing Honey, Talking Leaves (Winner – Garrard Best Play Award – Five Civilized Tribes Museum), and Amelia Lives. Her short play Seeds won the Von Marie Atchley Award for Excellence in Playwriting from Native Voices in 2017. Her work on ReproEco was mentioned in a feature about her in the Chickasaw Nation Times. She is a Chickasaw Nation citizen. http://www.laurashamas.com

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Audience Feedback

Brava! The ReproEco play series was excellent!

Kudos on a wonderful effort.

Really profound and thought-provoking.

Each writer took a different angle, which allowed me to really think about the whole subject from so many perspectives.

This afternoon was exceptional. Thank you!

My friend and I talked about it nonstop on the way home. Such a beautiful use of theater.

The plays were provocative and informative and well done!

I would love for young people to see these!

Powerful funny heartfelt stories. Important work and a galvanizing experience!

It was inspirational!

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The Plays

The ReproEco Plays, commissioned by ReproFreedomArts.org

Maybe Our Baby by Diane Breeser
A pregnant woman has a comical nightmare about an article on forever chemicals she read while in the doctor’s waiting room.

Until the Change Comes by Cindy Cooper
A branding team begins to question their work after a visit from Theo Colborn, a woman scientist from years gone by who first identified toxic harms to health.

Always Never Really Here by Alinca Hamilton
Monica and Gabrielle Tompkins, a mother and daughter, face the harsh realities of living without clean running water in the verifiably real town of Sand Branch, Texas.

Through Water Into Blood by Mildred Inez Lewis
After a devastating miscarriage, a West Virginia woman confronts her birth doula and they both realize the role toxic chemicals may have played.

We Are Our Ancestors’ Reasons for Living by Cassandra Medley
In an Afro-futurism style, intergenerational women experience an altered world in which nature is so degraded that the out-of-doors must be delivered and enjoyed virtually.

Priorities by Laura Shamas
In a dystopian future, two gynecologists and a midwife meet in secret to prioritize the needs of their pregnant patients, so they can escape to a better environment.

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Honors

ReproEco is on the Short List, Publication, Arts and the Environment

World Health Organization (WHO)

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Additional Events

Repro Eco: Virtual Performance, Transformation Theatre (DC)

October 14, 2025

Live-streaming performance of the six ReproEco plays! A one-time performance (without recording).

The Virtual Performance of ReproEco: Six Short Plays by Six Playwrights is a production of Transformation Theatre (DC / Maryland).

Carl Randolph, Founder and Producing Artistic Director, and Heidi Castle-Smith, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director

Read more about Transformation Theatre here.

Featuring: Alfie Antillon, Harriette Dunn-Feliz, , Kimberly Fairbanks, Olivia Harden, A’lisa D. Miles, Jada Alston Owens, Thomasin Savaiano, Pernell Walker

Directed by: Carly Bodnar and Shanea N. Taylor

Dramaturgs: Kajoree Bhattacharya and Victoria Estes

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Brooklyn NY: Intersections in Reproductive and Environmental Justice Through Storytelling!

A discussion and reading of Almost Never Really Here by Alinca Hamilton, featuring Alinca Hamilton and Gena Bardwell, directed by Lorca Peress.

With a discussion about the genesis of ReproEco with Cindy Cooper, and a conversation with Trae Banuelos, Reproductive Justice consultant and executive director of the Abortion Conversations Project about the connections between art and activism.

Sept 6, 2025 at 6 pm

Puffin Brooklyn, https://www.puffinfoundation.org/puffin-brooklyn/ 227 5th Ave, Brklyn

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ReproEco Wisconsin

La Crosse, Wisconsin, March – April 2025

FIVE EVENTS: Play Readings, followed by discussions with Wisconsin experts, activists, and thinkers!

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EVENTS in La Crosse, March – April 2025!

Saturday, March 8 First Congregational Church, La Crosse WI: Always Never Really Here by Alinca Hamilton and Maybe Our Baby by Diane Breeser

Thursday, March 20, Oolala! Consign, La Crosse WI: Until the Change Comes by Cindy Cooper

Wednesday, April 2, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, Social Justice Week, Until the Change Comes, by Cindy Cooper and Always Never Really Here by Alinca Hamilton

Saturday, April 5, The Nature Place, La Crosse WI: Through Water Into Blood by Mildred Inez Lewis and We Are Our Ancestors Reasons for Living by Cassandra Medley

Thurs, April 24: The Pump House Regional Arts Center, La Crosse WI: Priorities by Laura Shamas and Maybe Our Baby by Diane Breeser

More about ReproEco, Wisconsin with writer Diane Breeser on La Crosse WIZM Talk Radio

Repro Theatrical Series Addresses Issues Through Short Plays on News 8000.com

Broadway World REPROECO: Short Plays Exploring Reproductive Health And Environmental Justice Coming To Wisconsin

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ReproEco Manhattan 2024

ReproFreedomArts.org in collaboration with MultiStages (Lorca Peress, Artistic Director) and Goddard Riverside Arts, Oct 4-5, 2024

See the FULL PROGRAM GUIDE from Goddard Riverside HERE

Featuring Gena Bardwell, Jean Brookner, Darlenis Duran, Joyce Griffen, Tanis Parenteau, Abigail Ramsay, Marc Reign, Laura Riveros-Sefair, Elizabeth Rose and Celeste Sena

Directed by Joyce Griffen, Lorca Peress and Allison Astor-Vargas

See Photos ReproEco Reading