Write Club enters its Dancing Queen Era for the 2026-27 Season.

“In this, the dumbest of timelines, human words and voices spoken with human mouths to actual humans are the very tools to help build us up and shake us out of our mental doomscrolling. It is with this fortification we fight another day.”

If you’re free on a Tuesday and old enough to drink, take a wander into Lakeview East’s Gman Tavern. There you’ll find a competition between writer-performers who face off with original, seven-minute essays on competing topics. It’s called Write Club, and it’s like that other club they made a movie about, but everyone keeps all their teeth at the end.

Founded by Ian Belknap in 2010, Write Club is comprised of a loosely held collective of actors, writers, nerds and general agents of chaos, committed to spotlighting outstanding writers and pitting them against one another in friendly, rollicking competition. It has been managed with manic and exuberant energy by Corrbette Pasko since 2016.

Write Club is exactly the kind of thing you live in a city for: intelligent, creative people from all over coming together to share their work, their thoughts and their energy with a boisterous audience. Ideas fly around like glitter at a birthday party – don’t be surprised if a few stick around with you for a day or two.

It works like this: six writers compete every third Tuesday of the month in three “bouts” where they read a seven-minute essay they wrote on opposing topics. The winner of each bout gets $100 (because artists should be paid for their work) and a Loving Cup of Deathless F***ing Glory. The loser gets $50 (because artists should be paid for their work but also there are no losers here, they are all wildly talented and unique). Winners are decided by the audience following each bout (if you’re sensitive, bring ear plugs because people have some enthusiasm to get out).

I attended the opening show of the season on October 20. The combatants were Breon Arzell, Christopher Bigelow, Elizabeth Gomez, Archy Jamjun, Jean Marie Koon and Lawrence “Binkey” Tolefree. The energy in the room was absolutely infectious. The topics were: Meat vs. Bone, First vs. Final and Witchy vs. Whimsy. Being a writer myself and never having attended before, I’ll admit that as the first performer, Breon Arzell, came up to read his piece on Bone – I experienced a wave of empathetic anxiety. How in the world, I thought to myself, would I ever come up with seven minutes on just the word, Bone? I quickly learned that I needn’t have worried about Breon, or any of the other performers that night. Each piece was unique, passionate, funny, and often moving – most took a left turn (or several turns) into an interpretation that surprised and delighted. All the essays produced the sorts of phrases you repeat with your friends for years; “thank you butt sex,” “top shelf nuts,” and various other double entendres and unexpected word combinations.

As wonderful and singular as each performance was, however, that was not the true magic of the night. In a world of ever-increasing isolation and  toxic comment sections, the audience at Gman Tavern is a real-life collection of human mouths sharing their human words and voices, just as promised. Most importantly, perhaps, it requires getting off the couch. It’s not always the most convenient thing to venture out on a Tuesday night, but when you do, you walk out of the cold and into a warm, buoyant community who will make you laugh and even better, think. Incidentally, my companion and I were blown away by the varied lewks strutting about the place as well. This is an excuse to wear that brocade jacket that’s been begging for a night out. Come be a part of a better world and get your butt in a seat on Tuesday, November 17^th – I’ll be there, in my embroidered boots.

Highly Recommend!

Alina C. Hevia

Scream your head off and support artists at Write Club Chicago at Gman Tavern, at 3740 N. Clark St.

Tickets are a suggested donation of $25 and are available at the door the night of the event, doors open at 7 p.m. More information available at WriteClubNation.com.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.