A new play by Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department alumna Skye Robinson Hillis, a 2011 graduate of the Theatre Department’s Theatre Directing program, will be performed in a staged reading at Chicago Dramatists, Chicago’s leading center for the development of new plays. Robinson Hillis’ The Running Mate will be performed at Chicago Dramatists, 1105 W. Chicago Ave. in Chicago, as part of its “Saturday Series” on Saturday, May 16, at 2 PM, with a cast including Columbia College Theatre Department faculty member Scott Olson under the direction of Columbia College Theatre Department faculty member Andrea J. Dymond. The Running Mate concerns the marital battles between a presidential candidate and his equally successful wife.

Another play by Robinson Hillis, And Vaster, will be produced as part of a residency program at the New Works Lab at Stratford in Stratford, Connecticut, in July. And Vaster is also semi-finalist for the Ashland New Plays Festival in Ashland, Oregon; the finalists for the festival will be announced in June.

Besides writing plays, Robinson Hillis is active in Chicago theatre as a dramaturg and director. She is the dramaturg for Route 66’s upcoming production Goldfish, starring Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble member Francis Guinan, which runs June 11-July 12 at the Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, Chicago. And in the fall she will be assistant director and dramaturg for Remy Bumppo Theatre’s production of Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels, running November 25-January 10, also at the Greenhouse Theater Center. Robinson Hillis is also the box office manager at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago.