Talene Monahon Developing Play With Music by Will Butler

Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency (SVPR), a nonprofit organization building a creative home for playwrights in Idaho, announced Pulitzer Prize finalist Talene Monahon as its 2026-2027 resident playwright. A hybrid artist retreat, commissioning program, and new play development lab, SVPR works with one playwright each year to take a new play from idea to full draft.

Monahon’s work includes Meet the Cartozians, a 2026 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Drama and winner of the 2026 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, and The Good John Proctor.

Monahon’s play commissioned by SVPR will explore four generations of professional Mormon family musicians, with music by two-time Tony Award nominee and founding member of Arcade Fire Will Butler (Stereophonic).

In SVPR’s five years of supporting playwrights and developing new work, new plays commissioned and/or developed through SVPR have been produced off-off- and off-Broadway and on Broadway, including Pulitzer Prize winner Martyna Majok’s Queens and Samuel D. Hunter’s Little Bear Ridge Road.

As part of the first phase of her year-long SVPR residency, Monahon will spend this October as the Writer-In-Residence at the historic Ernest and Mary Hemingway House. During her October residency, there will be a series of free public programs, including a conversation about Meet the Cartozians at the Community Library on October 8 and readings of her play The Good John Proctor (October 17-18) featuring students from Boise State University.