EWP Auditions

WIVES

By Jacklyn Backhaus

Directed by Arpita Mukherjee

BREIF OVERVIEW

In an era where marginalized voices are shaping mainstream consciousness like never before, WIVES by Jaclyn Backhaus offers an ardent exploration of the power and resilience at the heart of women's stories. The laugh-out-loud comedy, featuring a primarily South Asian and South Asian American cast, will have its Southern California premiere at EWP in October 2026. The play finds an immediate resonance after the last national election, where the first South Asian American woman presidential candidate and the first South Asian American second lady found themselves in the spotlight of America’s two major political parties.

WIVES takes the audience on a spellbinding journey from 16th-century France to 1920s India and 1960s Idaho, offering potent perspectives on the lives of history’s influential men through the eyes of their equally formidable spouses. This work challenges the construction of historical narratives, framing them not as a series of events dominated by men, but as a tapestry woven by many hands.

PLAYWRIGHT

Jaclyn Backhaus is a playwright, screenwriter, and educator hailing from Phoenix, Arizona. Her Off-Broadway plays include OUT OF TIME, WIVES, INDIA PALE ALE, MEN ON BOATS, and YOU ON THE MOORS NOW. She has developed theater, film, and TV work with 1497 Features Lab, Sundance, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Berkeley Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Manhattan Theater Club, Ars Nova, The Public Theater, and Two River Theater. She is currently a New Dramatists resident playwright, a core member of The Kilroys, and co-founder/creative director of Fresh Ground Pepper, an artistic process lab in NYC. WIVES had its world premiere Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in September 2019.