CHICAGO: The Goodman Theatre has four Chicago-based writers who will make up its 2016-17 Playwrights Unit. Lucas Baisch, Dawn Renee Jones, Evan Linder, and Emma Stanton will take part in a year-long residency in partnership with Chicago Dramatists.

“We are undeniably living in a ‘Golden Age’ of playwriting,” said artistic director Robert Falls in a statement. “Not since the 1970s and 1980s have so many bold, extraordinary new voices emerged at once.”

Baisch’s work has been developed at Victory Gardens Theater, Post Q at Links Hall, Chicago Dramatists’ Saturday Series, and more. Jones is a recipient of the 2015 Ruby Prize for her play A Heap See. Linder’s recent credits include the remount of his play Byhalia, Mississippi at Steppenwolf. Stanton received the 2016 Princess Grace Award Playwriting Fellowship, which includes a year-long residency at New Dramatists in New York.

As part of the program, they will participate in bi-monthly meetings to discuss their plays with the Goodman Theatre artistic team, and the residency will end with the playwrights presenting  staged readings of their finished works.