Artist Profile
Exal (he/his) is a Chicago-based Salvi-American playwright & screenwriter by way of Houston, TX. Humorous and uncomfortable, his work explores the intersections of identity, family, violence, sexuality, and magic through his lens as a brown queer first-generation son. Exal is a 2020/2021 Goodman Theatre’s Playwrights Unit member and a selected playwright in the 2018 Fornés Playwriting Workshop. In 2019 his play They Could Give No Name was chosen for Victory Gardens’ Ignition Festival, received an honorable mention in the American Playwriting Foundation’s 2019 Relentless Award, and was a finalist in the 2020 National Playwrights Conference and the 2020 Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award. Most recently, his play Last Hermanos was selected for Magic Theatre’s 2021 Virgin Play Festival and was produced as an audio drama by A Red Orchid Theatre. Last Hermanos will premiere in Spring 2022 as part of A Red Orchid Theatre’s 2021-22 season. Exal earned an MFA from Northwestern University’s Writing for the Screen and Stage program and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Film & Video Production. He is incredibly excited to work with Chance Theater this season.
