As a writer, my work is driven by my commitment to creating theatre, fiction, theory, and film that confront the realities of life under capitalism.

My perspective as an artist is shaped directly by my experience growing up in cities across America and my family’s constantly shifting level of financial stability. Throughout my upbringing, I witnessed firsthand how the economy and financial pressures actively impact lives, relationships, and a community’s sense of the future. These experiences fuel my passion for creating art that validates and uplifts the stories and struggles of ordinary people and workers, especially in modern America.

As a result, my writing draws inspiration from slow cinema, workers’ theatre of the 1930s, performance art, and anti-nihilist, anti-capitalist theory and literature. I often find that life under capitalism is inherently dramatic, and am drawn to stories rooted in the nature and complications of everyday life. My voice itself is narrative and character driven, descriptive, and, of course, hypernatural, with long, detailed stage directions or descriptions of surrounding environments, as well as dialogue grounded in the speech patterns of real life people. What I find results is plays that often read like novels, and fiction that walks the line between the simple and the strange aspects and contradictions of how human nature manifests under late-stage capitalism.

Out of these influences, I have begun to develop a new style of theatre that I call Durational Theatre, which employs real-time action, extended sequences without dialogue, and hypernaturalistic, meticulous attention to character development and environment. This interest in naturalistic, character-driven storytelling extends to my fiction writing and screenwriting as well.

To achieve this style, my writing process has become deeply rooted in research, interviews, political theory, and literature. This is guided by the time I spent studying Public Law and Political Thought in college, and growing up with a poet father, who exposed me to a wide range of literature, philosophy, poetry, film, and art from a young age. I view my writing as an exercise in documenting the world we live in, creating work that leans observational. With that, I workshop my writing heavily, leaning on a communal, dialogical model of receiving feedback and developing my work.

Ultimately, I strive to create work that insists on earnestness, captures the world we live in, and validates the lived experiences and emotions of ordinary working people. Every play I have had produced (thus far), has had free tickets available to the public, which is a huge part of my commitment to dismantling capitalism. I hope to continue to write pieces that contribute to the canon of work that encourages empathy, hope, action, and accessibility.

Sample some of my work here.

FULL LENGTH PLAYS
An Enemy of the People (adaptation)
Indebted
In Pursuit Of
NOLA (in development)
Rot
Seattle is Beautiful (in development)

ONE ACT PLAYS
Grand Visions
The Interim

FICTION
Home (short story)
Intimacy (short story)
Little Flesh Pearls (short story; in development)

THEORY & ACADEMIC WRITING
Durational Theatre (book; in development)
Interpassivity in Modern Theatre (blog)

FULL LENGTH PLAYS

• NOLA — reading premiere with Theatre L’Acadie and Pocket VR’s 2025 play inc. Ubator in December of 2025.

• In Pursuit Of — world premiere in February of 2026 with Sub Rosa Theatre Collective.

• Rot — workshopped from August to October of 2025 with Zack Peercy’s Workshop with The Factory Theatre.

• An Enemy of the People — adaptation premiered in May of 2024 with Duality Theatre Company.

• Indebted — world premiere in June of 2023 with Duality Theatre Company.

ONE ACT PLAYS

• The Interim — performed with RhinoFest in September 2025 and Sub Rosa Theatre Collective in April 2025.

• Grand Visions — reading premiere with City Theatre Pittsburgh as a 2025 Young Playwrights Competition Honorable Mention.

ACADEMIC & FICTION WRITING

• Intimacy — published by Knotted Lace Magazine in November 2025.

• Interpassivity in Modern Theatre: How Watching Without Engaging Strips Us of our Power — published by Sub Rosa Theatre Collective. Read the blog post here.

SCREENWRITING

• Po’ (short film and music video; shot in 2025)

• Helen Lapinsky (full-length film; shooting in 2026)

For more information on my plays, screenplays, directing, and other writings, you can reach out to me at: zoeesoteres@gmail.com

Durationalism, may be described as:

• Rooted in hyperrealism; often performed in real time

• Addressing a current issue, often through a working-class lens

• Well-researched and intentionally structured

• Set in present-day

• Dramatic only in the most everyday and mundane ways

• Action-oriented and limited in dialogue

• A character study of an everyday person

• Performed naturally and non-theatrically, as if in a film

• Designed with authenticity to the real world in mind

• Created in a collaborative environment

• Accessible to the public and working class

Drawing inspiration from slow cinema, performance art, workers’ theatre of the 1930s, and anti-capitalist theory and literature, Durational Theatre employs real-time action that is never pantomimed, extended sequences without dialogue, character studies on everyday people, and hypernaturalistic performances, direction, and design to comment on the world we live in.

This form of theatre is vital in an age dominated by media that often discourages critical thinking, promotes escapism, and fosters complacency. By providing audiences with challenging art that rejects overdramatized tropes, metahumor, and escapist tendencies, Durational Theatre compels us to confront the stark realities of everyday characters’ lives. It invites viewers to move beyond the initial stage of boredom, leading (hopefully) to a transcendental catharsis, where even a small action can feel emotionally monumental.

I hope that Durationalism encourages viewers to dare to be bored, to be earnest, to take change seriously – things we desperately need in 2025. Living under capitalism means living under fear, oppression, and exhaustion. The fact that the majority of the American public has become vessels for labor, barely surviving under the crushing forces of imperialist expansion, neo-fascism, and surging costs of living, along with constant distractions of soft pleasures like escapist art, short form content, and materialism that prevent us from mobilizing, must be seen in television, film, books, and social media, and must be taken seriously.

These stories, more than ever, must also be portrayed onstage. Watching a person experience the real-life terror of economic precarity right in front of you can be liberating and eye-opening. The more that we can encourage audiences of all backgrounds to attend accessible theatre that validates dissatisfaction toward our American reality, the more that the emotional, not just intellectual understanding of this reality can become widespread.

The path forward to class consciousness lies in empathy, hope for the future, rejection of constant entertainment in favor of action, and education. It lies in validating the experiences of oppressed classes. It lies in community. I hope that Durationalism contributes to the canon of work that actively helps to forge this path.