the season of solace

st. miles

A Staged Reading of an Undermain World Premiere in Development

by Jarrett King
Katherine Owens/Undermain Fund for New Work recipient
author of BOx

Directed by Jiles R. King II

* Note St. Miles is not part of the 42nd Season Subscription Package

Reading dates: March 20, 21 & 22, 2026

All Dates and Times Subject to Change

Five years ago, the Ellis family lost one of its members, a young Black man named Miles, to an act of police violence. Now Miles’s mother Opal wants him to be recognized as a saint. As the Ellises navigate the arduous canonization process, the family clashes and battle lines are drawn. Is true salvation on the other side of it all? There are 10,000 saints in the Catholic Church—not one of them is African American. Yet.

Jarrett King (he/him) is a playwright and educator based in Chicago, Illinois. His play A War of the Worlds—an afrofuturist reimagining of the War of the Worlds radio broadcast—was the inaugural production in Penfold Theatre Company’s new play commission series and received 12 B. Iden Payne Award nominations, including Best Original Script. Other works include The Possible, Box and St. Miles, which was developed while a playwright-in-residence at the Goodman Theatre. He is a recipient of Definition Theatre’s Amplify New Play Commission, where his play Frog Splash is currently in development, and is the 2023 recipient of Undermain Theatre’s Katherine Owens/Undermain Fund for New Work. He is a two-time second rounder at the Austin Film Festival for his sitcom pilot Fluff and his web series Zaltana. As an actor, he has nearly two decades worth of credits performing in film, television, and professional theaters including Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Salvage Vanguard, Penfold Theatre, and the Mary Moody Northen Theatre. As an educator, he has worked as a Teaching Artist at Steppenwolf, Silk Road Rising, and Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Shakespeare Slam, and as an Adjunct Professor at Loyola University. He is the Director of Education at Court Theatre (2022 Regional Theatre Tony Award) and serves on the Board of  Directors of the Beverly Arts Center.