UCSD Alums’ Plays Make New York Times List for Top Theater of 2023

The New York Times‘ annual “Best Theater of 2023” list includes works by two UC San Diego Department of Theatre and Dance alumni among the top productions of the year.

The dramas, by playwrights Liliana Padilla and Emily Feldman – each hold master’s of fine arts degrees from UCSD – explore serious topics, the complexity of consent and familial dysfunction, but with an undercurrent of humor.

How to Defend Yourself depicts the aftermath of a sexual assault, as sorority members organize a self-defense class while dealing with their feelings about the attack and questions about consent. Written by Padilla, a 2018 graduate, the work debuted at UCSD’s Wagner New Play Festival before landing at the New York Theatre Workshop.

The Times called it a “perfectly timed hot-button play.”

“I think I wrote this first and foremost as a gift to my 17-year-old self who felt deeply alone inside of limiting narratives around what it was to continue living after assault,” Padilla explained in an interview with New York Public Radio. “My hope is that it allows people to connect deeply to parts of themselves that might feel stuck or wounded…”

The Times also cited 2016 graduate Feldman’s The Best We Could (a family tragedy) for producing one of the most “Unforgettable Moments” in theater this year.

The “stealth gut punch of a play,” as the Times said, was produced at the Manhattan Theatre Club and centers on a cross-country journey by a father and daughter to adopt a dog.

“I started writing this play in 2017, which felt like a time when conversation around patriarchy and misogyny were sparking, especially between people of different generations, which were the conversations that I found most interesting,” Feldman said in Broadway World. “And in thinking about the many, many facets of the ‘Me Too’ movement, I really started to wonder about the relationship between daughters and their fathers in all of it, and how damaging it is when a person you love can’t attune to change.”