Clara Miller writes plays about the things that happen in towns too small to make the news — but too significant to ignore. Her work occupies a genre she calls 'Midwestern Gothic': stories set in real communities, grounded in recognizable detail, but haunted by an undercurrent of mystery and unresolved memory.
Her breakout play, The Hayloft Confessions, premiered at Forward Theater Company in Madison and has since been produced by over thirty regional theaters. Her latest work, Inheritance Tax, explores three generations of a farming family confronting the sale of their land, and was developed through a residency at the Wormfarm Institute.
Miller lives in Mineral Point, a historic mining town that has become an artist colony in its own right. "I write about these places because they contain everything," she says. "Love, loss, stubbornness, humor, silence — it's all here, if you sit still long enough to notice."