Playwright Karli Jean Lonnquist is a theatre artist and scholar based in Orange, CA. Currently, she is a member of Chapman University’s class of 2026, where she is earning her bachelor’s in both Peace Studies and Theatre, with an emphasis in dramaturgy, playwriting, and literary management. She has received several awards during her time at university, including the Summer Undergraduate Fellowship and the Scholarly/Creative Grant from Chapman University’s Center for Undergraduate Excellence in 2025. Both awards were in support of her work on LAST EXIT through her research project: “A New Exit: The Impact of Historical Play Adaptations on Modern Audiences.” Lonnquist has made an impact on Chapman’s Department of Theatre and is well-known for her work as a playwright, dramaturg, and founder of Chapman Student Playwrights (CSP). This organization works to assist playwrights in developing their scripts through workshops and the Chapman Student Playwrights’ Annual Spring New Works Festival. Lonnquist acts as CSP’s Executive Producer and Literary Manager. Outside of Chapman University, her work has been produced at companies such as Lakewood Theatre Center, The Young Professionals, Jesuit High School, Portland, Real Toads Theatre Project, and Cross the Line. As a playwright, she uses surrealism and absurdism to “confront, deconstruct, and dissect current social, cultural, and political issues,” a notion that is reflected across her oeuvre of six short plays, Man-War, and LAST EXIT (Lonnquist).

Lonnquist’s LAST EXIT is a new play adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, written during the German occupation of Paris during World War II. No Exit is an absurdist play that follows three characters trapped in Hell together. The play conveys the importance of self-awareness under a fascist regime. Similarly, LAST EXIT depicts BIG MAC, FRY, and NUGGET as they are trapped in a McDonald’s by RONNY—a clown-man and physical represenation of an ideological state apparatus: the United States’ government. This play is set in a post-apocalyptic A.M.E.R.I.C.A (Authoritarian Mechanism for Enforcement, Regulation, Indoctrination, Control, and Assimilation), but as the play goes on, it becomes clear that this world is not so different from our own. BIG MAC and FRY enter the McDonald’s with the intention of stopping for food before leaving the United States for Mexico through the San Ysidro/Tijuana crossing. NUGGET, on the other hand, hopes to get a job there to provide for her family. While trapped, these characters, from all different backgrounds and beliefs, discuss what the American Dream means to them. Their conversation functions as an interrogation of the political polarization of the United States and what it means to survive under a corrupt democracy. Through their discussions, the play questions the audience’s passive viewership as the world around the characters falls apart.