15th annual Young Playwrights Project Winners Announced!
PlayGround has announced the winners of this year’s Young Playwrights Contest. The venerated playwright incubator will debut the four selected short plays from rising Bay Area young playwrights on Friday, May 12th at 7PM PDT as part of the 27th Annual PlayGround Festival of New Works. The four winners are “Pleased as Peach” by Arisa Sky Krueger, who joins Young Playwrights Project as a second-time winner, as well as newcomers “The Rouge Shoes” by Grady Fleming, Clifton Chiang, Josslyn Grover, Julia Satterley and Annika Svahn, “American Magpie” by Brian Guan, and “When One Cries Wolf” by Linnani Simpson. Two additional finalists are being recongized this year: Rover Dijkstra (“The Flying Dutchman”) and Tyler Kwan Yat (“Three Brothers and the Magic Fish”).
Each winner will receive a professional reading debut presented together in one evening. Competitively selected from open submissions inspired by the prompt “Adapt a Classic Folktale or Myth”, the presentation of the four winners’ short works is the culmination of the15th Annual Howard & Lenore Klein Foundation Young Playwrights Project, championing bold new playwrights from Bay Area high schools. These timely and insightful plays will be presented in-person at Potrero Stage and will also be simulcast to at-home audiences free of charge (advance reservations required). For more information and to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/youngplaywrights.
Through the Lenore & Howard Klein Foundation PlayGround Young Playwrights Project, PlayGround and Bay Area high schools partner to enable young writers to find their own expressive voice through the creation, development, and production of short plays. Each year, Bay Area high school students, grades 9-12, are invited to submit short plays inspired by an assigned prompt for consideration in the Young Playwrights Contest. The top four playwrights receive professional public staged readings of their winning short works as part of the PlayGround Festival of New Works, this year presented fully online as the second annual PlayGround Zoom Fest. Through the Young Playwrights Project, PlayGround also offers Bay Area high school students free and significantly discounted student group tickets to its range of new play incubator programs, including Monday Night PlayGround series, PlayGround Solo Performance Festival, PlayGround Festival of New Works, and the PlayGround Innovators Showcase.
ABOUT THE PLAYS
Pleased as Peach by Arisa Sky Krueger (Ruth Asawa School of the Arts)
Set against the backdrop of a pageant show, Pleased as Peach is a reimagining of the Japanese story “Momotaro”, where an elderly couple who could not have children find a giant peach floating down a river.
The Rouge Shoes by Grady Fleming, Clifton Chiang, Josslyn Grover, Julia Satterley and Annika Svahn (Bentley Upper School)
A young, innocent ballerina learns the cost of striving for perfection in this short piece inspired by Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Red Shoes”.
American Magpie by Brian Guan (Dublin High School)
American Magpie is an adaptation of “The Cowherd and the Weaving Girl”, a traditional Chinese folktale in which two lovers, separated by the Milky Way, reunite once a year on a bridge of magpies.
When One Cries Wolf by Linnani Simpson (Ruth Asawa School of the Arts)
When One Cries Wolf is a retelling of the classic tale of the Boy Who Cried Wolf explored through the lenses of victimhood, trauma bonding, and the patriarchy. Collie is a young girl expected to shepherd her family into prosperity and, through marriage, into power. A young man’s arrival challenges the family’s dreams and the young girl’s safety.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS
Clifton Chiang (Co-Author, The Rouge Shoes), he/him. Although he’s never written a play before, Clifton had a lot of fun using his acting experience in the process. Some of his prior roles include Little Sally in Urinetown, and Fester in The Addams Family. In his free time he also enjoys Speech and Debate and Golf.
Grady Fleming (Co-Author, The Rouge Shoes), he/him, is a student at Bentley Upper School. He is 15 years old and enjoys playing ukulele in his free time. Although new to theatre, he also enjoys playwriting and directing plays.
Josslyn Grover (Co-Author, The Rouge Shoes), she/her, is a sophomore at Bentley School. In addition to writing, she enjoys club volleyball, reading, and debating with her sister how she would rewrite their favorite TV shows. Her family says she has a flair for the dramatic, and it is not much of a surprise to them that she is drawn towards all forms of storytelling and the arts! She is thrilled to be included in this debut selection for the 2023 Young Playwrights Project.
Brian Guan (American Magpie), he/him, is a junior at Dublin High School. As a YoungArts Winner and American Voices Nominee, he is passionate about writing and creative expression. Most recently, he has been named a finalist in The Blank Theatre’s 2023 Young Playwrights Festival. When he’s not writing or frantically promoting auditions for his school’s drama department, Brian can be found discussing movies, FaceTiming his friends, or listening to Phoebe Bridgers.
Arisa Sky Krueger (Pleased as Peach), she/her, is a student at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts and passionate about playwriting. This is her second Young Playwrights Project selection. She would like to thank her friends and family for being her personal cheerleaders.
Julia Satterley (Co-Author, The Rouge Shoes).
Linnani Simpson (When One Cries Wolf), she/her, is a rising high school senior in Ruth Asawa SOTA’s Theater Program. She describes herself as a young black queer theater artist. While usually more inclined towards the acting side of things, this year she decided to explore playwriting and she’s happy to say she’s found a huge passion for it. She’s been in school productions but she’s also been lucky enough to participate in short films, work with SFArtsEd and SFBATCO. She hopes to continue doing playwriting and theater in college next year.
Annika Svahn (Co-Author, The Rouge Shoes), she/her. This is the first piece of playwriting Annika has ever done and she’s so grateful that their play was chosen! She loved working on The Rouge Shoes with her peers and she can’t wait to see it performed!
ABOUT PLAYGROUND
PlayGround, the Bay Area’s leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s best new playwrights, including the monthly Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series, annual PlayGround Festival of New Works, full-length play commissions and support for the production of new plays by local playwrights through the New Play Production Fund. To date, PlayGround has supported over 350 local playwrights in the development and staging of more than 1,500 original short plays and 100 new full-length plays, with 6 more commissions currently in development. PlayGround also operates Potrero Stage, a state-of-the-art 99-seat black box theatre in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, home to some of the Bay Area’s leading new play developers and producers. For more information, visit https://playground-sf.org.
WHAT: PlayGround presents the top short plays by Bay Area high school dramatists as part of the 15th annual Lenore & Howard Klein Foundation Young Playwrights Project, featuring works by Arisa Sky Krueger (SOTA), Grady Fleming, Clifton Chiang, Josslyn Grover, Julia Satterley and Annika Svahn (Bentley), Brian Guan (Dublin High School), and Linnani Simpson (SOTA).
WHERE: Potrero Stage and Simulcast
WHEN: Friday, May 12, 2023 / 7pm PDT
TICKETS: Tickets are $10-$30 for in-person (masks and proof of vaccination required) and $0-$30 for the simulcast, with on-demand access through May 31. For more information or to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/youngplaywrights.