2022-23 Monday Night PlayGround Series

Posted by on September 9, 2022

PlayGround has announced a company of 144 writers who will take part in the 2022-23 edition of its signature Monday Night PlayGround (MNP) series across four cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago.

MNP is an artist-centered incubator for plays and playwrights. For each city, 36 writers write a ten-minute play in response to a prompt, from which six plays are selected to be presented at that month’s Monday Night performance, a live script-in-hand reading featuring leading local performers. There are six rounds of MNP in each city, followed by a Best of performance highlighting each city’s top six plays of the entire MNP series.

The program aims to foster the collaborative creativity necessary for theatre-making at a grass-roots level by providing early-career artists with living wages, a year-long creative outlet, and community. While only six plays are presented at each round of MNP, all 144 writers have the opportunity to participate in Recess, a monthly workshopping space.

Some nuts and bolts for MNP 2022-23: The first topic will be announced on September 23rd, and performances begin on October 10th in the San Francisco Bay Area (at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage). Performances in SF and LA will be both in-person and simulcast online, while NY and Chicago will be streamed online and available on-demand. Admission to all performances is free, and donations are gratefully accepted and make it possible to pay our artists (120+/month) and staff a living wage. For more information or to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/monday.

2022-23 Writers Pool

SF: Monique Hafen Adams, Barbara Anderson, Esther Banegas Gatica, Nicole Bruno, Madeleine Butler, Allie Costa+, Jediah Craig, Cherielyn Ferguson, Ipsheeta Furtado, Bailey Jordan Garcia+, Lauren Gorski,+ Aaron Higareda+, Sam Hurwitt, Tejahra Jacobs, Lisa Kang, Ruth Kirschner, Anne Yumi Kobori+, Steve Koppman, Jennifer Le Blanc+, Kristy Lin Billuni, Justin Lopez+, David MacFadden-Elliott, Daniel Martinez, Alanna McFall+, Bacilio Mendez II, Matthew Morishige, Vicky Pham, Bridgette Portman, Alexis Roblan, Jessica Rowe+, Anthony Sampson Semandiris, David Schweidel, Tony Sciullo, Marissa Skudlarek, Alexis Standridge, Max Tachis, Lisa Thompson, Eteya Trinidad, Michael Tuton, Kaz Valtchev, Daysha Veronica+, Michael Waterson, Christian Wilburn+, Maggie Wilson+, Maury Zeff
+ Resident Playwright

LA: Michael P. Adams, Monique Aldred, Steve Apostolina, Jaisey Bates, Evan Baughfman, Summer Broyhill, Emily Brauer Rogers+, Joe Luis Cedillo, Allie Costa, Bailey Jordan Garcia, Lauren Gorski, Mason Greer, Julio Hanson, Briggs Hatton, Aaron Higareda, Uma Incrocci, Starina Johnson, M.J. Kang, Michael Kaplan, Ross Tedford Kendall, Arthur Keng, Keyanna Khatiblou, Ethan LaCaro, Mildred Inez Lewis, Rhea MacCallum+, Liza McGowan, Scott Mullen, Peter Pasco, Lina Patel, Joni Ravenna, Jessica June Rowe+, Mark Sherstinsky, Ayesha Siddiqui, Nicki Spencer, Jennie Webb, Karl Williams

NY: Sam Affoumado, Momo Akashi, Anthony Anello, Andy Boyd, Christin Cato, Todd Cerveris, Jayne Deely, Josh Drimmer, Barry Eitel, Bailey Elis, Jack Feldstein, Kari Floren, Ruth Geye, Dana Goldstein, Stanley Hathaway, Rachel Herron, David Hilder, Carlos Jerome, Rebecca Kane, Elizabeth Lee, Dani Nelson, Matthew Park, Alexander Perez, Jacob Rice, Rachael Richman, Kathryn Ryan, Natalie Sacks, Louise Schwarz, Marcus Scott, Riley Tollen, Gaven Trinidad, Rebbekah Vega-Romero, Charles Velasquez-Witosky, Leela Velautham, Rhys Washington, Maggie Wilson

Chicago: Austin Adams, Leah Barsanti, Alica Benning, Gabriella Bonamici, Sarah Bowden, McKennzie Boyd, DC Cathro, Rammel Chan, Ada Cheng, Richard Lyons Conlon, Scott Cooper, Sunny da Silva , Emma Durbin, Lisa Feriend, Kym Fraher, John Frank, Jay Greve, Dana Hall, Tanuja Jagernauth, Kerri Killeen, Samuel Levit, David Lipschutz, Marjorie Muller, Karissa Murrell Myers, Ryan Oliveira, Taylor Owen, Susan Pak, Kendall Phillips, Edward Pinkowski, Emma Rund, Matt Schutz, Justin Sikes, RJ Silva, Ryan Stevens, Wai Yim, Desiree York

2022-23 Monday Night PlayGround Schedule

Round 1
10/10/22: San Francisco
10/17/22: Los Angeles
10/24/22: New York
10/31/22: Chicago

Round 2
11/14/22: Los Angeles
11/21/22: San Francisco
11/28/22: New York
12/5/22: Chicago

Round 3
12/12/22: Los Angeles
12/19/22: San Francisco
12/26/22: New York
1/2/23: Chicago

Round 4
1/9/23: Los Angeles
1/16/23: San Francisco
1/23/22: New York
2/6/23: Chicago

Round 5
2/13/23: Los Angeles
2/20/23: San Francisco
2/27/23: New York
3/6/23: Chicago

Round 6
3/13/23: Los Angeles
3/20/23: San Francisco
3/27/23: New York
4/3/23: Chicago

Best of
4/10/23: Los Angeles
4/24/23: New York
5/1/23: Chicago
5/13-14/23: San Francisco

PlayGround, a leading national playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the best new playwrights in the SF Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. Programs include: 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 300 early career playwrights, developing and staging over 1,000 of their original short plays through the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned/developed 100 new full-length plays and has directly facilitated the premiere of 33 plays at theatres of every size, including three that have gone on to NYC and other major theater communities. In 2017, PlayGround renovated and relaunched the former Thick House Theater in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill as Potrero Stage, a state-of-the-art center for new plays, home to PlayGround’s expanding artistic programs and some of the Bay Area’s most distinguished new play developers and producers. PlayGround began serving the Los Angeles artistic community in 2012 with the launch of PlayGround-LA. In 2021, our first East Coast hub launched as PlayGround-NY. This year brings PlayGround-Chicago into the fold.

Over the past twenty-eight years, PlayGround has served to identify some of the most important new local voices for the theatre. PlayGround’s alumni have gone on to win local, national, and international honors for their short and full-length work, including recognition at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Glickman Awards (4 of the past 5 winners), and Bay Area Playwrights Festival, among others. PlayGround received the 2009 Paine Knickerbocker Award for outstanding contributions to Bay Area theatre, 3 BATCC Awards for Best Original Script for PlayGround commissions, a 2014 National Theatre Company Grant from the American Theatre Wing (founder of the Tony Awards), and a 2016 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. Visit https://playground-sf.org for more information.