3rd Annual Free-Play Festival Applications Open!

Don’t miss your chance to be part of PlayGround’s third annual Free-Play Festival! Applications are due by April 30, 2024.

The Free-Play Festival is a three-week non-curated fringe-style platform to highlight new works from the national PlayGround community and beyond, offering each artist team three public performances in our state-of-the-art San Francisco theatre, Potrero Stage, in-person and online, to reach a national audience. The festival will run August 8-25, 2024 at Potrero Stage and simulcast. Artists featured at the Free-Play Festival the past two years included Akaina Ghosh’s CHARACTER ASSASSINATION, Melina Cohen-Bramwell’s PLEASE DON’T SLOW ME DOWN, Ipsheeta Furtado’s DISTANCED DATES presented by NFX Theater, Joyful Raven’s BREED OR BUST, Lana Richards’ TIPS FOR NERVOUS FLIERS and a staged reading of J. Lynn Jackson’s LUCÍA FUENTES presented by Miyoko Sakatani and Playland Productions.

Applications for this year’s festival are due via Google form by 11:59pm PT, April 30, 2024. Selections will be announced on May 13, 2024.

Benefits

  • Selected teams/projects will receive three performance slots in the festival
  • All performances will take place in a state-of-the-art theatre, Potrero Stage, and will be simulcast live
  • PlayGround provides a Technical Director, House Manager, Board Operator, and a Streaming Broadcaster
  • PlayGround offers co-marketing, production management consultation (1 hr), and box office services

Guidelines

  • Selections will be determined by lottery (15 slots are reserved for PlayGround-affiliated artists and 5 for unaffiliated artists)
  • Projects must culminate in the off-book public presentation of a new work
  • Performances in the Free-Play Festival must be between 30-90 minutes with setup/strike of no more than a half-hour on either side
  • Each project will be scheduled a 2.5 hour technical rehearsal
  • Projects must participate in PlayGround’s radical accessibility program, including free admission (with PWYC donation option) and online simulcast
  • Projects involving union artists will have the opportunity to be presented under PlayGround’s SAG-AFTRA New Media Agreement (deferred) and all performers, regardless of union status, would then be expected to sign a SAG-AFTRA agreement; projects are solely responsible for the terms of artist compensation and for fulfilling those terms
  • Upon selection, projects will be responsible for remitting to PlayGround a $450 facility licensing fee (due by May 31)
  • PlayGround will split box office proceeds 50/50 with producing teams

To apply, click here.

Questions? Contact Jim at jim@playground-sf.org.