PlayGround Awards 25th Anniversary JUNE ANNE BAKER PRIZE

PlayGround is pleased to announce the recipients of the 25th Anniversary June Anne Baker Prize, one of the nation’s longest continuous running awards and commissions for early-career female/non-binary playwrights. New this year, PlayGround has expanded the Prize to include one playwright from each of the four regions where the company operates: Esther Banegas Gatica (Los Angeles), KT Frances Hartline (San Francisco), Uma Incrocci (New York City), and Toby Inoue (Chicago). The Prize winners will be honored at this year’s One PlayGround Gala, taking place in all four cities simultaneously on September 14, 2026; over the next year, each will develop a new full-length play under commission, based on one of their PlayGround short works, as part of the 2026-27 PlayGround Playwright Residency program.

The June Anne Baker Prize was initiated by John H. Gilman in memory of his late wife. The Prize is awarded annually to a female or non-binary playwright selected from among that year’s Best of PlayGround, representing a gifted new comedic and/or political voice for the stage. The Prize provides a commissioning grant for a new full-length play and support for developmental readings of the new work. Past recipients include Lauren Yee, Geetha Reddy, Patricia Cotter, and Genevieve Jessee, among others.

June Anne Baker (1946-2000) was born and raised in Mankato, Minnesota to a playful mother and a political father. She was a sensitive soul with a very big heart. June had a love affair with words and dreamed of being a writer. She received her under- graduate degree in Sociology from Arizona State University, a Masters in Regional and City Planning from the University of Oklahoma, and a law degree from Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley. June moved to San Francisco in 1970 and had an active city planning career with the City of Concord and Marin County. June was an active feminist, and proud of it. She was a founding member of Bay Area Women Planners. June loved life, and politics, and fun. She was serious and reflective, and yet had an overabundance of youthful enthusiasm. As a good friend once said, “If you don’t think feminists have a sense of humor, you never met June Baker.” June turned to writing in her 40s and found an inner life that she needed to explore. While contemplating and struggling with thoughts of how she might manifest herself, she was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer. Her struggle turned from expression to survival, yet she never lost her joie de vivre. This award honors June’s great love for humor and politics and her commitment to advancing opportunities for women. She would want this award to make easier the struggle and more manifest the works of the emerging playwrights who receive it.

PlayGround will celebrate all 25 years of the June Anne Baker Prize and our newest winners at this year’s One PlayGround Gala, taking place on September 14, in NYC, Chicago, LA and SF, and co-hosted by JAB Prize alumnae Lauren Yee and Geetha Reddy. Gala tickets go on sale June 14. In addition, San Francisco JAB Prize winner KT Frances Hartline will be honored at the May 31 performance of Best of PlayGround(SF) ‘26, featuring her short play A Wayward Tale.

Esther Banegas Gatica (PlayGround-LA), she/her, is a Honduran bilingual playwright, actress, director, and translator. She’s a graduate of Teatro Prometeo from Miami Dade College. She’s obtained a BFA from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She’s taught and performed with/at: Miami Hispanic International Theatre Festival, Syracuse Stage, the Gluck Foundation, and Fort Worth Fringe. Esther is a recent graduate from the University of California, Riverside with an MFA in writing for the performing arts. She is a Line Producer for Lime Arts productions and part of PlayGround-LA, as well as part of Black Voice News. Her short play, Waiting for… the Bus, was featured in Best of PlayGround(LA) ’26. Follow her work @esteyg

KT Frances Hartline (PlayGround-SF), she/her, is a Berkeley-based playwright and screenwriter. After working as a New York City public school teacher, she was editor for two New York-based magazines and wrote for Oakland and Parents Press. Her plays have appeared in festivals around the country, including It’s Alarming, a Heideman Award finalist which premiered in Playground’s Monday Night Series. Her screenwriting accolades include AFF Second Rounder and Finalist in the International PAGE Awards. She is now a Top Tier member of Roadmap Writers’ Career Writer Program. Her greatest joy is squeezing into a hardcore punk show and watching the son she homeschooled absolutely shred on drums. Her short play, A Wayward Tale, will be featured in Best of PlayGround(SF) ‘26.

Uma Incrocci (PlayGround-NY), she/her, has been a member of the PlayGround Writers Pool since 2018. Her play To Keep and Bear had a workshop at the New Ground Theater Festival at the Cleveland Playhouse in June 2024. Her short plays have been performed around the country and in Adelaide, Australia. You can catch her TV movies Romance with a Twist, Nature of Love, Hats off to Love and A Christmas Carousel on the Hallmark Channel. Her short play, Marathon Dan, was featured in Best of PlayGround(NY) ‘26.

Toby Inoue (PlayGround-Chicago), she/her, has been a part of the PlayGround-Chicago community for three seasons. The short plays that she’s written for PlayGround-Chicago have gone on to other short play festivals, including 23 And Me And Me And Me (Trinity Theatre Company New Works Festival, San Diego, CA, Apr 2025); Serene Healthy Wellness Spa Retreat Resort (audio broadcast, Theatrical Shenanigans, UK, Dec 2025); and Power Play (Troy Foundry Theatre’s Half Baked Festival, NY, Sep 2025). She’s also had readings of her full-length plays Keep It Light at Redtwist Theatre and Sora And Keller at Chicago Dramatists. Toby is a founding member of the Evanston Playwrights Group and a member of the Playwrights Circle @ Speranza Theatre Company. Her short play, Mukashi Mukashi, was featured in Best of PlayGround(Chicago) ‘26. https://wabi-sa.com; @toby.inoue

June Anne Baker Prize Recipients (2002-2026)

2026: Esther Banegas Gatica, KT Frances Hartline, Uma Incrocci, Toby Inoue
2025: Laura Domingo
2024: Kimberly Ridgeway
2023: Bridgette Dutta Portman
2022: Akaina Ghosh
2021: Eteya Trinidad
2020: Melissa Keith
2019: Alanna McFall
2018: Erin Marie Panttaja
2017: Genevieve Jessee
2016: Karen Macklin
2015: Rachel Bublitz
2014: Patricia Cotter
2013: Amy Sass
2012: Robin Lynn Rodriguez
2011: Mandy Hodge Rizvi
2010: Diane Sampson
2009: Erin Marie Bregman
2008: Lauren Yee
2007: Evelyn Pine
2006: Brady Lea
2005: Geetha Reddy
2004: Maria Rokas
2003: Martha Soukup
2002: Kristina Goodnight

PlayGround, a leading national playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s, Los Angeles’, New York’s, and Chicago’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 early career playwrights, developing and staging more than 1,500 of their original short plays through the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned 100 new full-length plays by 60 of these writers through its Commissioning Initiative and, through the innovative New Play Production Fund, has directly facilitated the premiere of 36 plays at theatres of every size, including three that have gone on to NYC and other major theater communities. Most recently, 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. Over the past thirty-two 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 Tony Awards, Steinberg Awards, Glickman Awards (including 6 of the last 10), O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and New York International Fringe 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.