Submit for the 2019-20 PlayGround Writers Pool!

Are you a Bay Area-based early-career or aspiring professional playwright? Have you ever wanted to see your plays performed on stage by leading local professional actors? Do you respond well to deadlines?

PlayGround is seeking applications for our 2019-20 Writers Pool. Members of the Writers Pool are invited to submit for the Monday Night PlayGround short play staged reading series. On the first Friday of the month, PlayGround releases a prompt. Writers then have four-and-a-half days to write an original ten-minute play inspired by the prompt. Of the submitted scripts, 6 get chosen for a fully-staged, partly-teched, script-in-hand reading led by leading local directors and actors under our new Actors Equity contract, on third Mondays, October-March, at Berkeley Rep. Writers not chosen in any given month can participate in PlayGround Recess, with the opportunity to hear their work read aloud by professional actors and receive peer feedback in a private setting.

To apply, please submit a pdf of a maximum 10-page double-space script to scripts<at>playground-sf.org. Excerpts from longer works are not accepted but short plays that meet the above requirements and are derived from a longer work are accepted. Women and artists of color encouraged. Submissions are due by 11:59pm on June 30, 2019. The 2018-19 PlayGround Writers Pool will be announced on or before August 18, 2019 and all selected writers must attend a mandatory Company Meeting on Sunday, August 25. For more information, see below or visit our PlayGround Writers Pool page here.

Previous members of the Writers Pool have included Aaron Loeb (Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party), Lauren Yee (King of the Yees, The Great Leap), Geetha Reddy (Safe House, HeLa), Christopher Chen (Caught), Samantha Chanse (The Other Instinct), Garret Jon Groenveld (The Hummingbirds), Katie May (Abominable) and Andrew Saito (Mount Misery: A Comedy of Enhanced Interrogations), among others. 

POOL REQUIREMENTS

To be eligible, writers must reside within the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area. To apply for a place in the 2019-20 writers pool, playwrights must submit a maximum ten-page double-spaced script (previously produced and unproduced scripts eligible) via email to scripts<at>playground-la.org as Portable Document Format (.pdf) attachment. Applications must be received by 11:59pm PST Sunday, June 30, 2019. The script must have the playwright’s name, address, email and phone number at the top of the first page of the script and include a detailed cast breakdown, and all pages must be numbered. Excerpts from longer works are not accepted but short plays that meet the above requirements and are derived from a longer work are accepted. Writers featured in the Best of PlayGround (2016-2019) need not submit a script but must send an email confirming interest in being in the pool by the deadline. Women and playwrights of color encouraged to apply.

The 2019-20 PlayGround Writers Pool will be announced on or before August 18, 2019. There will be a mandatory meeting of the Writers Pool on Sunday, August 25, 2019 (time tbd) at Potrero Stage. Writers Pool members must commit to submitting for at least five of the six Monday Night PlayGrounds in any season. The submission of a script to Monday Night PlayGround grants PlayGround the exclusive option to stage the play as part of the Monday Night PlayGround and, should it be so selected, to present the world premiere as part of Best of PlayGround and the non-exclusive right to publish the script in the “Best of PlayGround” anthology.

For any questions not answered above, email to info<at>playground-sf.org.