2019 Young Playwrights Contest Finalists!

PlayGround is thrilled to announce the finalists for the 11th annual Howard & Lenore Klein Foundation PlayGround Young Playwrights Contest! PlayGround invited aspiring writers and theatre artists at the high school level to write and submit their own 10-minute plays inspired by the topic:  ADAPT A FAIRY TALE. The four selected plays will each receive a professional staged reading, presented as a “curtain raiser” before select performances of the 23rd Best of PlayGround Festival (https://playground-sf.org//bestof) at Potrero Stage, May 16-19, 2019. PlayGround invites audiences to join in welcoming these bold new voices to the stage.

The selected plays/finalists are: BEHIND THE TRANCE by Ashlee Nguyen (Galileo Academy of Science & Technology ’19); LIZZY IN THE ROOM by Jennifer Xiang (Mission San Jose High School ’20); PRINCESS AND THE P.E.A. by Cicely Henderson (SOTA ’19); and SNIP SNIP! by Lucy Urbano (Oakland School for the Arts ’19). Join us May 16-19 as we celebrate the work of these emerging young writers as a part of this year’s Best of PlayGround. For more info, visit https://playground-sf.org//youngplaywrights.

Young Playwrights Project Schedule:

Thu, May 16 @ 8pm: BEHIND THE TRANCE by Ashlee Nguyen
Fri, May 17 @ 8pm: LIZZY IN THE ROOM by Jennifer Xiang
Sat, May 18 @ 8pm: PRINCESS AND THE P.E.A. by Cicely Henderson
Sun, May 19 @ 7pm: SNIP SNIP! by Lucy Urbano

About the Young Playwrights Project:

High school students from the Bay Area nine counties were invited to submit original short scripts inspired by the assigned topic, “Adapt a Fairy Tale”. This year marks the eleventh year of the Bay Area-wide Klein Foundation Young Playwrights Contest, through which PlayGround has identified and honored forty-one up-and-coming young writers. “Through the 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,” stated PlayGround Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann. A tremendous opportunity for creatively-inclined high school students to experiment with writing for theatre in the ten-minute theatre form, the finalists gain immeasurable confidence and accomplishment from seeing their works staged by Bay Area theatre professionals, alongside the adult professional playwrights at Best of PlayGround.

About the Playwrights:

Cicely Henderson (Princess and the P.E.A.) is a senior at School of the Arts High School who loves playwriting because she’s fascinated by the characters in her life. Her plays have been performed at the Kennedy Center, the Labute Theatre Festival in St. Louis, and past PlayGround Festivals. Cicely is excited for the adventures Wellesley College holds come fall.

Ashlee Nguyen (Behind the Trance) is a San Francisco native and senior at Galileo Academy of Science & Technology, with a passion for anything involving the arts. In the beginning of her high school year, she realized her love of filmmaking and has been working on her craft ever since. With college just around the corner, she is excited for what the future has in store for her.

Jennifer Xiang (Lizzy in the Room) is a student from Fremont, California. She attends Mission San Jose High School and will graduate in 2020. In her spare time, she writes both plays and prose.

Lucy Urbano (Snip Snip!) is a senior at Oakland School for the Arts, and was a member of the PlayGround Writers Pool this year. Her plays have been produced in Berkeley Rep’s 2018 Teen One Acts Festival, Bay Area Zeta Players 10-Minute Play Festival 2016-2018, and PlayGround’s 2018 Young Playwrights Festival. She will attend UCLA in the fall.

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 Best of PlayGround Festival, full-length play commissions and support for the production of new plays by local playwrights through the New Play Production Fund and, PlayGround’s newest initiative, the PlayGround Film Festival. To date, PlayGround has supported more than 200 local playwrights in the development and staging of over 850 original short plays and 79 new full-length plays, including more than 30 that have since premiered in the Bay Area and around the country. For more information, visit https://playground-sf.org/.

For more information on the Young Playwrights Project, visit https://playground-sf.org//youngplaywrights.