Company in the News Dec-2020
Read on to learn more about PlayGround Company Member and Alumni recent news, current happenings, and upcoming events while we prepare for the December 21st Monday Night PlayGround.
Michael Barrett Austin is a part of 42nd Street Moon’s holiday variety show, “Home (Literally) for the Holidays,” streaming December 3-13! Get your tickets HERE.
Emilie Talbot directed Garret Groenveld’s “Remainders” for the AAU One Act Festival showing on December 11th &12th, 2020.
Tessa Corrie is proud to have debuted her first show with Poltergeist Theatre Project, “I Am Dracula: A Docudrama Experiment,” adapted by Chris Steele. Tessa is now directing two new works by Cleavon Smith and Sinjin Jones for FootHill College’s zoom festival: “Culture Clatter.” These shows will broadcast 12/12 – 12/18 and will help you start celebrating Kwanza early and give you a taste of what it’s like to reconnect with an ex in quarantine…
Misao McGregor will be releasing her debut album “Kid in the Corner” on December 17th to all major streaming platforms! The album is an autobiographical look into her previous 24 years of life and traverses her experiences with empowerment, joy, abuse, eating disorders, PTSD, trauma, and healing.
Lisa Gaye Thompson has been appearing in monthly shows with playwrights on both coasts who write plays in 45 minutes based on audience suggestions followed by mostly-brilliant, always-fun cold readings. Next show—December 21st at 4:15 PST. Register here to participate on Zoom or watch it live on YouTube.
Rachel Bublitz participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), writing the first draft of an adaptation of her award winning play “Cheerleaders VS. Aliens.” Rachel has also been keeping busy with new plays, she wrote a new Zoom play for young performers called “Operation Chicken Takeover,” based on her pet chickens. Finally, early this month Utah Valley University will perform a virtual reading of her full-length play “Let’s Fix Andy.”
Lynn Aylward‘s play “Snow Ga-D’oh” is in Little Fish Theatre’s holiday show “Pick of the Pine” (littlefishtheatre.org/pond/), a production on Zoom with a five-day run.
Aldo Billingslea is Co-Directing Eric Coble’s “Fairfield” at Pear Avenue Theatre in January.
Madeline Puccioni‘s “Monticello 2020” (scene one) will be produced virtually for Playhouse Productions Emerging Playwright series in NYC in January. Monticello 2020 is a full-length play in progress which asks: what would have happened if Thomas Jefferson had stood by his convictions and kept the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence in that document? Scholars think that this paragraph would certainly have stopped the British slave trade and would have committed the United States to ending slavery as soon as the Revolutionary War ended.
Gwen Loeb has been participating with the Thursdays@7 actors group during the pandemic. She will be acting in upcoming T@7 readings of Michael Gene Sullivan’s “Recipe,” and Lauren Gunderson’s “Book of Will.” She is also reading the role of Marie Dressler in an upcoming private reading of Diane Sampson’s new musical based on Marie Dressler’s life.
Molly Noble is teaching, directing, acting and learning online. My students are more enthused than I am, hence they inspire me. Walking the coastline from the Golden Gate Bridge to Pt. Reyes in chunks of time when I can. I am grateful. Directing a live streaming piece on the subject of “Windows” this Spring at College of Marin. Sort of a pub quiz/advent(ure) calendar/story circle/devised work. A Fall beta test with some very fine actor/writers (including a PlayGrounder!) revealed possibilities. I don’t know what I am doing but that’s a good thing I think. Bless your hearts and hope to see you soon.
Same Boat Theater Collective, an Innovator Incubator theater with members that include PlayGround writers Lynn Aylward, Linda Amayo-Hassan, Reg Clay and Lisa Kang, went to Los Banos, Philippines in November. We participated in the 4th Annual Likhandula International Arts Exchange and Collaboration, this year held on Zoom and Facebook. Same Boat showed our work and led a workshop, joining performing artists from the Philippines, India, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Italy. We’re so happy to be making new friends in the Philippines!
Diane Sampson just completed work on two new musicals, one involving a stolen Gainsborough portrait of Georgiana Spencer, the 5th Duchess of Devonshire and the scoundrel who stole it, the other, “Living Large,” about Marie Dressler, vaudeville and film star of the first quarter of the 20th century. Songs abound.
Ken Sonkin directed a reading of “Chalk Lines” by Elizabeth Appell for 3GTheatre in October. He teaches Acting and Careers in Performing Arts at USF.
Cindy Goldfield continues to fight the good pandemic fight by cooking up a storm and delivering meals and treats all over the Bay Area three days a week. Her Covid-pivot business (www.marthaavenuefood.com) that she runs with her partner, Chef Willi Nordby, has been going full steam ahead since the initial shut down in April, which closed all the theatre and event work she had lined up for the year.