PlayGround Gala Raises $75,000 for Women Theatre Artists!

Posted by on September 24, 2021

“I raise up my voice—not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. … We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.” – Malala Yousafzai

On Monday, September 20, over 150 attendees from all over the country and as far away as Australia came together at the annual PlayGround Gala to celebrate and uplift female playwrights through the past 20 years of June Anne Baker Prize, an award given to an outstanding female playwright each year by PlayGround, the Bay Area’s leading playwright incubator and theatre community hub. Funds raised through the Gala will support women theatre artists as part of PlayGround’s 2021-22 season and will also help to launch five new paid fellowships for next-gen women theatre artists. PlayGround’s unique hybrid in-person/online gala provided opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of the June Anne Baker Prize winners from 2002 through 2021 through small in-person gatherings spread throughout the Bay Area and beyond, all connected via Zoom and enjoying a gourmet 4-course meal courtesy of Martha Avenue home cooking and live performances of two past June Anne Baker Prize plays: Hella Love Oakland by Robin Lynn Rodriguez and Ophy’s Apothecary by Karen Macklin.

The evening concluded with a Fund-a-Future live auction, successfully raising $25,000 to fund the first year of five new paid fellowships for next-gen women leaders in five theatrical disciplines: directing, theatre, acting, playwriting, design/tech, and theatre management. These fellowships will enable women to hone their skills and build professional networks through the support of the PlayGround community. Initiated by PlayGround benefactor John H. Gilman in memory of his late wife, PlayGround’s June Anne Baker Prize has recognized the top new female playwright representing a gifted new comedic and/or political voice since 2002. Alumnae include Lauren Yee, Geetha Reddy, Robin Lynn Rodriguez, Patricia Cotter, and Evelyn Jean Pine.

The need for such programs is strikingly clear in facts gathered by WomenArts, Valerie Weaks’ Gender Parity Studies and the Equity In Theatre initiative:

While representing 51% of the population and the majority of theatre audiences, women only comprise on average 30% or less of artistic directors, directors, and playwrights.
Women earn less than men in major artistic roles. According to a 2011 National Household Survey, as actors and comedians, women earned 26% less than men; as authors and writers, women earned 12% less; and as producers, directors, choreographers, and in other related roles, women earned 16% less than men.
Women constitute over half of all theatre school students. Yet, after graduation, women make up fewer than 30% of the profession’s creative leaders.
There is a direct correspondence between the number of women artistic directors and women directors, and women playwrights and roles for women actors, i.e., increasing women’s representation in one area has a positive effect on the others.

For the last twenty years, PlayGround and the broader community have seen the impact that the June Anne Baker Prize has had in uplifting early-career women writers; and, now, we want to take this a step further and invest in next-gen women leadership across every theatre discipline. PlayGround is seeking to raise another $100,000 to fund four additional years of the Women Theatre Artist Fellowships and is accepting additional donations at https://playground-sf.org/benefit-auction/.

PlayGround, a leading playwright incubator and theatre community hub, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s, Los Angeles’ and now New York’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 250 early career playwrights, developing and staging more than 1,000 of their original short plays through the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned 90 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 34 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 twenty-seven 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 Steinberg Awards, Humana Festival, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and The Lark’s Playwrights’ Week, 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. Visit https://playground-sf.org for more information.

For more information, visit https://playground-sf.org/benefit or call (415) 992-6677.