PlayGround Launches the Inaugural FREE-PLAY FESTIVAL, August 26-28

PlayGround closes out the summer season with a new free festival of new plays by the PlayGround community, FREE-PLAY FESTIVAL, August 26-28, at Potrero Stage and simulcast. The inaugural Free-Play Festival features the return of Joyful Raven’s BREED OR BUST (Aug 26 7pm PDT) following her hit run at the Hollywood Fringe, the premiere of Lana Richards’ TIPS FOR NERVOUS FLIERS (Aug 27 & 28 5pm PDT) and a staged reading of J. Lynn Jackson’s LUCÍA FUENTES (Aug 28 2pm PDT), presented by Miyoko Sakatani and Playland Productions.  Admission is free (donations gratefully accepted) but advance reservations are required. For more information or to reserve in-person or online tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/freeplay.

The Free-Play Festival is the latest innovation by PlayGround in support of new voices for the stage and is supported by the PlayGround 25th Anniversary Fund. 

Lineup & Synopses

BREED OR BUST by Joyful Raven
Fri Aug 26 @ 7pm PDT

Fresh off her successful Hollywood Fringe run (Producer’s Enore recipient) and in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v Wade, Joyful Raven returns to Potrero Stage for an encore performance of Breed or Bust. To breed or not to breed: that is the question Joyful Raven wrestles with in her new solo show. Blending standup and storytelling, Raven recounts her difficult reproductive “choices ” and contends with her primal baby making instincts. Should she surrender to the role of weird aunty OR should she start a GoFundMe to freeze her geriatric eggs? With her breeding window rapidly shrinking, she reflects on her abortions, the father of her abortions and the complexity of modern womanhood. Come for the laughs and stay for the sex education…in case you forgot how babies were made. For Mature Audiences.

JOYFUL RAVEN, she/her, is a seasoned performer, born into an iconic theater family. Her last solo comedy ‘Sexual Tomboy’ was dubbed  “…one of the funniest shows now on display on Bay Area stages” by the SF Chronicle in 2017. ‘Tomboy’ won “Best of the Fringe” at the 2016 San Francisco Fringe Festival and received an “Encore Performance” at the 2017 United Solo Festival in NYC. She holds an MFA in theater from UC Davis and teaches Solo Performance at Berkeley Rep School of Theater.

TIPS FOR NERVOUS FLIERS by Lana Richards
Sat Aug 27 & Sun Aug 28 @ 5pm PDT

Tips for Nervous Fliers is a solo performance exploring one woman’s journey to overcome her fear of flying. Using found text, dance, humor, and a little bit of Fergie, the solo performance examines what it means to live with crippling anxiety and the tactics deployed to overcome it. Will she conquer her fears or fall flat on her face? Only time will tell.

LANA RICHARDS, she/her, is a director focused on new work development, site specific work, and adaptation. She likes big plays about small things (and vice versa), the tender awkwardness of growing up, and stories that connect people to place. She has been  an artist-in-residence at The Dragon’s Egg, Access Theater, and The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and is an alumna of Connecticut College, summa cum laude, where she studied theater and environmental studies.   She has worked with We Players, The Civilians, The Hearth, Ruthless Nightingale, Parallel 45, PlayGround, and Pacific Repertory Theater, and is a founding member of  The Wickies. Most recently she was the 2019 Directing Fellow at Parallel 45 Theater, and is currently the Associate Director of Development for PlayGround. She was an Andrew W. Mellon Undergraduate Research Fellow and a recipient of the Crabtree Award for leadership and excellence in theater making.

LUCÍA FUENTES by J. Lynn Jackson
Sun Aug 28 @ 2pm PDT

Miyoko Sakatani and Playland Productions present a developmental staged reading of J. Lynn Jackson’s Lucía Fuentes, directed by Katja Rivera. Spiritual guru, Hernán Espinoza, walks Japan’s Shikoku pilgrimage path to honor the lives of 43 boys disappeared in his home country of Mexico. Coincidentally, the Abbess that guides all Shikoku pilgrims has a vital interest in Hernán’s journey, yet senses she must test his true intentions. While taking a shortcut to save time, Hernán has a breakdown. Not knowing whether he is alive or dead, a man or a woman, a saint or a sinner, in Japan or not, he continues to the end, which, on the circular Shikoku path, is also the beginning. Lucía Fuentes is a full-length play triggered by the global #MeToo movement and the disappearance of 43 boys in Mexico.   Lucía Fuentes is a semi-finalist for the 2021 Woodward International Playwriting Prize.

J. LYNN JACKSON, he/him, writes of and for social justice, spirit, community, and love while at home in the US and Mexico. In addition to Lucía Fuentes, Jackson’s plays include The Red Sweater, based on Maurice L. Monette’s memoir, Confessions of a Gay Married Priest and Charles Darwin, Her True Story, a play about survival, revolution and lifelong delusions.  Jackson is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Berkeley Play Cafe, and the Playwrights’ Center and is on the Latinx Mafia Leadership Team for PlayGround’s 2022 Innovator Incubator.  Jackson’s career has also included work in philanthropy, healthcare, and community service organizations in Chile, Mexico, Cuba and the US. https://pwcenter.org/profile/j-lynn-jackson

About PlayGround

Founded in 1994 by Jim Kleinmann, Brighde Mullins and Denise Shama, PlayGround has grown into the Bay Area’s leading playwright incubator and theatre community hub, with a deep commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, helping to uplift and center artists from historically underrepresented communities. Over the past 28 years, PlayGround has supported more than 300 early-career playwrights, developing and staging over 1,000 of their original short plays through PlayGround’s signature programs, Monday Night PlayGround and the PlayGround Festival of New Works. PlayGround has also commissioned 94 new full-length plays by 60 of these writers through its Commissioning Initiative and has directly facilitated the premiere of 34 of those works through its innovative New Play Production Fund. Over the past 28 years, PlayGround has developed a unique model for identifying and nurturing the Bay Area’s best new writers, while helping them to build a significant body of original work and lasting connections with the artistic collaborators they need to know to ensure their success. PlayGround expanded to Los Angeles in 2012 and to NYC in 2021, and is launching PlayGround-Chicago this fall.

In 2015, PlayGround signed a long-term lease to operate the former Thick House Theater, where PlayGround has produced its festival since 2008. Following a successful $300,000 renovation which included new theatrical lighting, seating, signage, and upgrades to the lobby, box office and restrooms, PlayGround reopened the theatre in February 2017 as Potrero Stage: PlayGround Center for New Plays. In addition to supporting PlayGround’s expanding new play programs (including the PlayGround Solo Performance Festival launched in 2018), the theatre serves as home for some of the Bay Area’s other leading new play developers and producers, including Crowded Fire, Golden Thread, and Playwrights Foundation, as well as up-and-coming companies such as Ferocious Lotus and Bread & Butter Theatre, among others. In 2019, PlayGround launched the Innovator Incubator, fostering theatrical innovation and next generation innovative theatre companies. The program culminates in the annual Innovators Showcase, which takes place each November/December, featuring over half-a-dozen new works, from developmental readings to full premieres, by the year’s Innovator Incubator cohort.

Following the closure of theaters due to the pandemic in 2020, PlayGround was one of the first theatres in the country to shift all of its programming online, with the launch of the PlayGround Zoom Fest and a unique partnership with the performers union, SAG-AFTRA. With the return of in-person performance, PlayGround has recommitted to radical accessibility with admission-free programming and online simulcast and on-demand streaming of all performances. PlayGround’s radical accessibility initiative is sponsored in part by First Republic Bank.

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, New York International Fringe Festival, and 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.

In addition to its company of playwrights, PlayGround maintains a company of leading Bay Area directors, actors, designers and technicians whose work is regularly seen on the Bay Area’s top professional stages. PlayGround has actively positioned itself as a hub, bringing together hundreds of individuals and organizations representing the best in Bay Area theatre. For more information about PlayGround, visit https://playground-sf.org.

WHAT: PlayGround presents the inaugural FREE-PLAY FESTIVAL, a fully free-admission festival of new works by members of the PlayGround community, including BREED OR BUST by Joyful Raven, TIPS FOR NERVOUS FLIERS by Lana Richards, and LUCÍA FUENTES by J. Lynn Jackson.

WHERE: Potrero Stage, 1695 18th St, San Francisco, CA 94107, and simulcast online

WHEN: August 26-28

Fri Aug 26, 7pm PDT – Breed or Bust
Sat Aug 27, 5pm PDT – Tips for Nervous Fliers
Sun, Aug 28, 2pm PDT – Lucía Fuentes
Sun, Aug 28, 5pm PDT – Tips for Nervous Fliers

TICKETS: Admission is free (donations gratefully accepted) but advance reservations are required. Proof of vaccination (including booster) and masks are required for in-person performance at Potrero Stage. Links for online viewing will be sent the day of the performance and can also be accessed through your PlayGround account at https://tickets.playground-sf.org (log in, click “home” for the main menu, then “tickets for upcoming performances”, select the proper show, and choose “watch”). If you have any questions, please contact the Box Office at boxoffice@playground-sf.org.  For more information about PlayGround’s Free-Play Festival, call (415) 992-6677 or visit https://playground-sf.org/freeplay.