Company in the News May-2024

See what PlayGround Writers, Company Members, and Alumni are up to this May!

Rebecca Pingree will ring in the final performance of SF Shakes on Tour As You Like It at the San Francisco Public Library May 11th at 2pm, perform in the west coast premiere of A Thousand Natural Shocks at Potrero Stage May 18th and 19th at 7pm, and finally celebrate Memorial Day performing in Analog Theatre’s Mask Monday series at Standard Deviant Brewing in the Mission at 7:30pm on May 27th. All three shows are free to the public! Come on down!

Allie Costa just booked a film – stay tuned! Her play Wolves Change Rivers, which started at PlayGround-LA, was selected for Roustabout Theatre’s Celebration of New Writers and will have a staged reading May 27th at Scripps Ranch Theatre in San Diego. Blue Christmas, which also began at PlayGround-LA, was recently produced in Dallas. Before We Burn was part of the Earth Day Expo in Manhattan. Pit Stop was recently produced in Atlanta and will be in New York City May 15th-19th for Gi60: The International One Minute Theatre Festival. Learn more on Allie’s website and IMDb.

Cindy Goldfield was recently named Interim Artistic Director for 42nd Street Moon! Read about it here.

Jennifer King is directing The Paris Effect by Laura Jane Bailey at Marin Shakespeare Company as part of their One for All Solo Series. The performance will be on May 25. Get tickets now!

Elena Wright will be in The Book Club Play at RossValley Players in May/ June and in Twelfth Night at SPARC in July/August.

Jon Gentry is currently understudying the world premiere of The Body’s Midnight at Boston Court Pasadena, a co-production with IAMA Theatre Company.

Michael Barrett Austin will be appearing in Apertures of Love in Times of War at the PlayGround Festival May 11-12. Get tickets here!

Jonathan Spector will make his Broadway debut this fall with Eureka Day, at Manhattan Theater Club’s Friedman Theater, directed by Tony Award-winner Anna D. Shapiro. His new play Best Available will have its first production in May at Shotgun Players in Berkeley, directed by Jon Tracy.

Champagne Hughes invites you to (NO MORE) adjustments, a New Black Voices Workshop Production! A Black, queer, neurodivergent woman, and practitioner of Drama Therapy, Hughes has created a theatrical experience as dynamic and vibrant as she is – an emotionally evocative new work that uses therapeutic techniques, call-and-response, song and dance, and plenty of humor to connect with and celebrate all the different kinds of Blackness within our community. Performing May 1-5 at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. Tickets are Pay-What-You-Choose and start at just $20! Proceeds directly support LHT’s mission of uplifting Black artists, telling Black stories, and creating (and holding) space for our community.

Annette Amelia Oliveira narrated Sci-Fi/Fantasy stories A Pedra and Travelers’ Tales from the End of the World for the Lightspeed Magazine podcast. Annette also narrated Horror/Fantasy stories My Containment and There are three children jumping over a can outside a bodega for Nightmare Magazine’s podcast.

Ross Peter Nelson will be directing the Raven’s Feather production of Meghan Brown’s play What Happened While Hero Was Dead. Performances run May 9-19 in Helena, Montana. Learn more here.

Molly Noble is directing Lynne Kaufman’s Extreme Acts at the Marsh SF on May 11-June 2 and Lisa Thompson’s Mack and Mimi Encounter Totality at “Best of PlayGround” on May 25 and 26. Molly will be playing Mrs. L in Bailey Jordan Garcia’s reading of Crazy Jezebels on May 20 during the PlayGround Festival.

Greg Lam has the short play written for SF Playground in the Pear Theatre’s Pear Slices festival, May 17-June 2. Juliet’s Post Credits Scene will be one of the eight plays in that festival. Learn more here. His full length play will then be produced at The Pear for it’s world premiere. Chaplin & Keaton on the Set of Limelight will be produced June 27-July 21.

Diana Simonzadeh is currently working on a Lookingglass Artistic Development Intensive for new comedic play Iraq, But Funny by Lookingglass Theatre ensemble member, Atra Asdou! Recently she played a lead in Applause For a Cause 2024 feature film, Necro 101. In Necro 101 Diana had a blast playing lead, Dr. Mabel Mrytlewood-Sinclair a professor of Necromancy. All proceeds to Necro 101 will go to the Lou and Jean Malnati Brain Tumor Institute of Northwestern Hospital. Necro 101 is scheduled to premiere May 31 and then off to the festival circuit!

Alexia Jasmene is working on a May 5 staged reading of An Oxford Man by Else Went at South Coast Repertory Playwright Festival. Learn more here.

Wayne Wong appears as Durdles in Lamplighters’ upcoming production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, playing in May in Hayward and SF. Get tickets here.

Alex Shafer is in Taylor Swift’s new video, “Fortnight.” In the laboratory scene, Alex is one of the scientists in the background.

Zoe Chien is a recent company member who is thrilled to be in the May 18-19 festival premiere of A Thousand Natural Shocks by Jacob Marx Rice. Directed by Tracy Ward, and featuring Jeunee Simon, Maryssa Wanlass, Catherine Castellanos and Rebecca Pingree, this show is a must-see! Read about it here.

Nancy Carlin is playing Ma in Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song at Marin Theater Company in Mill Valley, May 9-June 2. Buy tickets now.

Kimberly Ridgeway is playing the titular role in Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s at City Light Theatre Company (San Jose, CA), directed by Aldo Bllingslea. The show runs May 16-June 9.

Leontyne Mbele-Mbong is helping to produce and will appear in The Last Days of Judas Isacariot, a fundraiser event, presented by the Actors’ Reading Collective and featuring a cast of 20 of Bay Area’s favorite actors. Set in a time-bending, seriocomically imagined world between Heaven and Hell, Stephen Adly Guirgis’s play is a philosophical meditation on the conflict between divine mercy and human free will that takes a close look at the eternal damnation of the Bible’s most notorious sinner. The event will be on Sat, May 4 at 7pm in San Rafael.

Cherielyn Ferguson’s short play, Backyard, is part of The Pear Theatre’s Pear Slices 2024 Festival. Running in Mountain View the weekends of May 17, May 24, and May 31, the festival features writers from the theatre’s playwrights guild. Find out about all the plays in the festival (look for two other PG-SF pool writers) by going here.

Andrew Joseph Perez (and his pseudonym Julio Maxwell) have just broken through the 75-titles benchmark in his audiobook narration journey after starting only in 2021! You can find both narrator names on Audible or wherever you get your audiobooks.

Roshni Datta is playing the role of Shakuntala, Young Nazia, and Nikhat in Mahesh Dattani’s play Where Did I Leave my Purdah? The play is directed by Rita Bhatia and presented by Bay Area Drama Company. The drama is in English and is based in India and Pakistan. The story revolves around Nazia Sahiba, a veteran theatre actor, and her complex relationships with those closest to her. Spanning four decades, the play moves seamlessly, between the past and the present. Get tickets here.

Mark Anthony Valejo is directing Colossal by Andrew Hinderaker at East Los Angeles College. It’s a story about love and football, played in four quarters, and follows an epic story of a spinal cord injured football star recounting the days leading up to his accident. Opens May 10th and runs until May 19 (except American Mother’s Day). This production promises to leave you with countless abstract and stunning images and movement pieces. More info here.

MJ Kang’s play, James & Eddie, developed during her time with the Road Theatre’s Under Construction 4 will have a staged reading on May 13th at 7:30pm at the Road Theater in North Hollywood. Learn more here.

Jediah Craig’s full length play Yes, No, Willing to Consider will be read/performed via Zoom on June 3rd at 7:30pm as part of the PCSF 2024 Reading Series. Register for free prior to viewing to receive the Zoom link.