Company in the News July 2023

See what PlayGround-SF Writers, Company Members and Alumni are up to this July!

Catch Jed Parsario in SF Mime Troupe’s BREAKDOWN touring Northern California. Opens July 4th weekend-closes September, Memorial Day Weekday Weekend. Tickets available here.

Kimberly Ridgeway has four exciting upcoming projects! She is performing in The Dignity Circle, Central Works Theatre (Berkeley, CA), June 24 – July 23, 2023, https://centralworks.org/the-dignity-circle/ and is directing The Birds at Altarena Playhouse (Alameda, CA), August 11 – September 10, 2023, https://www.altarena.org/2023-season-announcement/the-birds. Kimberly is also directing Misery at Palo Alto Players (Palo Alto, CA), January 19 – February 4, 2024, https://paplayers.org/event/misery/ and Unpacking In P’Town at New Conservatory Theatre Center (San Francisco, CA), March 1 – 31, 2024, https://nctcsf.org/event/unpacking-in-ptown/

The Creators Lab is SFBATCO’s incubation space for the development of original theatrical works by emerging creatives. This 8-week-long program is a creative space for developing concepts or initial drafts of theatrical works. PlayGround’s own Bacilio Mendez II and his piece “girl/LOST/found” were both selected for this year’s Creators Lab. In “girl/LOST/found” we meet Chris and Carlos. They were brought together through a 12-step group for men recovering from meth addiction and are a happy couple until Carlos wants to start a family. Given their considerable age gap, Chris is adamantly against it, but when Carlos gives him an ultimatum, Chris relents. After Carlos dies suddenly, Chris resents having to raise their adopted daughter Yesenia on his own and quickly succumbs to his vices. More information on the Creators Lab here: https://www.sfbatco.org/creators-lab. Tickets to the 2023 Celebration and Showing on Sunday, July 9th here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/34898/production/1161919.

Louis Parnell is the Associate Director of A CHORUS LINE at the San Francisco Playhouse. It opens June 28 and plays through Sept 9. Tickets and more information available here. Also, he will be reading a script entitled “girl/LOST/found” by Bacillio Mendez II on July 9 as part of the SFBATCO Creator’s Lab.

Gwen Loeb has made the (possibly insane) decision to start a new nonprofit! She’s bringing together her years leading environmental & social justice nonprofits with her time working with all of YOU! World Builders Institute is developing entertainment that deepens public understanding of global solutions. In other words: saving the world with stories! Check it out: www.wbistories.org

The Network Effects Theater Company is hosting our first table read in July in Emeryville. Interested in participating? Contact Ipsheeta Furtado at ipsheeta@nfxtheater.com for more info!

GG Grilli is finalizing edits on the short film TOGETHER APART, which he wrote and directed with artists in the U.S., Brazil, and Kenya. For more information, visit http://gggrilli.com/

Jennifer Le Blanc directed Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson at SPARC Theater. Starring Elena Wright*, Emilie Talbot*, Mary Ann Rodgers, Radhika Rao, and Jake Arky. Runs Thursday-Sunday nights at 7:30 at Darcie Kent Winery in Livermore. Tickets available here.

Mary Baird is currently part of ARC (Actors Reading Collective). She did Shakespeare and the Zombie Apocalypse of 1519. This July, Mary will be at the Marine Shakespeare Theatre new space and read The Ferryman and The Children. Most of the time Mary is seeing wonderful theatre in the Bay Area.

Robert Sicular, fresh from the PlayGround Festival of New Works, is off to play Sir Toby Belch in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” at Island Stage Left on San Juan Island in Washington. Rehearsals begin June 20th with performances July 20 through August 20th. Come on up! Tickets available here.

Kristy Lin Billuni will facilitate Left Coast Theatre Company’s FREE Playwriting Workshop, 6/4-8/20. LCTC’s mission is to develop and produce new LGBTQ+ works, and one of the best ways to do that is to provide a place where playwrights and playwrights-to-be can have pages read, exchange constructive feedback, and learn different methodologies of feedback.

Maury Zeff‘s full-length play MERCHANT OF STRATFORD, which explores the theory that Shakespeare may have been a criminal as well as a playwright, was selected for Renaissance Theatre’s Emerging Artist program in Mansfield, OH. More info available here.

Emilie Talbot will be appearing alongside Elena Wright in SILENT SKY directed by Jennifer LeBlanc at SPARC Shakespeare-the-Vineyard, June 22-July 9. Tickets available here.

Michael Barrett Austin just closed the run of ‘Chinglish’ at SF Playhouse.

Norman Gee delightedly returns to Livermore this summer, in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING with Sparc’s Shakespeare in the Vineyard. He just finished the France tour of Word for Word’s production of HOME by George Saunders. Founder of Oakland Public Theater, a PlayGround Incubator company, Norman creates a ‘different kind of Black Theater,” expanding cultural notions to encompass often invisible roles of African-Americans. Look for The www.baldwincentennialproject.com, coming soon!

Jonathan Spector‘s THIS MUCH I KNOW will have its UK premiere at London’s Hampstead Theater in December and EUREKA DAY will have its German-language premiere at Austria’s National Theater (Burgtheater) in Vienna, opening in September and running in rep for 10 months.

Barbara Anderson‘s short play “Sorry” will be presented by Pegasus this fall. Barbara was accepted into the Sewanee Writers conference in July.