Company in the News October-2025
See what PlayGround-SF Writers and Company Members are up to this October!
Acting Retreat | Winter Session – Applications Open Now! January 19–24, 2026. Mexico City Early Bird Special: Apply before October 15, 2025 and enjoy $400 off. Apply: hechaleproductions.com/actingretreat. Together with PlayGround, we’re bringing actors from around the world to Mexico City this January,2026 for an Acting Retreat unlike anything else. This isn’t just training. It’s an awakening. It’s stepping into a new landscape, immersing yourself in Mexico’s vibrant art and culture, and sharing a week of discovery with teachers and artists who see theatre as a transformative force. Program Lead: Héctor Zavala. Lead teachers: Monica Sanchez, Marcia Aguilar Kailian, Reynaldo Piniella, Tesse Rose Corrie, Marcelo Pereira, Anahí Dávila, and Terezina Vital. What’s Included: 6 nights in a 4-star hotel in the heart of Mexico City, 40+ hours of workshops and classes, Breakfast and lunch included daily, 3 guided tours of Mexico’s cultural landmarks, Live performances & Theatre shows, Ground transportation included throughout the program. More information available here!
Melina Cohen-Bramwell’s world premiere play Please Don’t Slow Me Down opens Halloween and runs through November 15. About the play: Benji Tullman, a bipolar, Bay-Area-born millennial—and the physical embodiment of his cyclical moods—are having one last, manic hurrah. Over the course of one wild night, they wind up at a rave on the site of his former elementary school, Chaverim Jewish Day School, and at a crossroads that will determine the course of Benji’s future. (It’s a comedy!). Directed by Lana Richards, with sound design by Michael Kelly, starring Dom Refuerzo, Gabriela Canales, and featuring a host of other Bay Area talent; this show will run for 2 weeks at Little Boxes in SF, with 3rd weekend pop-up in Oakland at Space 1308. The show is still fundraising. If you’re so moved, please donate to the fundraising campaign linked here. And, if you want to party for a good cause, come to the Fund-Raver at El Rio (also linked)! It’ll be dancing, face painting, and other madness, to a soundtrack curated by DJ Spy Hapa, all for $15 cover that will help bring @please_dontslowmedown to life!This show was first workshopped as part of the PlayGround Free-Play Festival. Having the community there for the premiere would be a beautiful full circle! Donate here! Fund-raver at El Rio. Follow IG: @please_dontslowmedown
Annette Amelia Oliveira has two new audiobooks posting on Audible.com. On September 30, her rendition of Somebody is Walking on Your Grave by Mariana Enriquez will be available. Annette narrated one of the stories in Good and Evil and Other Stories by Samanta Schweblin, published September 16. In October, Annette will Perform in ENOUGH 2025 a series of young people’s plays on the subject of gun violence produced by the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
Kimberly Ridgeway is directing The Wisdom of Eve at Altarena Playhouse (Alameda, CA). The show runs October 24 – November 23, 2025. More information available here!
Lisa Morse is taking on the title role of Mary Jane in Actors’ Reading Collective’s production of Amy Herzog’s Tony nominated play, MARY JANE. Performances will be at the Magic Theatre Nov 6th-30th and other cast members include Stacy Ross, Danielle Levin, Leontyne Mbele Mbong and Anna Takayo. More information available here!
Kimberly Ridgeway and Richard Perez, PlayGround-SF Writers Pool members, present SNOWBOUND: A HOLIDAY PLAY, a new work commissioned by Town Hall Theatre (Lafayette, CA), premieres December 6, 2025, and runs through December 20, 2025. More information available here!
Julia Brothers will be at Florida Rep doing Sister Aloysius Beauvier in John Patrick Shanley’s DOUBT in October/November. It is a very meaningful job because her parents met doing theatre, and stopped acting when three kids were born. Her father went back to it after he retired and performed several times at Florida Rep before he died. “This one’s for you, Dadurn!” More information available here!
Louis Parnell will be appearing in NOISES OFF at the San Francisco Playhouse September 25th through November 8th, 2025. For tickets and info: SFPLAYHOUSE.ORG or call (425)677-9596.
Jonathan Spector’s Off-Broadway debut of THIS MUCH I KNOW runs until October 19th at 59 E. 59 in New York. His play EUREKA DAY will be the 3rd most-produced play in the country, during the ‘25-’26 season.
Jediah Craig won the 2025 William Faulkner Literary Prize for their play Mimosa.
Maury Zeff’s full length play DADA TEEN MUSICAL: THE PLAY is opening October 18 at Central Works (Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Avenue) and will run until November 23. The play is a comedy about three teenagers putting on a Dadaist version of “The Sound of Music.” These characters were originally conceived in a PlayGround class ten years ago. The play stars PlayGround’s own Zoe Chien as hyper-ambitious mean girl Annabel. About the play: Annabel is 17. She is the only high school student in the world whose Harvard application is an act of rebellion (she comes from a Yale family). When she hatches a scheme to do a Dadaist version of The Sound of Music to round out her college application, she unleashes chaos into that raging hellscape of social anarchy: high school. More information available here!
Carolyn Doyle will perform with the SF Mime Troupe Youth Theater Project as it joins 48 communities nationwide for ENOUGH! Presenting six urgent new plays by teen writers confronting gun violence. October 6th, 2025. More information available here!
Michael Barrett Austin will be appearing in the musical Once at Berkeley Playhouse in early 2026. Tickets available here!
Eiko Moon-Yamamoto has been offered a place to study with The Society of American Fight Directors at The Magic Theatre in October spearheaded by Ely Sonny Orquiza, Dir. of Education and Community Programs at The Magic.
Norman Gee is Artistic Director of Oakland Public Theater (OPT), and Associate Producer with PlayGround-SF where he regularly directs. Norman also acts with companies including A.C.T., SF-Shakes, San Jose Stage, Livermore Shakes /SPARC & SF Mime Troupe. Last year Gee produced OPT’s INVENTORY/James Baldwin Abroad, celebrating Baldwin’s centennial, a final project with recently deceased playwright Richard Talavera. There is a memorial honoring Richard at the Mission Cultural Center in SF on Oct.26. In November Norman will perform in My Obsession with HamletMachine at Dance Mission, and possibly a new work with Word For Word at ZSpace-SF in Spring 2026. More information available here!
Wayne Wong will appear in an evening of short plays on gun violence by teen playwrights, hosted by SF Mime Troupe. Monday, Oct 6, 6pm, 855 Treat, SF. More information available here!
Danielle Levin will join the cast of Actors’ Reading Collective’s MARY JANE taking place at the Magic Theatre at Fort Mason from November 6 – 30. More information available here!
River Bermudez Sanders will be working as the Assistant Choreographer for Oakland Theatre Project’s production of Cabaret, opening November 23rd and running through December 14th. Tickets available here!
Bridgette Dutta Portman’s full-length play PILGRIMAGE, co-written with Humaira Ghilzai, will have its world premiere at Z Space in a coproduction with Golden Thread, October 27-November 9, 2025. Michelle Talgarow will direct. PILGRIMAGE is the story of five Muslim American women who embark on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and the secrets, rivalries, and old wounds that put their faith and relationships to the test. More information available here!
Alanna McFall has made it to Round 2 of Theatre Awesome’s “WeirdStock” new play competition. She will compete in the live “PitchSlam” event on Thursday, October 2nd, as eight playwrights pitch their new weird shows to an audience who will vote on which one should move forward in the competition. Tickets available here!
Ciera Eis is directing “Last West: Roadsongs for Dorothea Lange” by Tess Taylor at Sonoma Valley Museum of Art this Fall. Performances run Nov 7-9 and Dec 4-7 at 1p/5p. LAST WEST is an intimate new play/ digitally immersive exhibition about legendary Great Depression Era photographer Dorothea Lange. This 55min piece asks us to revisit Lange’s visual record of migrancy, climate change and the painful legacy of Japanese Internment to help us more deeply understand our present. Register to join here!