Innovator Incubator
The PlayGround Innovator Incubator is a multi-year intensive incubation program to support theatrical innovation and the launch of new innovative theatrical production companies. In November/December each year, PlayGround will present the Innovators Showcase, a three-week new works showcase, featuring world premiere productions and numerous other new play developmental activities and staged readings highlighting the work of Innovator Incubator participants.
2024 INNOVATORS SHOWCASE
November 4-24, 2024
Potrero Stage & Simulcast
Admission: Free
TICKETS READ THE PRESS RELEASE
The showcase will include:
UNPLANNED, an anthology of shorts about reproductive health
Network Effects Theater Company
Nov 4 at 7pm, Nov 5 at & 7pm
If there’s a night to get together for Reproductive Rights, it’s this November 5th. (And 4th.) Join us as we explore reproductive health through the lens of four short plays written by four writers and expressed through an ensemble local cast. The anthology Unplanned will raise money for organizations serving family planning across the country, and on election night 2024, we’ll broadcast the returns from the Potrero Stage screen. Either way, it’ll be a night best spent together!
FOUR SEASONS POLITICAL LANDSCAPING; readings of four plays focusing on politics, civil rights, and governance
Oakland Public Theater
Nov 15 at 7pm, Nov 16 at 2pm
Four Seasons Political Landscaping is a collection of staged readings of short plays from local writers: “Mz. Alberta” by Richard Talavera, “The Stick and the Ball” by Neil Harkins, “The Cherry Tree” by Kristy Lin Billuni, and “Judicial Process” by Reg Clay.
LONGING FOR LONGANISA: Or, I fell in love with the butcher
The Chikahan Company
Nov 17 at 5pm
The Chikahan Company presents a staged reading of LONGING FOR LONGANISA: Or, I fell in love with the butcher at Seafood Cit, a play with music by Reed Flores, commissioned by Theatre Rhinoceros.
DESERT WIND, the story of a Yemenite Jewish couple, caught in the violence, of the Houthi uprising in Yemen.
The American Jewish Theatre
Nov 23 at 7pm, Nov 24 at 2pm & 7pm
In this Houthi takeover, the husband is thrown into prison, while his wife is forced to flee through the endless desert, on foot, because they are Jews. In the delirium of his torture, he reaches out to her, and with her soul, she connects with him. A story that’s never been told, Desert Wind is an in-depth experience of how Jews are treated by radical Islamic regimes.
Admission is free for all events (donations are gratefully accepted and directly support the Innovator Incubator companies) and advance reservations recommended. Streaming registrants will have on-demand access to the broadcast for one week following the live performance. To view the live stream/on-demand broadcast, log in at https://tickets.playground-sf.org, click the “home” tab, select “tickets for upcoming performances” or “live events”, find your show and click the “watch” button underneath the show title/image. For other questions, please contact the box office at boxoffice@playground-sf.org. The 2024 Innovators Showcase is made possible through the direct support of PlayGround and PlayGround’s many generous donors.
2024 INNOVATOR INCUBATOR PARTICIPANTS
Congrats to our Innovator Incubator Class of 2024. Read below to learn about the selected companies, leadership teams, missions, upcoming projects, and how you can follow them and support their work. All Innovator Incubator projects are fiscally sponsored by PlayGround (Federal ID 94-3336399) and contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
The American Jewish Theatre
Analog Theatre
The Chikahan Company
House Theater
Latinx Mafia
Network Effects Theater Company
Oakland Public Theater
Poltergeist Theatre Project
THE AMERICAN JEWISH THEATRE
Leadership Team: Stephanie Liss, RebbeSoul/Bruce Burger, Elisheva Herrera
The American Jewish Theatre’s mission is to bring little known, rarely told, stories of Jews, to the world. Based on true stories, these plays serve as a mirror into the lives, and souls, of Jews. Our target audience is global, because the plays we are developing and producing are all global in scope. Our vision for this theatre is to reach out, not only to Jews, but to ALL people. The works of The American Jewish Theatre are all a deep dive into our world, and what it is like to be a Jew – and what it isn’t. It is a view of the non-Jewish world, and its effect on Jews – how we live, and how we survive. Our vision is for people to look deep inside, examining their attitudes toward and perceptions of Jews and Jewish history.
ANALOG THEATRE
Leadership Team: Jed Parsario, Rebecca Pingree, Elissa Beth Stebbins
Analog is an experimental theater company, specializing in tangible, physical, old-school theater techniques. Our main producing activity is our Mask Monday series: on select Monday nights we take over a San Francisco brewery, engage a lineup of local original guest artists, and present a work-in-progress variety show, free to the public, hosted by mask characters inspired by the tradition of commedia dell’arte. Our mission is to create multidisciplinary, devised performances that celebrate old-school, low-tech theatre magic. We invite our audiences to join us in collective acts of imagination using mask, mime, puppetry, clowning, live music, improvisation and more. We create platforms that invest in our richly diverse community of Bay Area artists by providing paid opportunities to develop their experimental works-in-progress, and we organize events that welcome the public to witness the growth of theatrical art and artists in real time.
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THE CHIKAHAN COMPANY
Leadership Team: Alan S. Quismorio, Krystle Piamonte, Ely Sonny Orquiza
Exploring Filipinx history, politics, psychology, and diaspora through the craft of theatre and the performing arts, ChikaCo strives to develop the unique voices of and uplift the robust Filipinx narratives and artistries, and advocate its influence to the American theatre. They aim to reclaim and to reveal the multifaceted experiences of the Filipinx community in the San Francisco Bay Area. The vision is to amplify the complex and dynamic narratives that have long been pushed to the margins and to actively challenge the stereotypes about our kababayan (people), our kuwento (story), and our kasaysayan (history).
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HOUSE THEATER
Leadership Team: Sandra Cruze, Kevin Michael Moran, Saer Black, William Warren
House Theater will use our voices and stories to speak for those who cannot. We will provide a platform to raise awareness for members of society who have been historically marginalized: women of all colors and races, the LGBT community, and particularly those with disabilities. Whether young, old, impoverished, disenfranchised or invisible, their stories matter. At House Theater we will fight to find them, write them and share them. It is our promise to offer a safe haven where all are welcome to witness, contemplate, question and delve into affairs of the heart. We will present original works that will grapple with issues of society and themes that not only entertain, but resonate with the audience to bring hope, change and acceptance in a world that often does not.
LATINX MAFIA
Leadership Team: Hector Zavala
The Latinx Mafia was founded to empower and support Latinx teatristas by reclaiming, demystifying and recreating Latinx representation in theatre/media. They aim to ensure that Latinx representation in theatre and media radically and accurately embraces historically marginalized communities including but not limited to: the LGBTQ+ community, indigenous and Afro-Latinx people, differently-able folx, migrants regardless of immigration status, and the many linguistic backgrounds in Latin America.
NETWORK EFFECTS THEATER COMPANY
Leadership Team: Ipsheeta Furtado, Mike Tuton
“Make passive impossible”
Network Effects Theater Company excavates the themes of today’s tech industry. By exploring the unconsidered effects of new technology–through its creation, its investors, its culture, and its end users–we can reverse the passivity of a public made numb to its effects.
OAKLAND PUBLIC THEATER
Leadership Team: Norman Gee, Natalie Rich, Richard Talavera, Jake Fong
Oakland Public Theater creates a ‘different kind of Black Theater’, expanding notions of culture to encompass often the invisible roles of African-Americans & others. OPT gives old stories a multicultural face: a Strindberg ancestral fantasy shifted to Africa; a Filipina immigrant trapped in the secretive world of Ibsen; actual people of color in Shakespeare’s foreign lands (& referencing the long history of Africans in England). OPT also features new works, celebrating things like complex families, intellectual love affairs, heroism, tragedy, engaging histories -from OUR perspective, and yet often surprisingly familiar. The goal is to make established theater more accessible to a wider range of community, while sharing with traditional audiences some insight into both the nuance and universality of our diverse community members. Oakland Public Theater will use the Baldwin Centennial Project to revive the organization, develop staff & kickstart the company’s next era.
POLTERGEIST THEATRE PROJECT
Leadership Team: Britt Lauer, Brooke Jennings, Caroline Portante, Chris Steele AKA Polly Amber Ross, Giselle Boustani-Fontenele, Jesse Annette Koehn, Lavale-William Davis AKA Coco Buttah, Linda Maria Girón, Ling Lee, Mey Lee, Sgt. Die Wies
“Theatre that follows you home.”
Poltergeist’s mission is to reclaim Queer narratives through performance processes that dismantle toxic cultural norms, viscerally immerse audiences, and celebrate the innovation and liberation of Queer folx. Honoring San Francisco’s strong tradition of revolutionary art that ignites the flame of cultural and societal progress, Poltergeist creates radically queer, feminist, intrinsically participatory theater. Whether highlighting work by new artists or subverting and re-framing a problematic public domain play to create a brand new adaptation, Poltergeist seeks to normalize and centralize Other narratives. Focusing on the tenets of inclusivity, representation, and accessibility, Poltergeist seeks to remind this city of its deep roots in queer art.
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