PlayGround Announces 2021-22 Associate Producers

Posted by on August 6, 2021

PlayGround announces four new leadership team members for their 28th season, ushering in new associate producers to assist with the company’s mission of incubating new playwrights. These associate producers will work closely with artistic staff to curate a season that reflects the community and its valued voices. This year’s Associate Producers are: Norman Gee (he/him), founder of Oakland Public Theatre; Jed Parsario (he/him), resident artist at Bindlestiff Studio; Stephanie Prentice (she/her), casting director for TheatreFirst in Berkeley; and Katja Rivera (she/her), a member of Bay Area theatres such as Shotgun Players and Latinx Mafia.

All PlayGround Company Members, these new associate producers are well familiar with PlayGround’s artistic efforts, needs, and historical legacy. During the 2021-2022 season, they will be working with PlayGround Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann & Associate Artistic Director Annie Stuart on the curation of PlayGround programs such as Writers Pool and Resident Playwright Program selections, monthly Monday Night Playground selections, the Playground Solo Fest and the Playground Festival, and general consultation on PlayGround artistic programs. This curatorial committee will help facilitate PlayGround’s ongoing commitment to building an equitable, diverse, and inclusive artistic community, reflective of the greater community in which we live and work.

The associate producers, each filling a one-year position with option for renewal, succeed Aldo Billingslea, who served as PlayGround’s first Associate Producer from 2019 to 2021. Aldo recently stepped down upon being named the new Chair of Santa Clara University’s Department of Theatre and Dance and remains a member of the PlayGround Company and Ambassadors.

2021-22 Associate Producers

Norman Gee (he/him) has enjoyed Bay Area Theater for years, acting, directing & teaching. Creating a different kind of Black Theatre, he founded Oakland Public Theatre to expand our notions of culture by encompassing the too often invisible presence of the African diaspora, reimagining plays from Shakespeare & Strindberg, to new works and beyond. As a Teaching Artist, Norman offers that perspective to students throughout the Bay in acting and playwriting. He steps into this new role as a PlayGround Associate Producer with a desire to continue broadening our community’s experience both onstage and throughout the Organization.

Jed Parsario (he/him) is an Oakland-based, TBA-nominated actor, and teaching artist. Not only is he a company member of PlayGround, Red Ladder, and a resident artist at Bindlestiff Studio, but he has also performed around the Bay with the likes of American Conservatory Theater, Magic Theater, and The San Jose Stage. Jed is excited to serve as an Associate Producer!

Stephanie Prentice (she/her) is a Bay Area native, and has been a proud AEA member for 20 years. She has been a PlayGround company member since 2015. She featured in Best of PlayGround 19 and 20, has performed in three full-length Festival of New Works plays, co-chaired the PG Ambassadors, and is currently serving her second year as a member of the Board of Directors. She is a graduate of the Santa Clara University Theatre and Dance program, where she taught as a member of the SCU voice faculty from 2005 – 2017. Stephanie also serves as Casting Associate for TheatreFirst in Berkeley, and is the Director of Patron Services. Most importantly, she is the proud mother of two wonderful kids.

Katja Rivera (she/her) studied theater at LACC Theatre Academy and Drama Studio London at Berkeley. Bay Area acting credits include: Shotgun Players, Magic Theatre, Theatre Rhinoceros, Center Rep. Directing credits include Shotgun Players, Douglas Morrison, CustomMade Theatre, RPE (Danville), SF Playground and TheatreFIRST. She is a proud member of AEA, Shotgun Players, SF Playground and Latinx Mafia.

PlayGround, California’s leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s (and now Los Angeles’) best new playwrights, including the monthly Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series, annual PlayGround Festival of New Works, full-length play commissions and support for the production of new plays by local playwrights through the New Play Production Fund. To date, PlayGround has supported over 250 early career playwrights, developing and staging more than 1000 of their original short plays through the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned 90 new full-length plays by 60 of these writers through its Commissioning Initiative and, through the innovative New Play Production Fund, has directly facilitated the premiere of 32 plays at theatres of every size, including three that have gone on to NYC and other major theater communities. More recently, PlayGround renovated and relaunched the former Thick House Theater in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill as Potrero Stage, a state-of-the-art center for new plays, home to PlayGround’s expanding artistic programs and some of the Bay Area’s most distinguished new play developers and producers. Over the past twenty-seven years, PlayGround has served to identify some of the most important new local voices for the theatre. 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, and The Lark’s Playwrights’ Week, among 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. Visit https://playground-sf.org for more information.