PlayGround Announces Theatre Heroes for September 18th Gala
PlayGround has announced its PlayGround Heroes, three individuals/organizations who have made a notable impact on PlayGround and the PlayGround community over the past three decades, to be honored at the One PlayGround Gala. PlayGround’s annual fundraiser will take place in-person and online on Monday evening, September 18 at San Francisco’s Potrero Stage, Los Angeles’ Broadwater Plunge, Chicago’s Theater Wit, and NYC’s The Producers Club, as well as at satellite locations across the country. They are: 17 year-long PlayGround funder The Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation; 2008 June Anne Baker prize-winning playwright Lauren Yee; and legendary Bay-Area director, actor, and long-time PlayGround company member Joy Carlin. Past honorees have included Annie Stuart, Peggy Haas and Garret Jon Groenveld. Co-hosted by David Cramer, Scott Gryder, Emily Kuroda, Cathleen Riddley, Wiley Naman Strasser, Rebbekah Vega-Romero, and William Warren, the gala marks thirty years of PlayGround’s award-winning new play and playwright incubator programs. It will feature a four-course gourmet meal, artist testimonials, and performances by artists from around the country, utilizing PlayGround’s well-honed hybrid model of both in-person and live-streamed performance. General tickets are $250 with three host level options: Host – $1,000 (includes 2 host-level tickets & recognition on the host committee), Table Host – $5,000 (includes a table of 8 plus recognition on the host committee), and Event Host – $10,000 (includes up to 10 host-level tickets plus recognition on the host committee) with all proceeds benefiting PlayGround’s playwright incubator programs.
For more information or to purchase tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/benefit.
ABOUT THE HONOREES
The Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation operates in honor of the unwavering commitment to the Bay Area embodied by its namesake, Phyllis Canon Wattis. Her vision helped shape the arts community in San Francisco to be one of daring and cutting edge endeavors. Mrs. Wattis’ granddaughter, Carlie Wilmans, has helmed the board of directors alongside her mother and Phyllis’ daughter, Carol Casey, who also sits on the board. Their dedication to honoring Phyllis’ support for the arts remains as strong today as ever. The foundation is committed to preserving the creative spirit of the Bay Area by supporting local working artists and the organizations that help to promote and sustain their artistic practice.The Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation has played a key role in PlayGround’s growth and development, serving as one of the initial funders of PlayGround’s commissioning program, its innovative New Play Production program (through which PlayGround facilitated more than a dozen world premieres by PlayGround playwright alumni in partnership with theatres across the Bay Area), and providing critical sustaining support over the past four years during the COVID pandemic and post-pandemic periods through the foundation’s Legacy Grants program.
Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band premiered at South Coast Repertory, subsequent productions at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, City Theatre, Merrimack Rep, Signature Theatre, Victory Gardens, and Jungle Theater/Theater Mu. Her play The Great Leap has been produced at the Denver Center, Steppenwolf, Seattle Repertory, Atlantic Theater, Guthrie Theater, American Conservatory Theater, Arts Club, InterAct Theatre, Portland Center Stage, and Asolo Rep. Honors include the Doris Duke Artists Award, Whiting Award, Steinberg/ATCA Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award, June Anne Baker Prize, Horton Foote Prize, Kesselring Prize, Primus Prize, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton, and the #1 and #2 plays on the 2017 Kilroys List. She’s a Residency 5 playwright at Signature Theatre, New Dramatists member, Ma-Yi Writers Lab member, and Playwrights Realm alumni playwright. She was featured in the PlayGround Writers Pool in 2007 and in Best of PlayGround in 2008. Current commissions include Arena Stage/Second Stage, Geffen Playhouse, Signature Theatre, South Coast Repertory. TV credits: Pachinko (Apple), Soundtrack (Netflix), Interior Chinatown (Hulu), Billions (Showtime), The Sterling Affairs (FX). She has developed pilots for Netflix and Apple. BA: Yale. MFA: UCSD. laurenyee.com
Joy Carlin is an actor, director and teacher at A.C.T. since 1969 (she served as its Associate Artistic Director from 1987 – 1992). From 1981-1984, she was an Actor and Resident Director at Berkeley Rep and served as its Interim Artistic Director from 1983-1984. She most recently acted in Marin Theatre Company’s MARJORIE PRIME and THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE and has directed at most Bay Area Theatres. She has been a PlayGround company member as an actor and director for the past 20 years. Over her long career, she has directed 53 plays and acted in 57. She can be seen on screen as The Lady On The Plane in Woody Allen’s BLUE JASMINE. Joy’s many honors include 18 Bay Area Critics’ Circle awards for acting and directing, and the Barbara Bladen Porter award for continued excellence in acting and directing.
ABOUT PLAYGROUND
PlayGround, California’s leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the best new playwrights in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago 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 300 early career playwrights, developing and staging more than 1,500 of their original short plays through the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned 100 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 36 plays at theatres of every size, including three that have gone on to NYC and other major theater communities. Most 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-nine 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.