PlayGround Company in the News September 2020

Read on to learn more about PlayGround Company Member and Alumni recent news, current happenings, and upcoming events while we prepare for the first Monday Night PlayGround of the season!

Company members Lyndsy Kail and Joseph Patrick O’Malley will marry on September 6th 2020!

San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s Free Shakespeare at Home production of King Lear continues through Sept 27, featuring PlayGround company member Melissa Ortiz as Regan. Saturdays at 7 pm, Sundays and Labor Day Monday at 4 pm. Find it at sfshakes.org or search for San Francisco Shakespeare Festival on YouTube.

Michael Barrett Austin was recently the musical guest on SF SHOTZ and is looking forward to being a part of the next “B.A.R.D.” (Bay Area Radio Drama) show at the beginning of October. He also continues to record and share one “Sequester Song” on social media every day, now more than 160 tunes!- follow the link on his website to the youtube channel.

Mary Baird is  going to be in a documentary about Ellen Clark Sargent and Aaron Sargent. You can find out more about this project here.  She is also busy doing readings with Thursday’s at Seven.

This fall, Rob Dario is going to hibernate in the pantry, be his own makers faire, and write his homage to the interactive text adventure game Zork: Making The Great Underground Empire Great Again.

Sarah Gasser has moved to Ithaca, New York for the rest of the pandemic.  While there she has been running performances, trainings, and classes on Zoom.

Norman Gee will be performing in a zoom reading Sept.25 & 26 of HAMLET’S GHOST by Neva Hutchinson through the Pear Theater, directed by fellow company member Louis Parnell.

The feature film that Amy Glazer recently directed, Beautiful Dreamer, finally had its world premiere (after SFIFF and other festivals were canceled) at the Method Fest in LA. The film was nominated for four awards and won three- Best Supporting Actor; Wendie Malick and Louis Ozawa and Best Director; Amy Glazer.

Don’t forget to watch PG company member Christian Haines‘ wonderful Green Show, also on the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival YouTube page.

Aaron Higareda is super excited to be included in this year’s PlayGround Writers Pool! He is also very excited and a little terrified to announce Aaron Higareda’s Dirty 30 Playwriting Project 10.22.2020! A zoom staged reading presentation of his full length farce YOU DON’T EVEN SPEAK SPANISH! and a 30th birthday and 10 year playwriting journey celebration to help him get into the M.F.A. playwriting program of his dreams. Visit his instagram account for the latest details @aaron.higareda.1022

Danielle Levin is starting the second and final year of her MFA in the Dramatic Arts Department at UC Davis. She is currently working on a piece in development written by (Playground alumn) Erin Bregman, and she’ll be (virtually) performing a one-woman reading of selections from BÉRÉNICE 1934–44: ​AN ACTRESS IN OCCUPIED PARIS for the New-York based organization The Workers Circle in October.

Alanna McFall is preparing a video for San Mateo Public Library’s October “Tales of Horror” hosted by HorrorAddicts.net Press. She will be reading a spooky selection from her debut paranormal novel The Traveling Triple-C Incorporeal Circus.

Julia McNeal just completed recording (live, in person, Together!, outdoors!) the crazily prescient, ESCAPED ALONE by Caryl Churchill as a radio play for the Magic Theatre with fellow actors included:  Elizabeth Benedict, Anne Darragh and Anne Hallinan, directed by Loretta Greco, with Sound by Jake Rodriguez.  The recording will be available in September, check here for details as they become available.

Ross Peter Nelson has nothing coming up this month, but he’d like to note that two of his cats will appear on the poster for an upcoming project in November.

Karen Offereins will be in a QUICKSAND COMEDY CLUB sketch show (Zoom) in early October, her third show with them since quarantine.

Erin Marie Panttaja’s play IF YOU HAVE TO GO THERE, based on her Monday night play AND YET will have a developmental podcast as part of City Lights’ Filament podcast series this month.

Yeah, Louis Parnell is “trying” to be less of a recluse in these stressful times. He was interviewed on FIRESIDE CHAT last week with Managing Director Susi Damilano of the San Francisco Playhouse. He will be directing a Zoomlet reading of a short play by Lynne Kaufman called A BROKEN STRING on Sept 14 for the SF Playhouse and will be performing in another zoom reading of HAMLET’S GHOST by Neva Hutchinson which is a reworking of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in which he will play Polonius as a benefit for the Pear Theatre, featuring fellow Company Member Norman Gee.

Stephanie Prentice officially joined the PlayGround Board, and is looking forward to co-hosting the upcoming PlayGround Gala!

Stacy Ross is currently framing pictures and taking long walks by the San Francisco Bay.

Amy Sass‘s Ragged Wing Ensemble is deep in the process of creating a new business & leadership model with wellness & equity at the center. We are taking time to explore and reinvent our practices and internal structures. We are taking big leaps while honoring a desire for slowness, depth and connection.

Rebecca Schweitzer has a new kitten, is reading all the books during quarantine and is in the process of developing a new podcast.

PlayGround Alum Cleavon Smith’s EASTLAKE LYRICS will be performed by Troy Rockett in the live, local, and safe production of Neighborhood Stories produced by Erin Merritt. The show, a tour of Oakland neighborhoods and a celebration of performing arts, runs Saturdays and Sundays 12-27 September.

Ken Sonkin’s directing projects have been put on hold until 2021 (FAKE COMEDY COLLECTIVE, ORGASMS AND OTHER LIES etc.)  He is currently in his sixteenth year at USF teaching Acting and Careers in Performance (online).

Jonathan Spector‘s audio play THE FLATS (co-written with Lauren Gunderson and PG company member Cleavon Smith) will premiere online at Aurora Theater in September. He was also recently selected as a 2020-2023 Core Writer at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis.

Eteya Trinidad has faced her fears and finally joined Instagram! You can follow her @eteyatrinidad for short poems and other thoughts.