PlayGround Festival Staged Readings: A Look at Tomorrow’s Great Plays Today!
PlayGround has announced four bold, new plays that will receive professional developmental workshops and public staged readings live at Potrero Stage and simulcast as part of the 26th annual PlayGround Festival of New Works. The three-week festival (May 9-29) is the culmination and celebration of PlayGround’s yearly programming, cultivating exciting new voices for the American Stage, and features more than a dozen new short and full-length plays, from developmental readings to premiere presentations, by some of California’s most promising early-career playwrights. This year’s festival staged readings include: STARLIGHT by Christian Wilburn, directed by Claire Ganem (5/16); THE BRAMFORD by Lauren Gorski, directed by Susi Damilano (5/20); THE WINDOW AFFAIR by Anne Yumi Kobori, directed by Tessa Corrie (5/23); and NANAY by Molly Olis Krost, directed by Ely Sonny Orquiza (5/27). Admission is free for all festival programs (donations gratefully accepted) but advance reservations are required. For more information or to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/festivalreadings.
One of California’s preeminent new plays festivals and an annual tradition since 1997, the PlayGround Festival stands as a community celebration of the many new playwrights and new works PlayGround has incubated and championed this past season. Festival alumni are among the Bay Area’s most distinguished new playwrights, including five of the past nine Will Glickman Award winners for “excellence in playwriting”: Lauren Yee, Aaron Loeb, Jonathan Spector, Rachel Bublitz (whose play, Funny, Like An Abortion, is featured in this year’s festival) and Ruben Grijalva. Following the past two years online due to COVID-19 venue closures, PlayGround is excited to return to in-person performances at our home theater, Potrero Stage, while maintaining our commitment to accessibility in pricing and online viewing options.
ABOUT THE PLAYS/PLAYWRIGHTS
STARLIGHT by Christian Wilburn (May 16 @ 7PM PT)
A rare autoimmune disorder has forced Sasha to live most of her life in books, and in dreams. However, when a mysterious book called Starlight brings her dreams to life, and potentially gives her a destiny, reality and dreams blend into a story that explores the transcendent mystery of chronic illness.
Christian Wilburn, he/him, is a San Francisco based writer whose work blends the deeply personal and the fantastical. Christian has been working with PlayGround frequently over the past three years; being featured in Monday Night PlayGround, Best of PlayGround, and the PlayGround Playwright Residency Program. Christian thanks PlayGround for commissioning this piece based on his short play, Sasha and the Angelier, which won the People’s Choice Award for Best of PlayGround 2021. Christian is a graduate of Santa Clara University and holds an MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco.
THE BRAMFORD by Lauren Gorski (May 20 @ 7PM PT)
Through recreating the iconic horror Rosemary’s Baby under the magical roof of the Bramford apartment, neighbors Gloria and Betty unknowingly bring the characters of the novel–Rosemary, Guy, and Satan–to life. With this power, what else in the Bramford might be waiting to come to life?
Lauren Gorski, she/her, has a Master’s in Professional Writing with emphasis in Stage and Screen from the University of Southern California. She writes fiction, poetry, screenplays, and stageplays. Her fiction and poetry have been featured in “apt”, “Badlands”, “Jersey Devil Press”, “Underground Voices”, and elsewhere. Her plays have been performed for the Hollywood Fringe, PlayGround (including the Best of Festival), PianoFight’s ShortLived series, and more. She is a past playwright-in-residence with PlayGround San Francisco. She is also the Comics & Film Editor of Exposition Review, a multi-genre digital literary journal.
THE WINDOW AFFAIR by Anne Yumi Kobori (May 23 @ 7PM PT)
The Window Affair tells a story of art and love during a global pandemic, reimagining Shakespeare’s Romeo and Ophelia in a modern world. When a singer and poet begin to share words and music across neighboring fire escape, they discover both artistic inspiration and a long-awaited antidote to loneliness.
Anne Yumi Kobori, she/her, is a Japanese-American playwright, actor, producer, director, and teaching artist. As a director, she has worked with Utopia Theatre Project, EnActe Arts, Los Altos Youth Theatre, and SF Shakespeare Festival, where she spent 5 years as Education Program Manager. She has written multiple short plays: for production: THE ART OF SUFFRAGE (Best of PlayGround 25), NEW YEAR, COWARD’S FLAME, GIVE ME THE SKY (MondayNightPlayGround), SIMULATION (Pear Theatre), ROSES IN THE DESERT (Dragon Theatre) and THE DISAPPEARANCE OF BETTY LA ROSE (Neighborhood Stories). Her full-length plays SEEDS and EVERY DAY ALICE, and her adaptation of Chekhov’s THE SEAGULL have premiered with Utopia Theatre Project. Currently, Anne is a co-writer for Braided, a play exploring Native American liberation and Japanese American resilience, in development with Theatre of Yugen. Recent projects include Script Co-Conspirator for A.C.T.’s production of Neo Symposium, and the Pear Slices short play festival with Pear Theatre, where she is a Playwrights’ Guild member. BA Theatre Arts, summa cumlaude, Santa Clara University. www.anneyumikobori.com.
NANAY by Molly Olis Krost (May 27 @ 7PM PT)
Angela has arrived to congratulate her twin sister on her new baby but, instead finds Eve “cohabitating” with a Filipino vampire with an infamous hunger for all things fetus. Does Angela believe Eve’s claims that all is well with her new relationship?
Molly Olis Krost, they/she, is a Filipina Jewish playwright splitting their time between the Bay Area and Seattle. Their plays explore the constant collisions of the human experience: collisions with others, with our society, and within ourselves. They incorporate ritual and faith, in a variety of forms, to manifest the emotions that often exist beyond words. They love to blur the line between reality and the fantastical and all the creative possibilities that can create for the artists they collaborate with. Their play NANAY was a semi-finalist for the National Playwrights Conference and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Their play WHAT WE FOUND was a finalist for the National Jewish Play Contest and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival.
ABOUT PLAYGROUND
Founded in 1994 by Jim Kleinmann, Brighde Mullins and Denise Shama, PlayGround has grown into the Bay Area’s leading playwright incubator and theatre community hub, with a deep commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, helping to uplift and center artists from historically underrepresented communities. Over the past 28 years, PlayGround has supported more than 300 early-career playwrights, developing and staging over 1,000 of their original short plays through PlayGround’s signature programs, Monday Night PlayGround and the PlayGround Festival of New Works. PlayGround has also commissioned 90 new full-length plays by 60 of these writers through its Commissioning Initiative and has directly facilitated the premiere of 34 of those works through its innovative New Play Production Fund. Over the past 28 years, PlayGround has developed a unique model for identifying and nurturing the Bay Area’s best new writers, while helping them to build a significant body of original work and lasting connections with the artistic collaborators they need to know to ensure their success. PlayGround expanded to Los Angeles in 2012 and to NYC in 2021, and is launching PlayGround-Chicago this fall. For more information, visit https://playground-sf.org.
WHAT: As part of the 26th annual Festival of New Works, PlayGround presents four dynamic new plays-in-development as professionally-rehearsed staged readings. All performances are fully admission-free, donations graciously accepted, and presented in person at Potrero Stage and simulcast online with on-demand viewing through June 30. For more information and to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/festival/.
WHERE: Potrero Stage and simulcast online
WHEN:
May 26 @ 7pm PDT: STARLIGHT by Christian Wilburn, directed by Claire Ganem
May 20 @7pm PDT: THE BRAMFORD by Lauren Gorski, directed by Susi Damilano
May 23 @7pm PDT: THE WINDOW AFFAIR by Anne Yumi Kobori, directed by Tessa Corrie
May 27 @7pm PDT: NANAY by Molly Olis Krost, directed by Ely Sonny Orquiza
HOW: For more information or to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/festival/.