PlayGround Kicks off its 30th Season with MONDAY NIGHT PLAYGROUND “ORIGIN STORY”

“A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” – Marcus Garvey, political activist

PlayGround blasts into its 30th season of innovative new plays by taking you back to before the beginning! Join us for a new round of Monday Night PlayGround, featuring original short plays all inspired by the prompt “Origin Story”, Monday, October 16, 7pm PDT, live at Freight & Salvage and simulcast online. PlayGround’s sister companies, PlayGround LA, PlayGround NY, and PlayGround CH will present their own interpretations of the theme on October 9th, October 23rd, and October 30th respectively. As part of PlayGround’s commitment to radical accessibility, Monday Night PlayGround is admission-free (donations gratefully accepted). Advance reservations are required. For the complete schedule or to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/monday.

The 30th season of PlayGround’s celebrated Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series on third Mondays, Oct-Mar, will be once again held in-person this year, at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage* and live simulcast (October 16, 2023-March 18, 2024). Each month, PlayGround announces a topic and writers have just four-and-a-half days to generate their original ten-page script. Recent topics have included: “What the World Needs Now…”, “Grief and Hope for Planet Earth”, “Give and Take”, and “Keep Moving  Forward.” The top six scripts are matched with directors and a cast of leading local professionals and rehearsed for just ninety minutes on the day of the performance. Following a brief technical rehearsal to add sound and other design elements, the six short plays are performed as script-in-hand staged readings for an in-person and live-stream viewing audience on third Mondays, October through March. Audience members can also experience the thrill of being a producer through the monthly People’s Choice Awards, helping to determine which plays and playwrights go on for consideration in PlayGround’s annual short play showcase, Best of PlayGround. Advance reservations are required. Admission is free but donations are gratefully accepted. Masks are strongly recommended for in-person performance and attendees should be symptom-free and have no recent exposure to individuals with COVID. *November Monday Night Playground will be held in-person at Potrero Stage and live simulcast.

Why Free?

At the beginning of the pandemic in May 2020, PlayGround began streaming all of its live programs, increasing accessibility to artists and audiences not only in the Bay Area but across the globe. At the same time, PlayGround made the bold choice to offer all programs admission-free. Why free admission, particularly when so many arts organizations were struggling to stay afloat and every dollar is a critical resource to support artist compensation? We chose free admission because it furthered our commitment to radical accessibility, ensuring that no one would be turned away for lack of resources. And as many of the PlayGround artists began their journey with us as audience members, it also ensured that the future artists of PlayGround would not encounter barriers to their participation. Of course, we offer audiences the opportunity to make a donation when reserving their free tickets and we hope that you’ll consider doing so if you’re able, recognizing that your direct support makes it possible for us to continue providing fair and equitable wages for professional artists while sustaining our radical accessibility efforts for all. And, as always, we thank you for your generous support!

PlayGround’s 2023-24 Writers Pool, the thirty-six Bay Area-based writers competitively selected to participate in the monthly series, are: Daniel Baxter, Robyn Brooks, Nicole Apostol Bruno, Madeleine Butler, Jediah Craig, Cherielyn Ferguson, Elizabeth Flanagan, Ipsheeta Furtado, KT Frances Hartline, Sam Hurwitt, Tejahra Jacobs, Ruth Kirschner, Steve Koppman, Sarena Kuhn, Greg Lam, Jennifer Le Blanc, Kristy Lin Billuni, Justin P. Lopez, Mikee Loria, Daniel Martinez, Jr.+, Alanna McFall, Matthew Morishige+ , Richard Perez, Bridgette Dutta Portman+, Xinyuan Pu, Kimberly Ridgeway, George Rose, David Schweidel, Louel Senores, Stan Stone, Lisa Thompson, Mike Tuton, Kaz Valtchev, Michael Waterson, Christian Wilburn, and Maury Zeff.
+ Resident Playwright

Supporting PlayGround playwrights and the Monday Night series are the members of the PlayGround Company, representing some of the Bay Area’s leading directors, actors, designers, and stage managers. The 2023-24 PlayGround Company includes: Molly Aaronson-Gelb, Angel Adedokun, Patrick Alparone, Linda Amayo-Hassan, Liz Anderson, Rinabeth Apostol, Michael Asberry, Michael Barrett Austin, Mary Baird, April Ballesteros, Tanika Baptiste, Aldo Billingslea, Millie Brooks, Julia Brothers, Nicole Apostol Bruno, Lizzie Calogero, Ron Campbell, Joy Carlin, Nancy Carlin, Ben Chau-Chiu, Tessa Corrie, David Cramer, Will Dao, Anne Darragh, Roshni Datta, Khalia Davis, Natalia Delgado, Dodds Delzell, Livia Gomes Demarchi, Carolyn Doyle, Leticia Duarte, Nora el Samahy, Rebecca Ennals, Gisela Feied, Britney Frazier, Michael French, Claire Ganem, Sarah Gasser, Norman Gee, Douglas B. Giorgis, Linda Giron, Amy Glazer, Cindy Goldfield, BW Gonzalez, Gabriel Grilli, Rudy Guerrero, Rosie Hallett, Katherine Hamilton, Eric Fraisher Hayes, Brian Herndon, Monica Ho, Champagne Hughes, J Jha, Colin Johnson, Jennifer King, Dean Koya, Danielle Levin, Amy Lizardo, Jeffrey Lo, Gwen Loeb, George Maguire, Melanie Marshall, Alicia Mason, Leontyne Mbele-Mbong, Julia McNeal, Sam Misner, Brady Morales-Woolery, Lisa Morse, Khary L. Moye, Molly Noble, Joseph Patrick O’Malley, Karen Offereins, Annette Oliveira, Soren Oliver, Ely Sonny Orquiza, Tony Ortega, Doyle Ott, June Palladino, Carla Pantoja, Louis Parnell, Jed Parsario, Michael Phillis, Krystle Piamonte, Rebecca Pingree, Stephanie Prentice, Ezra Reaves, Virginia Reed, Cathleen Riddley, Kimberly Ridgeway, Katja Rivera, Adrian Roberts, Stacy Ross, Adam Roy, Katie Rubin, Patrick Russell, Miyoko Sakatani, Lindsey Marie Schmeltzer, Louel Senores, Robert Sicular, Jeunee Simon, M. Graham Smith, Ken Sonkin, Lauren Spencer, Teddy Spencer, Chris Steele, Howard Swain, Jomar Tagatac, Emilie Talbot, Danielle Thys, Isabel Anne To, Jon Tracy, Dane Troy, Mark Rafael Truitt, Liam Vincent, Ian Walker, Maryssa Wanlass, Tracy Ward, Reggie D. White, Christian Wilburn, Aaron Wilton, Elena Wright, and Hector Zavala.

PlayGround, a national leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s, Los Angeles’, New York’s, and Chicago’s 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 350 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-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, Glickman Awards (including 6 of the last 10), O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and New York International Fringe Festival, 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.

WHAT: PlayGround Kicks off its 30th Season with MONDAY NIGHT PLAYGROUND “ORIGIN STORY”

WHERE: Freight & Salvage, 2020 Addison St, Berkeley, CA & Simulcast Online

WHEN: Monday, October 16, 2023 at 7pm PDT               

Additional Season Dates:
November 20, 2023 7pm PT in-person at Freight & Salvage and simulcast via Vimeo Live
December 18, 2023 7pm PT in-person at Freight & Salvage and simulcast via Vimeo Live
January 15, 2024 7pm PT in-person at Freight & Salvage and simulcast via Vimeo Live
February 19, 2024 7pm PT in-person at Freight & Salvage and simulcast via Vimeo Live
March 18, 2024 7pm PT in-person at Freight & Salvage and simulcast via Vimeo Live

TICKETS: Admission is free (donations gratefully accepted) but advance reservations are required. To reserve tickets for in-person or online viewing, visit https://tickets.playground-sf.org.