PlayGround Writers Pool Goes National!
PlayGround, a premiere playwright incubator and theatre community hub, has created paid development opportunities for local playwrights in San Francisco since 1994 and Los Angeles since 2012… and, as of this October, now New York City! This latest expansion of PlayGround’s mission to support the development of new voices for the theatre, with a deep commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, expands the excellence of PlayGround programming to New York City-based emerging playwrights. PlayGround is now accepting applications to the inaugural PlayGround-NY writers pool, in addition to the writers pools for the San Francisco and Los Angeles companies. All three of PlayGround’s regional programs provide unique opportunities for the cultivation and development of early-career playwrights in partnership with leading professional directors, actors and theatres. Through the development of original short and full-length plays, PlayGround creates a microcosm of the evolving American Stage, supporting emerging playwrights’ experimentation and risk-taking, while helping them to hone their style and technique.
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, Sundance Festival, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and Bay Area Playwrights Festival, among others. Directors and actors participating in PlayGround are among some of the most distinguished theatre professionals, regularly working on leading local stages. The PlayGround Writers Pool has included such nationally-recognized writers as Lauren Yee, Aaron Loeb, Christopher Chen, Samantha Chanse, Geetha Reddy, Vincent Terrell Durham, Diana Burbano, and Jonathan Spector, among others.
Applications for the 2021-22 Writers Pool for PlayGround-SF, PlayGround-LA, and PlayGround-NY are now being accepted through June 30, 2021. Members of the PlayGround Writers Pool respond to a prompt released on a Friday morning, and have just four-and-a-half days to write an original ten-minute play inspired by it. Of the submitted scripts, 6 get chosen for a fully-staged, partly-teched, script-in-hand reading led by leading local directors and actors, one Monday a month from October to March. Writers not chosen in any given month can participate in PlayGround Recess, with the opportunity to hear their work read aloud by professional actors and receive peer feedback in a private setting. BIPOC, trans/gender non-conforming & differently-abled writers are encouraged to apply!
Submissions are due by 11:59pm (EDT for NY, PDT for SF & LA) on Wednesday, June 30, 2021. For more information and complete guidelines, visit:
https://playground-sf.org/submit