PlayGround Zoom Fest New Play Readings!
One of the most vulnerable parts of any writer’s process is the tenuous moment when a draft moves from a semi-private experience, shared intimately with perhaps a few trusted confidants (lovers and friends, maybe a discerning colleague or two), to the highly anticipated and often jitter-inducing “developmental reading”. Having spent so long with their characters only in the confines of their imagination, suddenly a writer has the chance to hear a team of creative collaborators dissect, reassemble, and in a nearly Promethean task breathe life into the words of the fledgling play. PlayGround has always rooted itself in the development of bold new voices for the stage, so to say that the four developmental readings scheduled as part of this year’s Zoom Fest should not be missed is an understatement. Four unique plays with vast variance in style and tone are in essence opening up the sacred privacy of their rehearsal rooms and giving you a coveted peek into the process of making theater. For the four playwrights and their newly minted drafts — in order of presentation, Translations by Victoria Chong Der (5/25 8pm PT), Sapience by Diana Burbano (5/29 8pm PT), Burst by Rachel Bublitz (6/1 8pm PT), and The Nesting Instinct by Tom Bruett (6/5 8pm PT) — you, the audience, are the key ingredient that hones the play even closer to its final form.
As we continue to process the seeming juxtaposition of creating live theater via streaming media, of gathering together even while physically apart, audience members now more than ever have a chance to get up close and personal with four vital new plays in development. We asked our playwrights a few questions about their plays, their goals for Zoom Fest, and their lives in the wake of Shelter-In-Place, but since brevity is the soul of wit and they’ve spent plenty of time writing full-length plays, we asked them to answer each question in one sentence only!
What inspired your play?
Victoria Chong Der: This play is dedicated to my mother who passed away in December 2019, she was stubborn and infuriating until the end and yet, I still love her the most.
Diana Burbano: An NPR story about an Orangutan that wanted to speak.
Rachel Bublitz: I was inspired to write Burst after seeing Aaron Loeb’s Ideation at the San Francisco Playhouse.
Tom Bruett: My play was inspired by the PlayGround-Planet Earth Arts prompt, “Borders, Islands and Walls,” that I’ve since adapted into a full-length.
What do you hope to learn from this Zoom Fest reading?
Victoria Chong Der: This play is in its first draft so really, I’d love to know what people are drawn to!
Diana Burbano: How do the nonverbal characters communicate with the “real” world?
Rachel Bublitz: This is a brand new draft of Burst, so I’m hoping to learn if my adjustments to the script are working.
Tom Bruett: I’m hoping to learn which characters people side with through this reading.
What has been your favorite soothing/coping activity during Shelter-In-Place?
Victoria Chong Der: I find sewing masks to be really soothing: the thrum of the machine, a tangible useful product that I can hold, with the added bonus of all the memories of my mother teaching me to sew.
Diana Burbano: Animal Crossing, Schitts Creek, watching my two orange cats try and destroy the house, Nachos.
Rachel Bublitz: Baking, so much baking; pies, cookies, bread, muffins, cake, and one delicious lemon tart!
Tom Bruett: My favorite soothing/coping activity has been a very long anticipated and much procrastinated return to running.
What do you want audiences to know about your play?
Victoria Chong Der: I’ve talked a lot about grieving so just want to assure everyone that this is indeed a quirky dramedy about how to love.
Diana Burbano: Women can sometimes hide their autism diagnosis to their emotional cost.
Rachel Bublitz: Burst is a fast-paced exciting one-scene play that I am thrilled to be sharing at PlayGround’s Zoom Fest.
Tom Bruett: While there are lots of issues touched on in this play like climate change, grief, love and parenthood, this is a story about the choices we all make and how those choices can impact others in ways we’ll never know.
Theater is, in part, a process of physics: we know that until observed a particle lives in a state of quantum uncertainty. It is the act of witnessing a thing that in part decides its outcome. Never is that seemingly alchemical act of transformation more potent than in a developmental reading. Whether you are a veteran PlayGround audience member, someone just looking to fill the Shelter-In-Place void, or a theater producer looking for the fresh new voices of the American Theater future, these four plays in development are sure to entertain and even inspire. See full synopses and bios for each play and playwright below, and reserve your tickets now at https://playground-sf.org/zoomfest/.
Translations by Victoria Chong Der, Monday 5/25 @ 8PM PT
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Viola has followed her mother, Tian, into the afterlife, determined to bring her back to the living. When Death finds Viola, she disguises herself as Tian, lest Death decide to take her life in addition to her mother’s. Viola strikes a deal with Death; she will get his daughter, Olivia to love him if he grants her two lives back to earth. Will Viola be able to convince a teenage girl to love her father and what will Viola realize her mother has sacrificed, when Tian’s past reveals itself to Viola? Translations is a play about the language of love when everyone is speaking a different language.
Victoria Chong Der has written for several Bay Area companies, including theaters and game companies. She is a resident playwright of the Playwrights Foundation and PlayGround, received a 2014 PlayGround Fellowship, and has a BA in Creative Writing from Oberlin College. She is deeply grateful to PlayGround for giving her the confidence to make story-telling a full-time gig and who has supported her in her last five full-length plays.
Sapience by Diana Burbano, Friday 5/29 @ 8PM PT
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Elsa, a doctor of primatology, is on the autism spectrum and has successfully hidden this fact from the world. She is currently working with an orangutan named Wookie, who Elsa hopes to prove is capable of speaking a human language. Elsa’s 12 year old nephew, A.J., is also on the Autism spectrum. He is “Locked in”- completely non-verbal. However, thanks to A.J.’s so called “disability” he and Wookie joyously discover that they can communicate with each other. This explodes Elsa’s carefully constructed, science based worldview and forces her to drop the mask of normality she has worn her whole life
Diana Burbano, a Colombian immigrant, is a playwright, an Equity actor, and a teaching artist at South Coast Repertory and Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble. Diana’s play Ghosts of Bogota, recently won the Nu Voices festival at Actors Theatre of Charlotte. Ghosts was commissioned and debuted at Alter Theater in the Bay Area in Feb 2020. She was in Center Theatre Group’s 2018-19 Writers Workshop cohort.
Burst by Rachel Bublitz, Monday 6/1 @ 8PM PT
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Sarah Boyd built Tactix from scratch using nothing but fortitude. She now sits poised to save the planet. If only she can persevere through a needling interview, a lawsuit, and the waffling of her CTO. It’s a heavy load. Sarah knows she’s the only one able to bear it.
Rachel Bublitz is a playwright and mom. She received the 2020 Will Glickman Award for Z Space’s world premiere production of her play “Ripped.” Other plays include “Burst” (developed with PlayGround, Utah Shakespeare Festival, MACH 33 Festival from Caltech and Pasadena Playhouse, and more), “The Night Witches” (commissioned and produced by Egyptian YouTheatre, published with Dramatic Publishing), and “Let’s Fix Andy” (developed at the Wyoming Theater Festival, finalist for the 2018 Bay Area Playwrights Festival). She was awarded the June Anne Baker Prize from PlayGround in 2015. When she isn’t writing, she’s chasing after her two viking-like kids. RachelBublitz.com.
The Nesting Instinct by Tom Bruett, Friday 6/5 @ 8PM PT
TICKETS
Juliana and her brother Mateo have conflicting views about what to do with their inherited childhood home that’s built in a flood zone in Florida. A pair of blue-footed boobies wrestle with the power of the instinctual urge to have a chick on an island that is shrinking by the day. Three stories intertwine in surprising ways to explore parenthood, identity and the steadfast power of home in a world that is changing drastically by the minute.
Tom Bruett is a director and playwright. His plays have been seen at PianoFight, SF Fringe, PCSF, ReGroup Theatre (LA), Lakeshore Players and Players’ Theatre (NYC) and Best of PlayGround 23. He’s currently under commission at PlayGround. He was a finalist for the Humana Festival Heideman Award. As a lyricist he was selected for the Johnny Mercer Songwriting Institute through ASCAP and Northwestern. At NCTC he has directed Le Switch, Cardboard Piano, Birds of a Feather and You’ll Catch Flies.
For more information about this year’s Zoom Fest full-length developmental readings or to reserve free tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/festivalreadings. For the complete Zoom Fest schedule of events, visit https://playground-sf.org/zoomfest.