PlayGround Zoom Fest Returns!
Following the success of last year’s first-ever PlayGround Zoom Fest, PlayGround’s 2021 Festival of New Works returns to the digital realm with even more radical accessibility! The three-week online Festival (May 10-30) will feature the digital premieres of PERFECT by Jonathan Luskin (he/him) and SAPIENCE by Diana Burbano (she/her), the YOUNG PLAYWRIGHTS PROJECT: a full evening of short plays by the Bay Area’s best young dramatists, and BEST OF PLAYGROUND 25, featuring the premiere of the top plays from this year’s Monday Night PlayGround series (and the 25th iteration of the annual shorts festival!). The festival will also include developmental staged readings (to be announced) and a Zoom Town Hall (“PlayGround & the American Theatre: Part 2”). For the first time, all of PlayGround’s Festival programming will be fully admission-free (donations gratefully accepted), welcoming theater lovers near and far to join in the celebration. For more information and to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/zoomfest.
Originally developed by PlayGround and further developed through Laguna Playhouse and UC Davis’ Catalyst: A Theatre Think Tank, Jonathan Luskin’s Perfect is a dive into the brave new world of genetic engineering. Three interwoven stories, six actors, and ten characters explore the boundless desire for flawless children and the impossibility of objectively defining what that means. A cell biologist and her brilliant, wheelchair-using son discover their research is being used to indiscriminately clean disabilities from the human genome. An athlete, genetically engineered for speed and strength, is driven by his father to be a star, despite his disinterest in athletics. And a young couple, paralyzed by the uncertainty that comes with natural conception, turns to an app to design the “perfect” child.
Jonathan Luskin graduated from Cornell University with a B.A. in political science and a B.S. in electrical engineering, and studied traditional animation at California Institute of the Arts and Sheridan College International School of Animation. Directed by M. Graham Smith, Perfect features Danny Gomez as “Garry”, Julia McNeal as “Charlie/ALISA”, Jordan Covington as “Chase”, Stephanie Prentice as “Morgan/Danny”, Aaron Wilton as “Mark/Sonny”, and Elena Wright as “Madeleine/Jeanine”. Perfect is presented with support from producing partner Catalyst: a Theatre Think Tank and plays opening weekend of the Festival, Saturday the 15th and Sunday the 16th of May at 7pm PST.
Written for Center Theatre Group’s Writers Workshop 18-19 and originally developed by PlayGround, Sapience was further developed in San Diego Repertory’s Latinx Play Festival. Diana Burbano’s Sapience follows Elsa, a doctor of primatology on the autism spectrum, who has hidden this fact from the world. She is currently working with an orangutan named Wookie, who Elsa hopes to prove is capable of learning human speech. Elsa’s 12-year-old nephew, AJ, is also on the Autism spectrum. He is “locked-in”— completely non-verbal. However, thanks to AJ’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.
Sapience is an exploration of communication gaps and the meaning of “Normal.” Elsa is Latinx, an immigrant, and undiagnosed autistic. Among the immigrant community it is imperative to fit in with American norms. Immigrants who don’t remain on the outside and have little access to the avenues of excellence that allow some Americans to succeed based on the myth of “up by your bootstraps.” Both Elsa, who has the ability to “pass” for normal, and AJ who is nonverbal and whose behavior can be seen as disruptive, have difficulty communicating in any spoken language.
Diana Burbano, a Colombian immigrant, is an Equity actor, a playwright focusing on female protagonists and social issues, and a teaching artist at South Coast Repertory and Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble. Directed by Katja Rivera, Sapience features Jen Anaya as Elsa, Franco Martinez as AJ, Livia Gomes Demarchi as Miri, Christian Haines as Jason , with one cast member TBA. Sapience is presented with producing partners Theatre Cultura and Latinx Mafia and runs Saturday the 22nd and Sunday the 23rd of May at 7pm PST.
Through the annual Howard & Lenore Klein Foundation Young Playwrights Project, PlayGround offers free tickets to Bay Area high school students in tandem with free playwriting masterclasses and the annual Young Playwrights Contest open to aspiring young dramatists residing in any of the 9 Bay Area counties. This year’s young artists are invited to submit a short play inspired by this year’s theme of “Justice”, to be reviewed by a PlayGround panel (submission deadline: April 12). The competitively selected top plays will be professionally staged and performed as a full evening of short plays on Friday May 28th at 7pm PST.
The festival will also feature significant new full-length plays in development, competitively selected from new plays by PlayGround alumni and receiving their first public staged reading as a critical next step in their moving closer to production (both Perfect and Sapience began their journey with PlayGround Festival readings). Readings, to be announced, will take place on Mondays and Fridays at 7pm PST, May 10, May 14, May 17 and May 21.
Closing the Festival is PlayGround’s 25th Best of PlayGround, a highly anticipated annual program spotlighting the most artistically dynamic short plays from this year’s Monday Night PlayGround program. Competitively selected by a panel of PlayGround company, board members, and artistic staff, the Best of often highlights the preeminent rising voices of Bay Area theater and beyond! This satisfying evening of bite-sized theater livestreams Saturday the 29th and Sunday the 23rd of May at 7pm PST.
PlayGround, the Bay Area’s leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’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 250 local playwrights in the development and staging of more than 950 original short plays and 80 new full-length plays, with 5 more commissions currently in development. PlayGround also operates Potrero Stage, a state-of-the-art 99-seat black box theatre in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, home to some of the Bay Area’s leading new play developers and producers, including PlayGround, Crowded Fire, Golden Thread, and Playwrights Foundation. For more information, visit https://playground-sf.org.
For more information, visit https://playground-sf.org/zoomfest or call (415) 992-6677.
PLAYGROUND ZOOM FEST
CALENDAR
WHAT: PlayGround presents the second-ever PlayGround Zoom Fest, a three-week digital festival of new works via Zoom live stream, May 10-30, 2021. The festival marks twenty-five years of PlayGround’s celebrated Best of PlayGround showcase, and features two digital world premieres, four TBA developmental readings, the Young Playwrights Project, a Zoom Town Hall, and Best of PlayGround 25!
WHERE: via Zoom live stream (advance registration is required)
WHEN: all programs begin at 7pm PT
Week 1:
Mon, May 10 – First Developmental Reading
Fri, May 14 – Second Developmental Reading
Sat May 15 – Perfect Opening
Sun May 16 – Perfect Closing
Week 2:
Mon May 17 – Third Developmental Reading
Fri May 21 – Fourth Developmental Reading
Sat May 22 – Sapience Opening
Sun May 23 – Sapience Closing
Week 3:
Mon May 24 – PlayGround Zoom Town Hall (“PlayGround & the American Theatre: Part 2”)
Fri May 28 – Young Playwrights Project
Sat May 29 – Best of PlayGround 25 Opening
Sun May 30 – Best of PlayGround 25 Closing
TICKETS: Tickets are admission-free (donations gratefully accepted). Advance reservations required (one reservation = 1 zoom link good for up to 2 devices). For more information about the PlayGround Zoom Fest, call (415) 992-6677 or visit https://playground-sf.org/zoomfest. Tickets can be reserved online at http://bit.ly/pgzoomfestboxoffice.