PlayGround’s 25th Anniversary Season!

PlayGround, California’s leading playwright incubator and theatre community hub, has announced its twenty-fifth anniversary season, including the return of the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series at Berkeley Rep (26th year; third Mondays, October-March, beginning October 21, 2019) as well as the PlayGround Solo Performance Festival (3rd year; January 23-February 9, 2020) and the PlayGround Festival of New Works (24th year; May 7-June 14, 2020) at Potrero Stage. Highlighting this year’s PlayGround Festival is the Groundbreaker Series, two groundbreaking world premieres developed at previous festivals: Founding PlayGround playwright Garret Jon Groenveld’s DISBELIEF (May 21-31, 2020) and 2019-20 California Arts Council Artists in Community Resident Playwright Genevieve Jessee’s THE DIASPORA CYCLE (June 4-14, 2020), a co-production with Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.

Tickets are on sale for all 2019-20 performances and events. New this year, PlayGround is offering $25 PlayGround-Potrero Stage Memberships, providing a 50% discount off tickets to Monday Night PlayGround as well as more than a hundred performances each calendar year at Potrero Stage by leading new play developers and producers, including PlayGround, Crowded Fire, Golden Thread, Playwrights Foundation, Bread & Butter Theatre, Quantum Dragon Theatre, and more. To purchase a membership or individual tickets, visit https://tickets.playground-sf.org or call (415) 992-6677.

Festival Groundbreaker Series

Garret Jon Groenveld’s DISBELIEF is the story of Apollo’s gift to Cassandra, from her point of view, examining how women are perceived, controlled, and disbelieved (or dismissed). Groenveld’s scintillating language explores the parallels of belief in a higher power, with belief in a powerful man, versus a woman being able to be believed at all. The play was first developed through PlayGround’s Playwright Residency Program and the 2018 PlayGround Festival. The world premiere will be directed by Tracy Ward.

In the spirit of August Wilson’s The Pittsburgh Cycle, Genevieve Jessee’s THE DIASPORA CYCLE explores the African American experience through ten interwoven 10-minute plays depicting a saga of inextricable tradition, trauma and joy across continents and characters ranging from present-day United States to West Africa of a millennium past. Originally developed at the 2018 PlayGround Festival, the play is a PlayGround June Anne Baker Prize commission. The world premiere will be directed by Lauren Spencer.

These two groundbreaking plays are both ultimately about reclaiming history and the timely relevance of these stories to our own struggle for silenced voices to be heard. They also provide hope for the future of the American Theatre, for the bold new voices who, with PlayGround’s support, can create more transformative stories for audiences across the country.

Garret Jon Groenveld (Playwright, DISBELIEF) is a poet and playwright living in San Francisco, and a founding writer with PlayGround. An MFA in Poetry and an MA in Playwriting from San Francisco State University, Groenveld also studied Playwriting with Edward Albee at the University of Houston. His plays include Missives (PlayGround commission), The Hummingbirds (winner, Internationalists Global Playwriting Prize), and The Empty Nesters (PlayGround Festival, commercial tour), among others. His new play, Disbelief, based on the Cassandra myth, will premiere at the 24th annual PlayGround Festival of New Works next spring. A PlayGround Resident Playwright, Groenveld was recently honored at PlayGround’s Silver Jubilee for his artistic contributions over the past two-and-a-half decades.

Genevieve Jessee (Playwright, THE DIASPORA CYCLE) is a playwright based jointly in the San Francisco Bay Area and Puerto Rico. She received a B.A. degree in Theatre Arts from Dillard University of New Orleans, and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Boston University. Her work has been staged at PlayGround, The Source Festival, Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, San Francisco Fringe Festival, EXIT theatre, Those Women Productions, and the Festival de Marseille, France. She is the recipient of commissions from Planet Earth Arts and PlayGround. Her awards include the June Anne Baker Prize (2017) and Best of the San Francisco Fringe (2012). She was a playwriting fellow at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France for the Cultural Diaspora residency program of 2018. She is a 2019 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference semi-finalist for The Diaspora Cycle.

2019-20 PlayGround Company

PlayGround also recently announced its 2019-20 Company, including the Writers Pool, Resident Playwrights and Company of Actors, Directors, Designers, and Stage Managers. These 120+ artists will fuel PlayGround’s incubator programs over the next season, fostering the development of more than 150 original short and full-length plays.

The PlayGround 2019-20 Writers are: Ai, Linda Amayo-Hassan+, Lynn Aylward, Vonn Scott Bair, Rosalie Fay Barnes, Tom Bruett+, Madeleine Butler, Ron Campbell, Patricia Cotter+, Nara Dahlbacka, Rob Dario, Victoria Chong Der+, Victoria Evans Erville, Elizabeth Flanagan, Jerome Joseph Gentes+, Akaina Ghosh, Lauren Gorski+, Garret Jon Groenveld+, Tanya Grove, Sarah Haas, Karen Hartline, Sam Hurwitt, Tejahra Jacobs, Lisa Kang, Melissa Keith, Molly Olis Krost+, Brady Lea+, Meghan Maugeri, Alanna McFall+, Madeline Puccioni, Annette Roman, Ayelet Schrek, Rebecca Schweitzer, Nic Sommerfeld, Martha Soukup, Lisa Thompson, Addie Ulrey, Leela Velautham, Madison Wetzell, Christian Wilburn, James Yu, Maury Zeff
+ Resident Playwright

Members of the PlayGround 2019-20 Company are: Molly Aaronson-Gelb, Patrick Alparone, Liz Anderson*, Rinabeth Apostol*, Michael Asberry*, Michael Barrett Austin*, Mary Baird*, Aldo Billingslea*, Millie Brooks, Julia Brothers*, Nicole Apostol Bruno*, Lizzie Calogero*, Ron Campbell*, Joy Carlin*, Nancy Carlin*, Desdemona Chiang, Tessa Corrie, David Cramer*, Will Dao*, Anne Darragh*, Dodds Delzell*, Livia Gomes Demarchi*, Carolyn Doyle*, Nora el Samahy*, Rebecca Ennals, Britney Frazier*, Michael French, Sarah Gasser, Norman Gee*, Douglas B. Giorgis*, Amy Glazer , Cindy Goldfield*, BW Gonzalez*, Christian Haines*, Margo Hall*, Rosie Hallett*, Daryl Anthony Harper, Eric Fraisher Hayes*, Brian Herndon*, Lyndsy Kail*, Danielle Levin*, Jeffrey Lo, Gwen Loeb*, George Maguire*, Melanie Marshall, Julia McNeal*, Sam Misner*, Brady Morales-Woolery*, Lisa Morse*, Molly Noble*, Soren Oliver*, Joseph Patrick O’Malley*, Ely Sonny Orquiza, Melissa Ortiz*, Doyle Ott*, June Palladino*, Carla Pantoja*, Louis Parnell*, Jed Parsario*, Michael Phillis , Rebecca Pingree, Stephanie Prentice*, Virginia Reed, Cathleen Riddley*, Katja Rivera, Adrian Roberts*, Stacy Ross*, Adam Roy, Katie Rubin*, Lindsey Marie Schmeltzer, Robert Sicular*, M. Graham Smith, Ken Sonkin*, Lauren Spencer*, Teddy Spencer*, Howard Swain*, Jomar Tagatac*, Emilie Talbot*, Danielle Thys*, Jon Tracy , Mark Rafael Truitt*, Liam Vincent*, Maryssa Wanlass, Tracy Ward , Reggie D. White*, Aaron Wilton*, Elena Wright*
* Member, Actors’ Equity Association

PlayGround, California’s leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s (and now Los Angeles’) 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 200 early career playwrights, developing and staging more than 850 of their original short plays through the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned 77 new full-length plays by 49 of these writers through its Commissioning Initiative and, through the innovative New Play Production Fund, has directly facilitated the premiere of 30 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-four 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 Humana Festival, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, The Lark’s Playwrights’ Week, New York International Fringe Festival, and 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. Visit https://playground-sf.org for more information.

Potrero Stage is a 99-seat state-of-the-art performance space located in the heart of San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, operated by PlayGround, and serving as home to some of the Bay Area’s leading new play developers and producers, including PlayGround, Crowded Fire, Golden Thread, and Playwrights Foundation, among others. For more information, visit https://potrerostage.org.

2019-20 Season Calendar

Monday Night PlayGround
https://playground-sf.org/monday
October 21, 2019, 8pm @ Berkeley Rep (topic announcement: Oct 4)
November 25, 2019, 8pm @ Freight & Salvage (topic announcement: Nov 1)
December 16, 2019, 8pm @ Berkeley Rep (topic announcement: Nov 29)
January 20, 2020, 8pm @ Berkeley Rep (topic announcement: Jan 3)
February 17, 2020, 8pm @Berkeley Rep (topic announcement: Jan 31)
March 16, 2020, 8pm @Berkeley Rep (topic announcement: Feb 28)

PlayGround Solo Performance Festival
https://playground-sf.org/solofest
January 23-February 9, 2020 @ Potrero Stage (Thu-Sat at 8pm, Sun at 7pm)

PlayGround Festival of New Works
https://playground-sf.org/festival
May 7-June 14, 2020 @ Potrero Stage

Best of PlayGround 24
https://playground-sf.org/bestof
May 7-17, 2020 (Thu-Sat at 8pm, Sun at 7pm; Press Opening: May 9)

DISBELIEF by Garret Jon Groenveld
https://playground-sf.org/disbelief
May 21-31, 2020 (Thu-Sat at 8pm, Sun at 7pm; Press Opening: May 23)

THE DIASPORA CYCLE by Genevieve Jessee
https://playground-sf.org/diasporacycle
A PlayGround-Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Co-Production
June 4-14, 2020 (Thu-Sat at 8pm, Sun at 7pm; Press Opening: June 6)

Festival Staged Readings
https://playground-sf.org/festivalreadings
May 30, 2020, 4pm – Reading #1
May 31, 2020, 3pm – Reading #2
June 13, 2020, 4pm – Reading #3
June 14, 2020, 3pm – Reading #4