PlayGround’s 2nd Annual “Best of the Best” of PlayGround

PlayGround is thrilled to announce the lineup for PlayGround’s 2nd Annual Best of the Best of PlayGround. This unique showcase is a culmination of the 2023-24 Monday Night seasons hosted in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. The line-up includes Bessie in Medias Res by Robyn Brooks (San Francisco), Love Language of Origin by Michael P. Adams (Los Angeles), Jie Jie by Howard Ho (New York), and Mycelium by Juliet Kang Huneke (Chicago). Each of these four plays had already been named as one of six “Best of PlayGround” plays in their home city, “Best of the Best” recognizes the single most outstanding play in each city’s season. This year’s festival will be performed live at Potrero Stage and simulcast on Saturday, June 1, 2024 at 7 pm PT. Admission for the event is free (donations gratefully accepted). Get tickets at https://tickets.playground-sf.org.

Best of the Best of PlayGround is part of the Second Annual One PlayGround Festival, a multi-day festival and conference that is dedicated to celebrating the national PlayGround community (SF, LA, NYC, and Chicago). The event features artist panels, workshops, and performances, live at Potrero Stage and simulcast. The festival runs May 31-June 2, 2024 and immediately follows PlayGround’s three-week Festival of New Works.

PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS

Bessie in Medias Res by Robyn Brooks
Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey reunite in the Underworld.

Love Language of Origin by Michael P. Adams
An adult spelling bee competition leads to an exploration of feelings between two contestants.

Jie Jie by Howard Ho
On the heels of winning his Oscar for Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan hopes to visit the ghost of Oppenheimer at Berkeley, but instead gets a different supernatural encounter.

Mycelium by Juliet Kang Huneke
Two thoughtful mushrooms encounter a woman in crisis.

Robyn Brooks (Bessie in Medias Res), she/her, M.F.A., Creative Writing/Poetry, and M.F.A., Creative Writing/Playwriting, author of the poetry chapbook, “venus in retrograde” (Finishing Line Press, 2015), is a poet, playwright, and director. Her plays have been staged/read at Berkeley Repertory Theatre; Tennessee Women’s Theater Project; Theatre of Yugen; Theatre Rhinoceros; Los Angeles Women’s Theater Project; Potrero Stage; and other venues. She has directed several of her plays. A playwright for SF PlayGround’s Writers Pool 2007-2013 and 2023-2024, Brooks is SF PlayGround’s November 2023 People’s Choice Award winner, and a selected playwright for Cimientos 2024, a play development program for playwrights, through IATI Theater, New York.

Michael P. Adams (Love Language of Origin), he/him, is a playwright, actor, director, and producer. His plays have been produced in Los Angeles, Memphis, Albuquerque, Spokane, and Tucson, among others. Michael is a member of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights and part of the PlayGround-LA writers’ pool. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Jose State University.

Howard Ho (Jie Jie), he/him, is a playwright and composer. His play Reset was produced at Moving Arts and was an O’Neill Finalist. Where I’m From was a Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival Finalist, was featured in Center Theatre Group’s Community Stories, and is being developed into a musical. His musical analysis Youtube channel (youtube.com/HowardHoMusic) has 120,000 subscribers and was recognized by Lin-Manuel Miranda. His sound design has earned him Ovation and SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle nominations. He’s been published in American Theatre Magazine and the LA Times. He holds degrees from UCLA and USC. Instagram: @howardwho

Juliet Kang Huneke (Mycelium), she/her, is a playwright and performer who is passionate about theatre that is larger than life. Juliet graduated from Northwestern University in 2022. Most recently, she was awarded the ReImagine: New Plays in TYA grant to develop her new play for young audiences, Hannah And Halmoni Save The World! Other writing credits include: Mechanicals (production, Impostors Theater Co Footholds Vol. 4), Centerville New Jersey Has A Problem With Trout (production, Vertigo Productions), Home For The Summer (workshop, American Music Theatre Project), and The Wild (workshop, Jewish Theatre Ensemble). When she’s not acting or writing, Juliet teaches silly theatre classes at Chicago Children’s Theatre.

Why Free?

PlayGround has made all programs admission-free in furtherance of our commitment to radical accessibility. If you are able, we hope that you’ll consider donating with your free ticket reservation, 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.

PlayGround, a leading national 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.