PlayGround’s 31st Season Writers Pool, Performance Schedule & More!

PlayGround, a leading national playwright incubator and theatre community hub, is pleased to share plans for its 30th anniversary season. The season announcement coincides with the release of the 2024-25 Writers Pools, 144 early-career playwrights in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, who will participate in PlayGround’s signature incubator program, Monday Night PlayGround, developing more than 600 new short plays this season of which 144 will be staged by the four communities over the course of 24 public events, all performed in-person and simulcast under a first-in-the-nation SAG-AFTRA agreement. PlayGround has also announced the 12 playwright alumni selected for this year’s Resident Playwrights Program, including five playwrights under commission and representing all four regions. The 30th Anniversary Season will feature more than 100 public performances of new works by PlayGround playwrights, ranging from fringe-style full productions to a Hitchcock-inspired holiday show, and from new solo performance to developmental staged readings and premieres of bold new full-length plays. Taken altogether, the PlayGround 30th Anniversary Season represents the nation’s largest celebration of new playwrights and new works and stands as a true celebration of the vitality and promise of the American Theatre.

The 30th anniversary season kicks off with the annual Free-Play Festival, a three-week fringe-style festival of new works by California artists, running August 9-25, 2024 at Potrero Stage: PlayGround Center for New Plays. On September 16, PlayGround will celebrate its 30th Anniversary with simultaneous gala parties in San Francisco, Los Angeles, NYC and Chicago, and hosted by 30 distinguished alumni from the past 30 years. Monday Night PlayGround begins October 14 with LA’s season opener at the Broadwater Second Stage and continues through April 7 with the final Chicago performance at Theater Wit.

In November, PlayGround highlights new works by members of the 6th annual Innovator Incubator cohort as part of the Innovators Showcase, November 4-24, 2024. December 6-15, PlayGround brings back its uproarious and chilling “twisted” holiday show, A Very Hitchcock Christmas, featuring an evening of short holiday-inspired works adapted from some of Hitchcock’s most famous films, including Psycho, Stranger on a Train, Rope, and more. And January 24-February 9, PlayGround presents the 8th annual Solo Performance Festival, featuring 9 new solo shows by California artists.

Following the conclusion of the Monday Night series, PlayGround presents Best of PlayGround, a celebration of the top new playwrights and works from the season, in Los Angeles (April 14), New York (April 28), Chicago (May 5) and San Francisco (May 24-25), as well as the annual PlayGround Festival of New Works, featuring developmental staged readings and premieres of six bold new full-length plays and short works by top high school dramatists. The season officially wraps up with the 3rd annual One PlayGround Festival, a 2-½ day festival and conference bringing together the national PlayGround community for workshops, panels, and performances, May 30-June 1, 2025.

Over the course of the 30th anniversary season, PlayGround will engage more than 500 leading local actors, directors, designers and stage managers to help realize and bring to life nearly 200 short and full-length plays by PlayGround’s Writers Pools, Resident Playwrights, Alumni and affiliated artists.

2024-25 PlayGround Company

PlayGround also recently announced its 2024-25 Company, including the Writers Pool, Resident Playwrights and Artist Company. These 160+ 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 2024-25 Writers Pool includes: Linda Ayres-Frederick, Tanika Baptiste, Daniel Baxter, Nico Bocalan, Robyn Brooks, Madeleine Butler, Melina Cohen-Bramwell, Jediah Craig, rob dario, Laura Domingo, Elizabeth Flanagan, Reed Flores, Antonio Greene, Garret Groenveld, KT Frances Hartline, Grace Hoffman, Everett Holland, Christine C. Hsu, Carl Johnson, Ruth Kirschner, Sarena Kuhn, Greg Lam, Jennifer Le Blanc, Kristy Lin Billuni, Daniel Martinez Jr., Richard Perez, Bridgette Portman, Kimberly Ridgeway, George Rose, Louel Señores, Alexis Standridge, Stan Stone, Lisa Gaye Thompson, Kaz Valtchev, Livian Yeh, Maury Zeff.

2024-25 Resident Playwrights are Michael Adams, Anthony Anello, Robyn Brooks, Bailey Garcia, Garret Groenveld,Juliet Kang Huneke, Karissa Murrell Myers, Lyra Nalan, Jacob Rice, Kimberly Ridgeway, Louel Señores, Christian Wilburn.

Members of the PlayGround Company are: Molly Aaronson-Gelb, Angel Adedokun, Patrick Alparone, Linda Amayo-Hassan, Liz Anderson, Rinabeth Apostol, Michael Asberry, Michael Barrett Austin, Mary Baird, April Ballesteros, Tanika Baptiste, Aldo Billingslea, Julia Brothers, Nicole Apostol Bruno, Lizzie Calogero, Ron Campbell, Nancy Carlin, Joy Carlin, Ben Chau-Chiu, Zoe Chien, Tessa Corrie, David Cramer, Will Dao, Anne Darragh, Roshni Datta, Khalia Davis, Natalia Delgado, Dodds Delzell, Livia Gomes Demarchi, Carolyn Doyle, Leticia Duarte, Nora el Samahy, Rebecca Ennals, Gisela Feied, Britney Frazier, Michael French, Claire Ganem, Sarah Gasser, Norman Gee, Douglas B. Giorgis, Linda Giron, Amy Glazer, Cindy Goldfield, BW Gonzalez, Gabriel Grilli, Rudy Guerrero, Karina Gutierrez, Rosie Hallett, Katherine Hamilton, Eric Fraisher Hayes, Brian Herndon, Champagne Hughes, J Jha, Colin Johnson, Jennifer King, Danielle Levin, Amy Lizardo, Jeffrey Lo, Gwen Loeb, George Maguire, Melanie Marshall, Alicia Mason, Leontyne Mbele-Mbong, Julia McNeal, Sam Misner, Brady Morales-Woolery, Lisa Morse, Khary L. Moye, Molly Noble, Karen Offereins, Annette Oliveira, Soren Oliver, Ely Sonny Orquiza, Tony Ortega, Doyle Ott, June Palladino, Carla Pantoja, Louis Parnell, Jed Parsario, Michael Phillis, Krystle Piamonte, Rebecca Pingree, Stephanie Prentice, Ezra Reaves, Virginia Reed, Cathleen Riddley, Kimberly Ridgeway, Katja Rivera, Adrian Roberts, Stacy Ross, Adam Roy, Katie Rubin, Patrick Russell, Miyoko Sakatani, Louel Senores, Robert Sicular, Dave Sikula, Jeunee Simon, M. Graham Smith, Ken Sonkin, Lauren Spencer, Teddy Spencer, Chris Steele, Howard Swain, Jomar Tagatac, Emilie Talbot, Danielle Thys, Isabel Anne To, Jon Tracy, Dane Troy, Mark Rafael Truitt, Liam Vincent, Ian Walker, Maryssa Wanlass, Tracy Ward, Reggie D. White, Christian Wilburn, Wayne Wong, Elena Wright, Hector Zavala.

About PlayGround

PlayGround was founded in 1994 by Jim Kleinmann, Brighde Mullins, and Denise Shama, beginning as a professional-academic partnership in residence at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and with initial sponsorship from SFSU’s Creative Writing Program. Early participating artists included Prince Gomolvilas, Garret Jon Groenveld, Daniele Nathanson, Sandra Hunter, Colman Domingo, Kent Nicholson, Antigone Trimis, Mary Coleman, and Rhonnie Washington. The fledgling organization moved to Project Artaud and A Traveling Jewish Theatre’s new 80-seat black box theatre in 1996, at which time Kleinmann took on sole leadership as PlayGround’s founding artistic director.

The company was in residence at Berkeley Repertory Theatre from 2003 until the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and has also presented at the San Francisco Main Library, Freight & Salvage, Zeum, A.C.T.’s Costume Shop, and Thick House, as well as co-producing with such notable Bay Area theatres as San Francisco Playhouse, Shotgun Players, Impact Theatre, San Jose Stage, and Magic Theatre, among others. PlayGround first brought its work to New York City with the 2008 co-production of Garret Jon Groenveld’s Missives, followed by the 2009 NY International Fringe Festival hit co-production of Aaron Loeb’s Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party, 2013 NY International Fringe Festival co-production of Katie May’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl. PlayGround celebrated its 25th anniversary with a one-night program of original short musicals at NYC’s Theatre Row in 2019.

PlayGround’s first ongoing regional expansion came in 2012 with the launch of PlayGround-LA at West Hollywood’s Zephyr Theatre. In 2018, PlayGround-LA relocated to Hollywood’s Broadwater Theaters (home of Sacred Fools Theater Company), where the company continues to present its Monday Night series. PlayGround expanded to NYC in 2021 and Chicago in 2022, with in-person performances (and simulcasts) beginning in the Spring of 2023, at NYC’s Producers Club and Chicago’s Theater Wit, respectively.

Over its 30 year history, PlayGround has grown into a leading national playwright incubator and theatre community hub, providing unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s and, more recently, Los Angeles’, New York’s, and Chicago’s best new playwrights through innovative programs such as the monthly Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series, annual PlayGround Festival of New Works, full-length play commissions, playwright residencies and production support through the New Play Production Fund.

To date, PlayGround has developed and staged more than 1,500 original short plays through Monday Night PlayGround and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned and/or developed several hundred new full-length plays by PlayGround alumni through its Commissioning Initiative, Playwrights Residency and Alumni Programs and, through the innovative New Play Production Fund, has directly facilitated the premiere of 40 full-length plays at theatres of every size, including many that have gone on to NYC and other major theater communities across the country.

In 2017, PlayGround launched Potrero Stage: PlayGround Center for New Plays, a 99-seat state-of-the-art performance venue to serve as a shared community resource for dozens of local companies and hundreds of artists. New programs in residence at Potrero Stage like the Free-Play Festival, Solo Performance Festival, and Innovator Incubator provide opportunities for local and national artists to self-determine and showcase their work in San Francisco at little to no cost.

More than 350 early-career playwrights have gotten their start at PlayGround, including Lauren Yee, Jonathan Spector, Geetha Reddy, and Cleavon Smith, helping to expand and deepen the canon of American 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, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and New York International Fringe Festival, among others. PlayGround serves one of the largest theatre artist networks in the nation, connecting hundreds of Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York artists in support of a common vision: the development of bold and diverse new voices and new works.

This work has not gone unnoticed. PlayGround has received numerous awards, including Playwrights Foundation’s Inaugural New Play Champion Award, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle’s Paine Knickerbocker Award for ongoing contributions to Bay Area theatre, and American Theater Wing’s National Theater Grant. In 2016, Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann was recognized by Theatre Bay Area as one of the Bay Area’s top 40 leaders. Three of PlayGround’s commissioned plays have won the San Francisco Bay Area Critics Circle award for Best New Play, and three have had subsequent productions in NYC. Four of the past five Will Glickman Award winners for best new play are PlayGround alumni. When other theatre companies think of producing new work, PlayGround artists are often their first call. As a result of PlayGround’s strong leadership, planning, and a willingness to take bold risks with high payoff, the new play ecosystem has been utterly transformed by PlayGround. For more information, visit playground-sf.org.

2024-25 Season Calendar

Free-Play Festival
August 9-25, 2024

30th Anniversary Gala
September 16, 2024

Monday Night PlayGround
Round 1: October 14 (LA), October 21 (SF), October 28 (NY), November 5 (Chicago)
Round 2: November 11 (LA), November 18 (SF), November 26 (NY), December 2 (Chicago)
Round 3: December 9 (LA), December 16 (SF), December 23 (NY), January 6 (Chicago)
Round 4: January 13 (LA), January 20 (SF), January 27 (NY), February 3 (Chicago)
Round 5: February 10 (LA), February 17 (SF), February 24 (NY), March 3 (Chicago)
Round 6: March 10 (LA), March 17 (SF), March 24 (NY), April 7 (Chicago)

Innovators Showcase
November 4-24, 2024

A Very Hitchcock Christmas
December 6-15, 2024

Solo Performance Festival
January 24-February 9, 2025

Best of PlayGround
April 14, 2025 (LA)
April 28, 2025 (NY)
May 5, 2025 (Chicago)
May 24-25, 2025 (SF)

Festival of New Works
May 6-25, 2025

One PlayGround Festival
May 30-June 1, 2025

All programs will be offered both in-person and online this year and are all admission free. Tickets and Monday Night PlayGround memberships go on sale September 1, 2024.

Venues:
Monday Night PlayGround performances
Freight and Salvage and simulcast, 2020 Addison St, Berkeley, CA 94704

All other performances:
Potrero Stage and simulcast, 1695 18th St, San Francisco, CA 94107

For more information, visit https://PlayGround-SF.org or follow PlayGround on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/playground.sf/) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/playgroundsftheatre/). For information on our sister programs, visit PlayGround-LA, PlayGround-NY and PlayGround-Chicago.