PlayGround’s 5th annual Innovators Showcase / Nov 6-26

PlayGround has announced the programming lineup for the 5th annual INNOVATORS SHOWCASE, featuring new works by the 2023 Innovator Incubator Cohort, Analog Theatre, The Chikahan Company, Native Writers’ Theater, Oakland Public Theater, Network Effects Theater Company, and Poltergeist Theatre Project, along with past incubator companies Kunoichi Productions, Latinx Mafia, and Theatre Cultura. The Innovator Incubator was launched in 2019 to foster new innovative theatre companies and productions with a core commitment to BIPOC representation. The festival is collectively curated with each company in the 2023 Incubator class given the opportunity to craft their own unique premiere experience, ranging from developmental readings to full-fledged debuts, all with direct support from PlayGround. The Showcase runs November 6-26 at Potrero Stage with all shows simulcast online and on-demand for one week. This year’s showcase is made possible in part through the direct support of PlayGround and a 2023 California Arts Council Impact Grant. Advance reservations are required and all events are ADMISSION-FREE (donations can be made at the time of reservation, directly supporting the producing Incubator organization). For the complete schedule or to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/incubator.

PlayGround, a leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for some of this country’s best new playwrights. To date, PlayGround has supported over 300 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 of New Works. PlayGround has also commissioned 100 new full-length plays by 70 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. In 2017, 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, including the Innovator Incubator and Solo Performance Festival, and some of the Bay Area’s most distinguished new play developers and producers. In 2020, PlayGround responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, shelter-in-place orders and theater closures by launching the nation’s first fully-digital new play festival, the PlayGround Zoom Fest, which featured more than 30 play performances and staged readings over six weeks and engaged more than 250 local theatre artists and 14,000 viewers. Today, PlayGround produces more than 100 live and simulcast events per year through its admission-free playwright incubator programs in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago.

Over the past twenty-nine 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 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Glickman Awards (6 of the past 10 winners), and Bay Area Playwrights 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. Visit https://playground-sf.org for more information.

SHOWCASE SCHEDULE & EVENT DESCRIPTIONS

Mon, Nov 6th @ 7PM PT
Analog Theatre presents a variety show in development MEET MASK MONDAY featuring the works of Jed Parsario, Rebecca Pingree, Elissa Beth Stebbins, Julius Rea and more

MEET MASK MONDAY is an encore performance of Analog’s “promisingly unfinished physical theatre” series Mask Monday. This showcase will include a variety of original acts-in-progress from local experimental theatre artists, an excerpt of Analog’s full length play-in-development (working title LOAF), and Mask Monday Commedia-inspired emcees played by Jed Parsario, Rebecca Pingree and Elissa Beth Stebbins, in collaboration with Julius Rea.

Fri, Nov 10th @ 7PM PT / Sat, Nov 11th @ 7PM PT / Sun, Nov 12th @ 7PM PT
The Chikahan Company presents Katauhan at Pamilya: How We See Ourselves, staged readings of three new works: BLOODLETTING by Boni B. Alvarez, HAIL MARY/MARIA by RJ Silva, and MAMA, I WISH I WERE SILVER by Amanda L. Andrei

KATAUHAN AT PAMILYA: HOW WE SEE OURSELVES is a series of three plays that explore the intricacies of identity and familial relationships through supernatural and spiritual connections. BLOODLETTING (Nov 10) by Boni B. Alvarez is about the tension-filled journey of siblings Farrah and Bosley Legazpi who are forced to go back to the Philippines to fulfill their father’s last wish, but an encounter with an aswang awakens a power that is ancient, terrifying, and innate in Farrah. HAIL MARY/MARIA (Nov 11) by RJ Silva is a coming-of-age story with the electricity of a live wrestling show, the comfort of your Filipino family, and the warmth of a budding romance. MAMA, I WISH I WERE SILVER (Nov 12) by Amanda L. Andrei tells the story of Sofia and Ariel, two estranged Filipina American half-sisters, who reunite in Virginia to clean out the belongings of their recently deceased mother when they discover a cassette tape recorded on the 1972 declaration of martial law in the Philippines and realize that what their mother left behind has a life of its own.

Tue, Nov 14th @ 7PM PT / Wed, Nov 15th @ 7pm PT
Network Effects Theater presents a staged reading of DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT by Michael Tuton

DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT is a full-length staged reading that takes place in the Global Climate Model Project at a UC Berkeley-style institution. When one member of the team figures out a way to successfully model the earth’s climate, he unilaterally decides not to publish. This play exists at the intersection of humanity, technological advance and hope, while exploring the themes of a scientist’s responsibility to make known their findings, what role politics play in the funding of modern science.

Fri, Nov 17th @ 7PM PT / Sat, Nov 18th @ 2PM PT
Oakland Public Theater presents a staged reading of BALDWIN SNEAK PEEK – I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO POET, curated by Norman Gee and Richard Talavera

James Baldwin would have been 99 years old, last August 2nd. As Oakland Public Theatre prepares for our Centennial celebration next year, we keep discovering many lesser known aspects of the man so many called Jimmy. For instance, did you know Baldwin was also a poet? Or that his teacher and an earliest mentor was the Harlem Renaissance poet, Countee Cullen? O.P.T. presents here a peek into Baldwin’s poetry, his influences, and those he has since influenced, including a group of poems from a local writing group, the Deux Magots, in our usual literary-theatrical hybrid style. 

Sat, Nov 18th @ 7PM PT / Sun, Nov 19th @ 7PM PT
Poltergeist Theatre Project presents a revival staged reading of THE JULIE CYCLE by Chris Steele

Poltergeist brings back their first premiere play, THE JULIE CYCLE, for one weekend only as a staged reading! Come hear the piece that catapulted Poltergeist onto the scene and set the tone for their ethos of radical queer reenvisionings of toxic culturally embedded classics.

Sun, Nov 19th @ 2PM PT
Theatre Cultura presents a staged reading of THE DELGADOS; FEAST OF HATE by Linda Amayo-Hassan

This new, dark drama by Linda Amayo-Hassan sifts through the ruins of a modern day Mexican American family in the Midwest and with great volatility, exposes the underbelly from the effects of substance abuse, recidivism, and the dynamics that prejudice can hold over a family. Content Warning: THE DELGADOS; FEAST OF HATE deals with mature subject matter.

Fri, Nov 24th @ 7PM PT
Native Writers’ Theater presents the premiere of FRESH NATIVE WORKS by R. Réal Vargas Alanis, Beth Piatote, and Matt Kizer with Wesley Fredenburg and Eric Avery POSTPONED

Fresh Native Works will perform one night only, November 24th—Native American Heritage Day—at 7 p.m. at the Potrero Stage. The evening will feature short new plays and music by local Native American/Indigenous playwrights. The performance will kick-off with a mural dedication in the lobby of the Portero Stage. Fresh Native Works is the third show produced by Native Writers’ Theater, which grew out of the fire of racial reckoning during the pandemic. This season features the work of UC Berkeley professor and Beadwork author Beth Piatote. She penned Tricksters Unite!, a short play about a room full of self-absorbed tricksters, tasked with putting their differences and egos aside to combat a global problem. Multidisciplinary artist Réal V. Alanis wrote Oh, Golly Good Day, a melodramatic-style play using trope characters. And NWT artistic director Matt Kizer, along with Wesley Fredenburg and Eric Avery, devised a piece called Hanawiwi, inspired by a Washoe tribal legend. Come celebrate Native American Heritage with us!

Sat, Nov 25th @ 2PM PT / Sun, Nov 26th @ 7PM PT
Latinx Mafia presents a staged reading of BUSCANDO AL ULTIMO HOMBRE GAY

“Buscando al Ultimo hombre Gay” recounts in a fragmented way the story of , a gay man who travels his life between Mexico and the United States in search of the perfect love. A story inspired by interviews and experiences of the interpreter that immerses us in the insatiable search for the ideal love, a transition that takes us from adolescent romance, personal acceptance and self-love. This reading is in Spanish.

Sat, Nov 25th @ 7PM PT / Sun, Nov 26th @ 2PM PT
Kunoichi Productions presents a staged reading of THROW AWAY TEMPLE

Throw Away Temple is a full-length play currently being developed at Kunoichi Productions, a new Bay Area-based theatre company co-founded by Ai Aida, Keiko Shimosato Carreiro and Nick Ishimaru. Written by Ai Aida and directed by Keiko Shimosato Carreiro and Nick Ishimaru (the three co-founders of Kunoichi Productions), Throw Away Temple takes place in Yoshiwara, a famous government-sanctioned red-light district in Edo, present-day Tokyo, in the mid-18th century. It’s about a girl named Suzu who was sold as an indentured prostitute at age 7 and later thrown away at the temple (as was the custom in Edo in those days) after having been beaten to death.

ABOUT THE INNOVATOR INCUBATOR COMPANIES

Analog Theatre
Analog Theatre’s mission is to create collaborative, out-of-the-box, multidisciplinary, multi-sensory storytelling, devising performances that rely on performing skills and collective acts of actor-audience imagination, rather than literal representations of reality onstage. Rather than competing with film to faithfully reproduce realism, Analog seeks to create rich settings, stories, and characters from an empty stage and bring alive objects that are inanimate. They believe that simpler styles of storytelling can provide catalysts for increased hope and imagination that are gravely needed in the world today. 

The Chikahan Company
Exploring Filipinx history, politics, psychology, and diaspora through the craft of theatre and the performing arts, ChikaCo strives to develop the unique voices of and uplift the robust Filipinx narratives and artistries, and advocate its influence to the American theatre. They aim to reclaim and to reveal the multifaceted experiences of the Filipinx community in the San Francisco Bay Area. The vision is to amplify the complex and dynamic narratives that have long been pushed to the margins and to actively challenge the stereotypes about our kababayan (people), our kuwento (story), and our kasaysayan (history).

Kunoichi Productions
“Kunoichi” means “female ninja.” Kunoichi Productions produces thought-provoking original plays with Japanese aesthetics, breaking traditions, taboos and gender/cultural assumptions; casting new light on old ideas or old stories; and engaging and challenging audiences artistically, intellectually as well as politically through the fusion of different art forms – poetry, music, movement, visual arts, storytelling and puppetry. They are committed to supporting local artists with diverse backgrounds and talents, working and growing with them in an experimental, collaborative environment, and to bringing a fresh, multicultural perspective to the Bay Area and beyond.

Latinx Mafia
The Latinx Mafia was founded to empower and support Latinx teatristas by reclaiming, demystifying and recreating Latinx representation in theatre/media. They aim to ensure that Latinx representation in theatre and media radically and accurately embraces historically marginalized communities including but not limited to: the LGBTQ+ community, indigenous and Afro-Latinx people, differently-able folx, migrants regardless of immigration status, and the many linguistic backgrounds in Latin America. For more about Latinx Mafia, please see www.latinxmafia.com.

Native Writers’ Theater
Native Writers’ Theater is dedicated to: Creating opportunity by making space for the playwriting process and producing the resulting works onstage; Fostering dialogue to tell Native American stories to inspire open, decolonized communication between all people; Amplifying stories of a forgotten people to preserve our heritage that has been all but erased. They aim to bring Native American stories to the theatre through creating new works and producing existing or evolving works.

Networks Effects Theater Company
Network Effects Theater Company excavates the themes of today’s tech industry. By exploring the unconsidered effects of new technology–through its creation, its investors, its culture, and its end users–we can reverse the passivity of a public made numb to its own effects. We want to “Make Passive Impossible.”

Oakland Public Theater
Oakland Public Theater creates a ‘different kind of Black Theater’, expanding notions of culture to encompass often the invisible roles of African-Americans & others. OPT gives old stories a multicultural face: a Strindberg ancestral fantasy shifted to Africa; a Filipina immigrant trapped in the secretive world of Ibsen; actual people of color in Shakespeare’s foreign lands (& referencing the long history of Africans in England). OPT also features new works, celebrating things like complex families, intellectual love affairs, heroism, tragedy, engaging histories -from OUR perspective, and yet often surprisingly familiar. The goal is to make established theater more accessible to a wider range of community, while sharing with traditional audiences some insight into both the nuance and universality of our diverse community members.

Poltergeist Theatre Project
“Theatre that follows you home.” Poltergeist’s mission is to reclaim Queer narratives through performance processes that dismantle toxic cultural norms, viscerally immerse audiences, and celebrate the innovation and liberation of Queer folx. Honoring San Francisco’s strong tradition of revolutionary art that ignites the flame of cultural and societal progress, Poltergeist creates radically queer, feminist, intrinsically participatory theatre. Whether highlighting work by new artists or subverting and re-framing a problematic public domain play to create a brand new adaptation, Poltergeist seeks to normalize and centralize Other narratives. Focusing on the tenets of inclusivity, representation, and accessibility, Poltergeist seeks to remind this city of its deep roots in queer art. 

Theatre Cultura
The mission of Theatre Cultura is, first and foremost, to provide the opportunity for local and national Latina theatre artists to have a place for their voices to be heard in high quality, deeply invested productions. TC’s intention is to create theatre that will inspire, inform, challenge, empower, embrace and reflect the lives and communities of Latinas of the SF Bay Area and around the country. Themes of immigration, Latinx and women’s issues will provide the main focus for content. Plays will mostly be original and selected from active, working Latina playwrights from around the country in order to build a community of professional Latina playwrights who wish to tell the stories borne of the Latina experience and create a dynamic connection between those artists and the communities they serve.

For more information on the Innovator Incubator program and cohort, visit https://playground-sf.org/incubator/ or call (415) 992-6677.

WHAT: PlayGround presents the 5th annual INNOVATORS SHOWCASE, a festival of new works by new theatre companies, featuring works by Analog Theatre, The Chikahan Company, Kunoichi Productions, Latinx Mafia, Native Writers’ Theater, Network Effects Theater Company, Oakland Public Theater, Poltergeist Theatre Project and Theatre Cultura. 

WHEN: November 6-26, 2023

Nov 6, 7pm – Analog Theatre presents MEET MASK MONDAY (workshop presentation)
Nov 10, 7pm – The Chikahan Company presents BLOODLETTING (staged reading)
Nov 11, 7pm – The Chikahan Company presents HAIL MARY/MARIA (staged reading)
Nov 12, 7pm – The Chikahan Company presents MAMA, I WISH I WERE SILVER (staged reading)
Nov 14, 7pm – Network Effects Theater presents DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT (staged reading)
Nov 15, 7pm – Network Effects Theater presents DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT (staged reading)
Nov 17, 7pm – Oakland Public Theater presents BALDWIN SNEAK PEEK – I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO POET (staged reading)
Nov 18, 2pm – Oakland Public Theater presents BALDWIN SNEAK PEEK – I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO POET (staged reading)
Nov 18, 7pm – Poltergeist Theatre Project presents THE JULIE CYCLE (revival staged reading)
Nov 19, 2pm – Theatre Cultura presents THE DELGADOS; FEAST OF HATE (staged reading)
Nov 19, 7pm – Poltergeist Theatre Project presents THE JULIE CYCLE (revival staged reading)
Nov 24, 7pm – Native Writers’ Theater presents FRESH NATIVE WORKS (premiere) POSTPONED
Nov 25, 2pm – Latinx Mafia presents BUSCANDO AL ULTIMO HOMBRE GAY (staged reading)
Nov 25, 7pm – Kunoichi Productions presents THROW AWAY TEMPLE (staged reading)
Nov 26, 2pm – Kunoichi Productions presents THROW AWAY TEMPLE (staged reading)
Nov 26, 7pm – Latinx Mafia presents BUSCANDO AL ULTIMO HOMBRE GAY (staged reading)

WHERE: Potrero Stage & Simulcast

COVID PROTOCOL: In-person attendees should be symptom-free and had no recent exposure to individuals with COVID. Masks are recommended.

TICKETS: To reserve in-person or online live streaming/on-demand tickets, visit https://tickets.playground-sf.org/TheatreManager/1/online?event=361.