Applications Open for PlayGround’s 2026 National Free-Play Theatre Festival
(SAN FRANCISCO) – Applications are now being accepted for PlayGround’s fifth annual FREE-PLAY FESTIVAL, July 31-August 23, at Potrero Stage and simulcast. This four-week “fringe style” new works festival will feature up to 20 productions and 60 performances by talented theatre artists from across the country including PlayGround artists based in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.
Past Free-Play Festivals have included productions ranging in subject from improvised protest songs to how to resist an orange predator, and scaled from ensemble plays to one-person shows. PlayGround’s Free-Play Festival welcomes applications from seasoned theatre professionals, first-time producers, and all-star performers in every aspect of live performance, direction, and choreography. Productions will be presented for 3 performances at Potrero Stage (18th Street @ Arkansas), detailed schedule below. For more information or to reserve in-person or online tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/freeplay.
FREE-PLAY APPLICATION GUIDELINES – APPLY HERE
The Free-Play Festival is a four-week non-curated fringe-style new works festival.
– Selected teams/projects will receive three (3) performance slots over the course of the festival;
– Selections will be determined by lottery; up to 15 slots will be guaranteed to PlayGround-affiliated artists and up to 5 slots will be offered to non-PlayGround artists;
– Projects must culminate in the off-book public presentation of a new work;
– Performances in the Free-Play Festival must be between 30-75 minutes with setup/strike of no more than a half-hour on either side;
– Each project will be scheduled a two-hour technical rehearsal;
– Projects must participate in PlayGround’s radical accessibility program, including free admission (with PWYC donation option) and online simulcast;
– Projects involving union artists will have the opportunity to be presented under PlayGround’s SAG-AFTRA New Media Agreement (deferred) and all performers, regardless of union status, would then be expected to sign a SAG-AFTRA agreement; projects are solely responsible for the terms of artist compensation and for fulfilling those terms;
– Upon selection, projects will be responsible for remitting to PlayGround a $600 facility licensing fee for three performances, due by April 15.
– PlayGround will provide the following: fully-equipped Potrero Stage, Technical Director, House Manager, Board Operator, Streaming Broadcaster, as well as co-marketing, production management consultation (1 hr), and box office services;
– PlayGround will split box office proceeds 50/50 with producing teams.
HEAR FROM PAST PARTICIPANTS
“The Free-Play festival was a wonderful opportunity to explore my one-woman show Goddess Da From The Planet Yuronit to present my character with my original music and a colleague’s artwork. The support of marketing, technical and venue space allowed the magic of page-to-stage to happen. Thank you PlayGround!
– Melinda Lopez (Free-Play, 2024)
“Despite the roadblocks I experienced behind the scenes, the Free-Play Festival made me gain more confidence in myself as a writer and a director. It made me realize to not be timid, and despite the roadblocks, the show is gonna come out fantastic. Because at the end of the day, that’s theatre, and I’m doing what I love and I love what I do!”
– Joelle Joyner Wong (Free-Play, 2024)
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 and with initial sponsorship from SFSU’s Creative Writing Program. Early participating artists included Prince Gomolvilas, Garret Jon Groenveld, Daniele Nathanson, Sandra Rodgers, 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 pandemic of 2020 and has also presented at the San Francisco Main Library, Freight & Salvage, Zeum, ACT’s Costume Shop, and Thick House, as well as co-producing with such notable Bay Area theatres as SF Playhouse, Shotgun Players, Impact Theatre, San Jose Stage, and Magic Theatre, among others. PlayGround first brought its work to NYC 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.
Over 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 theater 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, BATCC’s Paine Knickerbocker Award for ongoing contributions to Bay Area theater, 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 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 theater 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 https://playground-sf.org.