PlayGround Free Tech-Design Workshop / Mar 23 & Mar 30

PlayGround is offering a free one-day intensive workshop for Bay Area residents (18 and up) interested in entering the field of theatre tech and design. Led by PlayGround resident designer Brittany Mellerson, the workshop will be offered at PlayGround’s home theatre, Potrero Stage, on Saturday, March 23, 12pm-5pm PT, and repeated on Saturday, March 30, 12pm-5pm PT. Registration is limited to 20 students per session with 5 spots reserved for Potrero Hill residents.  Students successfully completing the workshop and in-course testing will be immediately eligible for technical crew overhire and light/sound board operator positions at Potrero Stage (starting salary: $20/hr). To register for the March 23 or March 30 workshop, complete this Google form application.

The workshop will cover such areas as: theatre safety & protocols, scaffold/ladder setup/strike, hanging & focus of stage lights, basic rigging & hanging of soft goods, cabling, basics of theatre electrics, programming & operation of the ETC Ion light board, programming & operation of the Behringer x32 digital mixer, and programming & operation of QLab for sound/projections playback.

The local theatre community has seen a significant decline in the number of trained theatre technicians beginning with the COVID pandemic and continuing even after theatres reopened in 2021. At the same time, these positions are often among the highest paying in the field, with regular employment opportunities supported by more than two dozen professional theatres throughout the greater Bay Area, in addition to numerous other arts and entertainment organizations with similar needs. PlayGround’s first-of-its-kind tech and design workshop is intended to address the gap and also provide necessary training for young and aspiring theatre professionals looking to join the field, with a priority on identifying individuals representing historically excluded or marginalized communities. In addition, PlayGround is reserving a number of spots within these upcoming workshops for residents of Potrero Hill, where Potrero Stage is based, to help center local economic development.

Brittany Mellerson (PlayGround Resident Designer/Technical Director), all pronouns, is an East coast native and a graduate of Point Park University’s Conservatory Program, with a BFA in Theatrical Lighting & Sound Design. Brittany is the Resident Lighting Designer for Lamplighters Music Theatre, PlayGround, and the Telluride Film Festival and Technical Director for PlayGround/Potrero Stage. Recent credits include lighting design for LMT’s Princess Ida, PlayGround’s Solo Fest and sound design for Mothers of the Bride. Since the pandemic, Brittany has been working to source and produce equitable employment avenues in the Bay Area for Black designers and technicians. “The world is burning. Learn its truth.”

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. For more information, visit https://playground-sf.org/jobopportunities.