PlayGround presents Season 31

3rd ANNUAL ONE PLAYGROUND FESTIVAL

May 30th – June 1st, 2025
Live at Potrero Stage + Simulcast
On-Demand thru June 8th

Acknowledging the Legacy of the Land We Inhabit

PlayGround acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush (RAH-my-toosh) Ohlone (oh-LOW-nee) and Lisjan (lih-SHAH-n) Ohlone, the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula and East Bay, respectively. As the past and present Indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaytush Ohlone and Lisjan have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. We recognize the historic injustice of the forcible removal of the Ohlone people from their ancestral lands, and that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the Ancestors, Elders and Relatives of the Ramaytush and Lisjan Communities and by affirming their sovereign rights as First Peoples. We honor the storytellers of the Ohlone and are grateful for our ability to share and uplift Indigenous stories and those of other historically marginalized communities.

To learn about the legacy of the land you inhabit, visit Native-Land.ca | Our home on native land. To read the complete Land Acknowledgment Policy, click here.

PlayGround’s Anti-Racist Policy

PlayGround recognizes the impact of racial oppression within society and the American Theater and that we have been complicit in White Supremacy culture. Our goal is to co-create safety for our community by identifying and interrupting instances of racism and all forms of oppression when we witness them, through specific actions rooted in the principles of anti-racism and accessibility. In its endeavor to address the implications of our history, PlayGround is committed to its compliance with the following fundamental rights:

• The recognition of inherent dignity and worth of each human being.
• The recognition of equality of all human beings.
• Recognition of rights of ethnic, racial, cultural, linguistic and religious groups.
• Equality and non-discrimination.

PlayGround’s Anti-Racist Policy applies to: all members of the PlayGround community, including employees, independent contractors, volunteers, audience members, donors, and general members of the community.

To read the complete Anti-Racist Policy, click here.

Programs & Cast Lists

May 30, 2025 7pm PT

Opening Session: Recess LIVE
Plays and actors to be announced at the event.

May 31, 2025 10:30-11:30am PT

Opening Plenary: “Making Art in a Time of Crisis,” with Devin Christor, Norman Gee, Mildred Lewis & Chris Steele; moderated by PlayGround Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann

11:40-12:50pm PT

Morning Discussion/Workshop: “Writing for PlayGround”

1:40-2:50pm PT

Afternoon Discussion/Workshop: “Directing and Acting for PlayGround”

3:00-4:00pm PT

Closing Plenary: “A Starter’s Guide to Self-Producing,” with Melina Cohen-Bramwell, Jon Gentry, Chris Steele, & Kaz Valtchev, moderated by PlayGround Company Member Lana Richards

7:00pm PT

Best of the Best of PlayGround ’25

Isabella Speaks
by Saiya Floyd, PlayGround-NY
Directed by Jim Kleinmann
Isabella……………….Zoe Chien
Duke………………Hector Zavala
Mother Superior…………Emilie Talbot

Grandma’s First Festivus
by Laura Domingo, PlayGround-SF
Directed by Lana Richards
Indigo………………..Leon Goertzen
Sage……………….Isabel Anne To
Grandma……………..Miyoko Sakatani

Disloyal
by Anne Brady, PlayGround-Chicago
directed by Frieda de Lackner
Margaret (Peggy) Shippen……………Julia McNeal

Son of a Kaiju
by Mikee Loria, PlayGround-LA
Directed by Andy Lowe
Grogon………………..Tony Kim
Jaeger……………..Edward Hong
Blastoid….……………Jo Yuan

These live streams are produced under a SAG-AFTRA New Media Agreement.

PlayGround is a member of Theatre Bay Area, Theatre Communications Group, the League of Chicago Theatre, A.R.T./New York, and a Partner Organization of the National New Play Network (NNPN).

June 1, 2025 10:00-12:30pm PT

 PlayGround All-Company Gathering (not open to the public)

$$ : $10 registration fee for non-PlayGround members

Biographies

PANELISTS & PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

“Making Art in a Time of Crisis”

DEVIN CHRISTOR, PG-Chicago Executive Producer (he/him) is a director focused on plays that create a discussion. Since receiving his B.A in Drama from the University of North Texas he has traveled the country working for several professional theatres to observe established directors and study the ecology of regional theatre in America. He was recently the Directing Resident at Milwaukee Rep, where he directed Julius Caesar & God of Carnage and assisted directed Indivisible With. Other directing credits include The Damage of Doing it Alone (Gloucester Stage Company “Young Playwrights” Festival), and Oba (Triangle Rainbow Productions “LGBTQ Short Play” Festival), The Gift of the Magi (American Players Theatre). He is the Founder of Nomad Street Theatre, a nomadic site-specific theatre company, that uses plays in the kitchen sink drama or well made play format. He wants to make Chicago his home base and believes Victory Gardens DII can be a great starting point.

NORMAN GEE, Play-Ground Associate Producer (he/him) has performed in Meet John Doe at the San Jose Stage, a Word For Word production of HOME which toured France, and Much Ado About Nothing in Livermore with SPARC. He understudied BIG DATA at A.C.T. and directed a new work to celebrate the James Baldwin Centennial, more info at www.baldwincentennialproject.com.

MILDRED LEWIS, PlayGround-LA Writer (she/her) is a produced and published playwright and screenwriter. She wrote and directed a short film comedy, Can Also Play, which screened at Outfest Fusion 2018. Currently she is part of Humanitas’ PLAY LA and Playground-LA. Her plays have been produced at the Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble (Santa Ana, CA), Ensemble Studio Theatre-Los Angeles, Everyday Inferno Theatre (NYC), Rockford New Play Festival (Rockford, IL), “Think Outside the Cage” on KPFK-FM (Los Angeles, CA), and the William Inge Theatre Festival (Independence, KS). Her poetry has been published in anthologies including “Ella, Stamped” in Ella @100 which celebrated jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald’s centennial. She most recently read her poems at Boca de Oro:  OC Art & Literature Fringe Festival. A strong believer in interdisciplinary work, she teaches writing, film theory, West African and Caribbean literature.

CHRIS STEELE, PlayGround Company Member (they/she) is a queer trans nonbinary performance artist, writer, and activist. Their work centers on highlighting queer narratives throughout history and combating bigotry and white supremacy. Her award-winning drag persona Polly Amber Ross can be found on Instagram @pollyamberross. As a producer, Chris specializes in Marketing and Communications and is currently the Curation Director of Cutting Ball Theatre.

JIM KLEINMANN, PlayGround Artistic Director, moderator (he/him) co-founded PlayGround in 1994, along with playwright Brighde Mullins and director Denise Shama, and has served as Artistic Director since 1996. For PlayGround, he has provided artistic and administrative leadership for the past twenty-four seasons, developing PlayGround’s unique array of new playwright and new play incubator programs, including Monday Night PlayGround, the PlayGround Festival of New Works, the full-length play Commissioning Initiative, the New Play Production Fund, Potrero Stage: PlayGround Center for New Plays, and most recently the Innovator Incubator. For PlayGround, he has directed more than one hundred short and full-length plays, including works by Garret Jon Groenveld, Aaron Loeb, Geetha Reddy, Lauren Yee, Katie May, and many others. Recent directing and dramaturgy credits include David Steele’s Vignettes on Love and Ruben Grijalva’s Value Over Replacement. He is a veteran arts administrator with more than thirty years of experience, including stints leading Traveling Jewish Theatre, Smuin Ballet, and Berkeley Symphony, and received his MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

“A Starter’s Guide to Self-Producing”

MELINA COHEN-BRAMWELL, PlayGround-SF Writer (he/him), is a writer and lifelong San Francisco Bay Area resident who also happens to be a mixed-race, gender-queer, spoonie. Never a fan of the education system, at age sixteen, Melina dropped out of school and began a career in theater. After years of working as a technician at regional theater companies such as Aurora, Cal Shakes, and Berkeley Rep, Melina “retired” to focus on healing from chronic illness and pursuing writing as a career. His book Bar Fights with Sad Kids will be available for preorder from Finishing Line May-July 2024.

JON GENTRY, PlayGround-LA, Best of Free-Play 2025 (he/him) was born and raised in Houston, Texas. He earned his BA in English from Harvard, where he served as President of BlackCAST. He holds an MFA in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater. As a teaching artist, he co-directed “Child Life” with UCSF Children’s Hospital and led acting workshops across the Bay Area. He currently teaches Michael Chekhov Acting Technique at the Los Angeles Performing Arts Conservatory. Regional theater credits include roles in Masao and The Bronze Nightingale, A Christmas Carol, and Romeo and Juliet. Onscreen, he appeared in TEN, Behold a Lady, Meeting Matt Damon and voiced Preston Garvey in Fallout 4, gaining viral fame.

KAZ VALTCHEV, PlayGround Writer, Best of Free-Play 2024 (he/they) has worked onstage, backstage, and front of stage for various theaters in the Bay area including Cal Shakes, Bay Area Children’s Theatre, Bindlestiff Studios, and many others. He has been a part of the PlayGround Writer’s Pool for the past two years and has been an actor and stage manager for PlayGround in the past as well. He has had short plays produced with the Pear Theater, the Queer AF Festival, and Left Coast Theater Company. He also had an original monologue published in the anthology, WE-US: Monologues for Gender Minority Characters.

LANA RICHARDS, PlayGround Company Member, moderator (she/her) is a director based in San Francisco. She has been an artist-in-residence at The Dragon’s Egg, Access Theater, and The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, and was a member of the 2024 Directors Lab North in Toronto. She is the Associate Director of Development and a resident company member with PlayGround SF. She was the 2019 Directing Fellow at Parallel 45 Theater. Education: Connecticut College, SITI Company, MICHA, Complicite, Bread & Puppet. Recent selected credits: We Players’s Macbeth at Fort Point (Assistant Director), Heart Piece at Cutting Ball’s Variety Pack, American Hunger at Enacte Arts, Tips for Nervous Fliers (solo performance) at PlayGround’s Free-Play Festival.

Best of the Best of PlayGround ’25

SAIYA FLOYD, PlayGround-NY, Isabella Speaks (she/her) is a Japanese-American writer based in Brooklyn. She studied screenwriting at Boston University, and primarily writes sci-fi, fantasy, and historical pieces to explore new perspectives. Her short play Five Star First Date was part of Pan Asian Repertory Theatre’s NuWorks festival, and she co-wrote the short film Sorry Dumpling, which was featured at the LA Shorts Fest. Saiya’s scripts have been recognized in the top 50 of the Launch Pad, and she has been a winner of WeScreenplay Diverse Voices, and a finalist at the Austin Film Festival.

LAURA DOMINGO, PlayGround-SF, Grandma’s First Festivus (she/her) is a Native Hawaiian/Filipina writer and actor based on Oakland, CA. She just completed her first year with PlayGround and is honored to be this year’s winner of the June Anne Baker Prize. She has written screenplays for three Best Film winners for the 48-Hour Film Project (2019 – San Jose; 2020 – U.S. West; and 2021 – San Jose), and her short plays won runner-up in 2023 and 2024 for Silicon Valley Shakespeare’s 48-Hour Play Festival. She is part of the writing pool with SF-based sketch comedy company Killing My Lobster.

ANNE BRADY, PlayGround-Chicago, Disloyal (she/her), is honored to be a first-year Writer’s Pool member. After earning a degree in Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University, Anne worked as a professional actress and playwright in Seattle before relocating to Chicago in 2012. Her plays have been produced around the West Coast as well as internationally. She studied playwriting with Chicago Dramatists and The Second City and has authored or co-authored over 20 children’s books. She lives in Bucktown with her husband and 2 kids and has an astonishing amount of Bluey committed to memory.

MIKEE LORIA, PlayGround-LA, Son of a Kaiju (he/him) is a Fil-Am storyteller/actor based in SoCal. He is thrilled to make his Monday Night PlayGround-LA debut writing Lost Drive. Mikee earned a double B.A. in Theatre and Film from UC Berkeley, and is an alumnus of A.C.T’s Summer Training Congress. He is writing a feature-length screenplay in collaboration with World Builders Incubator. He co-lead in the World Premiere of A Driving Beat at Flint Repertory Theatre in March of this year. IG: @mikeeloria

ACTORS

ISABEL ANNE TO (Grandma’s First Festivus, “Sage”), (she/her) is an actor, singer, and PlayGround company member based in the SF Bay Area, performing regularly at Monday Night PlayGround, in addition to PlayGround SF festival productions (Starlight and Funny, Like an Abortion). She is excited to appear in the Festival Premiere of Jessica June Rowe’s The Passing Storm. Other selected credits: Tea Party (One Of Our Own Theater), The Jersey Devil Play (Awesome Theatre), and Avenue Q (New Conservatory Theatre Center). Isabel also acted in two short films coming out in 2025: Soul Credit and WIDE. Offstage, Isabel enjoys cross-stitching, baking, and traveling. www.isabelanneto.com

ZOE CHIEN (Isabella Speaks, “Isabella”), she/her, is an actor and arts administrator with a BFA in Theater from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she trained at The Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute, Playwrights Horizons Theater School, and the Stonestreet Studios for Television and Film. Zoe is the Casting and Producing Director of 3Girls Theatre Company, and is a PlayGround Associate Producer this season. She feels lucky to be in this industry in a time when so much art is being made in response to our social and political climate, and is proud to represent her mixed-race (Taiwanese and Italian-American) community. For more, visit zoechien.com.

LEON GOERTZEN (Grandma’s First Festivus, “Indigo”), he/they, has worked at theaters in the Northern and Southern California including Capital Stage, East West Players, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Will and Company, Magic Theatre, Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Road Theatre Company, Cutting Ball Theater, Aurora Theater Company, Bay Area Playwright’s Festival, California Conservatory Theatre and New Conservatory Theater. Film credits include Quitters (with Kieran Culkin and Mira Sorvino) and Beauty and The Blade. Leon is a graduate of the School of Drama at UNC School of the Arts and is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and Screen Actors Guild.

EDWARD HONG (Son of a Kaiju, “Jaeger”), he/him, is a Korean-American artist and theatre critic for Nerds Of Color who constantly obsesses over Cinnabons, watermelons, and is the proud father of his beloved feline fur babies. He’s been on a gaggle of primetime TV shows, indie films, video games, commercials, has dubbed over his own people in a variety of Netflix & Disney+ shows, and other miscellaneous things that help pay for his gluttonous addiction. He is currently repped by Ellis Talent Group and Mills Kaplan Entertainment.

TONY KIM (Son of a Kaiju, “Grogon”), he/him, is very excited to be returning to Playground-LA for Son of Kaiju! Recent credits include Tajomaru in Rashomon at Open Fist Theater (receiving a Best Lead Actor nomination from Broadway World) and La Mirada Theater, Helvetica at Ophelia’s Jump, King and I for Anchorage Repertory, A Wrinkle in Time at Sierra Madre Playhouse, and a former member of Cold Tofu, the nation’s oldest and continuous Asian Improv troupe. Tony is a current member of Playground-LA theater group, which is a playwright incubator, performing new works regularly. He is also a member of This Week This Week Sketch Comedy group at Open Fist Theater. Raised in San Diego, CA with an education in engineering, he loves nature anything, art (almost) everything, reading too much, and not playing enough video games. Thank you for supporting the arts. Follow him on IG: @tonykimtime

JULIA MCNEAL (Disloyal, “Margaret (Peggy) Shippen”), she/her, AEA/SAG-AFTRA, Bay Area credits include: Magic Theatre: Escaped Alone, Visible from Four States, The Eva Trilogy, Fred’s Diner, and A Lie of the Mind. A.C.T.: Top Girls; Shotgun Players: The Events; Aurora Theatre: Gidion’s Knot (extension), and several Best of PlayGround festivals. Film and TV credits include: The Unbelievable Truth; Flesh and Bone; Law and Order and Law & Order: SVU. Creator of the Five Ways In to Character technique for solo performers and writers; Julia is a proud member of the Actors Reading Collective and of the PlayGround Company. juliamcnealarts.com

MIYOKO SAKATANI (Grandma’s First Festivus, “Grandma”), she/her, is a Sag-Aftra-e actor, singer, writer, director and producer and a proud member of SF PlayGround. She has worked on stage, screen, web series and commercials over many years. Miyoko has performed on SF Bay Area regional and community theatre stages, including writing and performing her own solo piece. Film credits include the award winning Samuel Goldwyn film “East Side Sushi” (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5706042/) As founding director of Playland Productions, Miyoko has produced films and stage plays. Deepest love and gratitude to Richard, Shanti and dear friends.

EMILIE TALBOT (Isabella Speaks, “Mother Superior”), she/they, is a Bay Area based actor, director, and teacher. She is a longtime PlayGround company member as both an actor and director and has serves on the PlayGround Board. Recently she worked with the Prague Shakespeare Company in the Czech Republic and has appeared appeared on numerous stages across the country and the Bay Area. Film and Television work includes 13 Reasons Why, Sonder, A Wake, Starting Over, and the recently completed Little Mother Lies. She was awarded Best Actress of the Year by the New York Film Awards, and 2023 Best Performance of Festival by the Actors Awards. She is a member of the Actor’s Reading Collective (ARC). \emilietalbot.com

JO YUAN (Son of a Kaiju, “Blastoid”), she/they, Jo Yuan is thrilled to return as their most unhinged, chaotic self!! An Asian American (Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean) actor from the OC, Jo is passionate about bold, new theatre that amplifies underrepresented voices. She’s performed with IAMA Theatre, East West Players, Artists at Play, and PlayGround LA, bringing authenticity and versatility to every role. Jo’s voiceover work spans major platforms, with recurring and lead roles on Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, and Amazon Prime. They are an active member of the Television Academy, NAVA, APA, CODA, Artists Rise Up Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Breakfast Club.

HECTOR ZAVALA (Isabella Speaks, “Duke”), he/they, is considered a chameleon in a thousand ways. He mixes his studies in Performative Art, Acting, Dance, Multimedia, Costumes, Set Design and his love for theater to instill his own style of culturalism, carrying with him the weight of the universal struggle to defend one’s own. He has participated in international festivals such as FITLA, (International Latin Theater Festival of Los Angeles.), the Edinburgh Theater Festival and the Ibero-American Art Festival. He has collaborated with greats from the “Chicano” community and is a member of Latinx Mafia and PlayGround.

DIRECTORS

FRIEDA DE LACKNER (Disloyal) she/they, is a SFBATCC winning director, actor, vocalist, and costume designer in the Bay Area. Regional credits: Delcina/Moms in Dirty White Teslas Make Me Sad (Magic Theatre) Adenikeh in Nollywood Dreams (San Francisco Playhouse) A Shirelle in Beautiful: Carol King Musical (Woodminster), MC in N¿¿ER LOVERS (Magic Theatre) She/Angie in Is God Is (Oakland Theatre Project) Tessie Tura in Gypsy (Mountain Play/RVP) Swing Beehive (Center REP) SBF 1in Single Black Female (Lorraine Hansberry Theatre) Deloris in Sister Act (Pittsburg Theatre Company) Effie in Dreamgirls (Berkeley Playhouse). Select directorial credits: Crumbs From the Table of Joy (Townhall Theatre) Giraffes Can’t Dance ( Bay Area Children’s Theatre) At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen (Theatre Rhinoceros) Tanika is a 2023 cohort of Theatre Bay Area’s Arts Leadership with Theatre Rhinoceros and a proud member of AEA and a new member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. Love to my family and chosen family. The story is told together!

LANA RICHARDS (Grandma’s First Festivus) Lana Richards is a director based in San Francisco. She has been an artist-in-residence at The Dragon’s Egg, Access Theater, and The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, and was a member of the 2024 Directors Lab North in Toronto. She is the Associate Director of Development and a resident company member with PlayGround SF. She was the 2019 Directing Fellow at Parallel 45 Theater. Education: Connecticut College, SITI Company, MICHA, Complicite, Bread & Puppet. Recent selected credits: We Players’s Macbeth at Fort Point (Assistant Director), Heart Piece at Cutting Ball’s Variety Pack, American Hunger at Enacte Arts, Tips for Nervous Fliers (solo performance) at PlayGround’s Free-Play Festival.

ANDY LOWE (Son of a Kaiju), he/him/dude, was A “California Young Playwrights” winner, earning production of his play at the Old Globe at age 18. He founded San Diego’s Asian American Repertory Theater; Directing & Producing ten seasons as Artistic Director till 2005. Inaugural Coordinator of the “Theatre-In-Residence Program” at La Jolla Playhouse 2007-12. Director of Production & Casting for East West Players the past 12 years. Director/Dramaturg of plays, musicals & immersive experiences; notably “Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog” Live adaptation (2011), and R&D projects for Disney Imagineering. Fight Director for productions at Laguna Playhouse, UC Riverside, USC, and Ovation Nominated for MAN OF GOD (2019).

JIM KLEINMANN (Isabella Speaks), he/him, co-founded PlayGround in 1994, along with playwright Brighde Mullins and director Denise Shama, and has served as Artistic Director since 1996. For PlayGround, he has provided artistic and administrative leadership for the past twenty-four seasons, developing PlayGround’s unique array of new playwright and new play incubator programs, including Monday Night PlayGround, the PlayGround Festival of New Works, the full-length play Commissioning Initiative, the New Play Production Fund, Potrero Stage: PlayGround Center for New Plays, and most recently the Innovator Incubator. For PlayGround, he has directed more than one hundred short and full-length plays, including works by Garret Jon Groenveld, Aaron Loeb, Geetha Reddy, Lauren Yee, Katie May, and many others. Recent directing and dramaturgy credits include David Steele’s Vignettes on Love and Ruben Grijalva’s Value Over Replacement. He is a veteran arts administrator with more than thirty years of experience, including stints leading Traveling Jewish Theatre, Smuin Ballet, and Berkeley Symphony, and received his MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

PLAYGROUND, California’s leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s, Los Angeles’ and now New York’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 250 early career playwrights, developing and staging more than 1000 of their original short plays through the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned 90 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 34 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-four 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 Humana Festival, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, The Lark’s Playwrights’ Week, New York International Fringe Festival, and 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.

POTRERO STAGE is a 99-seat state-of-the-art performance space located in the heart of San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, operated by PlayGround, and serving as home to some of the Bay Area’s leading new play developers and producers, including PlayGround, Crowded Fire, Golden Thread, and Playwrights Foundation, among others. While the venue is closed during the COVID pandemic, Potrero Stage will highlight the best in online programming by PlayGround, Potrero Stage resident companies, and other Potrero Stage producers. For more information, visit https://potrerostage.org.

PlayGround Opportunities

PlayGround Contributors

PlayGround is deeply grateful for the generous contributions of the many individuals, foundations, corporations and government agencies whose contributions make our work possible. This list reflects gifts of $125 or more committed between May 1, 2024 & May 1, 2025.

GOVERNMENT, CORPORATE, & FOUNDATION DONORS

Alameda County Arts Commission • Amazon • Art Space Development Corporation • Berkeley Civic Arts • Bill Graham Supporting Foundation of the Jewish Community Federation & Endowment Fund • California Arts Council • Grants For The Arts • KFF • Koret Foundation • LA County Arts Commission • Lenore & Howard Klein Foundation • The Leo J. & Celia Carlin Fund • Negley Flinn Charitable Foundation • NIAC • Nvidia • Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation • Rye Financial Services • San Francisco Arts Commission • The Shubert Foundation • The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

SEASON SPONSORS ($5000+)

Emilie T. & Gordon C. Brooks, Lara Gilman & Jim Kleinmann

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS ($2500+)

Daniel E. Cohn & Lynn Brinton, John H. Gilman, Nitin Nitin & Vasugi Kailasam

PRODUCERS CIRCLE ($1000-$2499)

Randy Adams, Meriko Borogove, Jediah Craig, Regina S. Guggenheim, Just Play Productions, Linda Kremer, Rebecca Martinez, Daniele Nathanson , Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock, Ronald Whittier Family Foundation, John J. Ruskin, Tom Swift, Malachy Walsh, Anonymous

PLAYWRIGHTS CIRCLE ($500-$999)

Linda Ayres-Frederick, Phoenix Theatre SF, Jim Brayton & Debbie Marr, Richard Davis – Lowell, Paulette Donsavage, Keith Goldstein & Donna N. Warrington, Kathryn A Hecht, Toby Inoue, Diane Leonard, Diane Sampson, Janine Wilburn, Maury Zeff, Anonymous (2)

PATRON ($250-$499)

Nina Ball & Jon Tracy, Clint Fleener, Chris & Cindy Redburn, JM Solberg, Jon & Susan Sweedler, Mia Evana Taylor

ASSOCIATE MEMBER ($125-$249)

Cass Brayton, Marilyn Berg Cooper, Michael Fried, Gina Harris, Stanley William Hathaway, Gail Hillebrand & Hugh Barroll, Jean Jensen, Mildred Inez Lewis, Pam MacKinnon, Paris McCarthy, Mark Peters, Doug Peckler and Evelyn Jean Pine , Carolina Rojas Moretti, Abigail May Rosen, Stan Stone, Bex White, Scott Lebus & Susannah Wise, Anonymous

SUPPORTING MEMBER ($75-$124)

Sam & Naomi Abramovitz, Nissa Anklesaria, Mary E. Baird, Robert Battle, Julie Berthold, John Brown, Bruce Colman, Please don’t , Frieda de Lackner, Albert & Joyce Dieda, Krystyna  Finlayson , Anirvan and Lee Anna Ghosh, Hon. John Hale, Martin Haro, Sharlene Hartman, Richard Hillman, Lucy Hsu, Tanuja Devi Jagernauth, Pamela Kennedy, Mike, Erin & Cameron, Michael Kobori and Sachiko Nagai-Kobori, Drew & Carrie Nagel, Jack needleman, Bridget O’Keeffe, Louis Parnell, Veril L Phillips, Bridgette Dutta Portman, Stephanie & David Haines, Kimberly Ridgeway, Emily Brauer Rogers and Gene Rogers, Phyllis Rothman, Miyoko Sakatani, Louel Senores, Alex M. Shafer, Michael Slade, Nancy W. Smith, Kurt Taylor, Lisa Gaye Thompson, Michael E Tuton, Christina Velasco, Christian Edward Wilburn, Anonymous (3)

CONTRIBUTING MEMBER ($25-$74)

Melissa A Argo, Evan Baughfman, Tesia Renee Bell, Anne and Kevin Brady, Thomas Patrick Broyhill, Tom Bruett, Ben Cain, Mark Calhoun, Todd Cerveris, Parvesh Cheena, Ed Chiu, Ronald a Cook, David Cramer, Mark Doyle, Elizabeth Dudak, Deepanshu Dutta, JoAnne Winter and Adrian Elfenbaum, Jerri Farnsworth, Caitlin Floyd, Sandy Hansen, Miss Richelle Lopez Harding, Steve Harper, Brian and Jocelyn Herndon, Jane Hopkins, Uma Incrocci, Michael Kaplan, Ruth Kirschner, Katherine Swan, Angela Loria, Kelley Macmillan, Gabriela Mayorga, Lisa McCaffrey, Colette Meunier & Mark van Norman, Marnie Monogue, Mr. & Mrs. Tom J Monogue, Dionna Ndlovu, Richard Orchid, Vivian M. Pisano, Dorothy Fuller Polash, Shariba Rivers, Charlie Rodriguez, Debba Rofheart, Katie Ryan, Kevin Sabato, Jeunee Simon, Dakota Solomon, William & Sharon Thompson, Colin Thomson & Karen Thomson Hall, Braedyn Youngberg

FRIEND ($1-$24)

Tod Abbott, David Adams, Michael Adams, Scott Adams, Anthony Anello, Micheline Auger, Oscar Avila, Daniela Bailes, Anna Bass, Laura Bennett, Mayuri Bhandari, Erica Blumfield, Roberta D’Alois, Jack Darling, Samantha Dickinson, Eileen Dixon, Amy Dobzynski, Jordan Don, Leah T Dudak, Dr. Morgan Dundon, Amanda Andrei, Emily Esner, Morgan Fabber, Sara Felder, Cherielyn Ferguson, John Flanagan, Linette Floyd, Saiya Floyd, Christina M Freitas Blair, Jake Friedman, Enid Lucchesi Gil, Katie Gnagy Melendez, Anne Gorman, Kara Grayson-Groom, Elizabeth Groenewegen, Julien Gussman, Nay Harris, Laurie Henderson, Wendy Herbert, Leon Macias, Aaron Higareda, Edward Hong, Ellen Ilfeld, Tim Jacques, Brandon Jenkins, Eric Judson, Dawn Juhas, Myung Kang Huneke, Vassilisa Kapila, Jacinta Kaumbulu, Javid Khoshnood, Amanda Kim, Lydia Kim, Frances Ann Krepchin, Shelly Kurtzl, Connor Larkin, Vivian Le, & Jeffry A Leblanc, Gerald May, Eris Mayeroff, Leontyne Mbele-Mbong, Trisha McKethan, Christopher Mehrvarzi, Amy Meyers, Allie Costa, Frank Nims, Dakota Pariset, Phillip Pineno, Fred Pitts, Christian Pizzirani, Melanie Claire Queponds, Charli Renken, Jess Roat, Bill Roberts, Velma Ross , Jason Ruderman, Patrick Russell, Collette Rutherford, Jorge Salas, March Saper, Dr. Jenni Schlossman, Hayley Schueneman, Andrew Seller, Tori Serpico, Baylee Anne Shlichtman, Miss Eden Olivia Sides, Diana Simonzadeh, Sergio Solis, Ginger Marie Standridge, Natalie Standridge, Spencer Talesfore, Sharlee Taylor, Phone Myat Tha, Ian Thielman, Karly Thomas, Sharon Thompson, Miss Isabel Anne Torres, Allison Tu, Miranda Velasco, Kim Webster, Shontel Westbrook, Jo Yuan, William Zhang

To contribute to PlayGround, visit https://playground-sf.org/contribute or contact PlayGround Associate Director of Development Lana Richards at lana@playground-sf.org or by phone at (833) 992-6677.

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PlayGround Company

PLAYGROUND WRITERS POOL 2023-24

Daniel Baxter, Robyn Brooks, Nicole Apostol Bruno, Madeleine Butler, Jediah Craig, Cherielyn Ferguson, Elizabeth Flanagan, Ipsheeta Furtado, KT Frances Hartline, Sam Hurwitt, Tejahra Jacobs, Ruth Kirschner, Steve Koppman, Sarena Kuhn, Greg Lam, Jennifer Le Blanc, Kristy Lin Billuni, Justin P. Lopez, Mikee Loria, Daniel Martinez, Jr, Alanna McFall, Matthew Morishige, Richard Perez, Bridgette Dutta Portman, Xinyuan Pu, Kimberly Ridgeway, George Rose, David Schweidel, Louel Senores, Stan Stone, Lisa Thompson, Mike Tuton, Kaz Valtchev, Michael Waterson, Christian Wilburn, Maury Zeff

PLAYGROUND RESIDENT PLAYWRIGHTS 2023-24

Cass Brayton, Bailey Jordan Garcia, M.J. Kang, Samuel Kelly Fair Levit, Daniel Martinez, Jr., Matthew Y. Morishige, Molly Olis Krost, Evelyn Jean Pine, Bridgette Dutta Portman, Alexis Standridge, Leela Velautham, Jennie Webb

PLAYGROUND COMPANY

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, Millie Brooks, Julia Brothers, Nicole Apostol Bruno, Lizzie Calogero, Ron Campbell, Joy Carlin, Nancy Carlin, Zoe Chien, Ben Chau-Chiu, 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, Rosie Hallett, Katherine Hamilton, Eric Fraisher Hayes, Brian Herndon, Champagne Hughes, J Jha, Colin Johnson, Jennifer King, Dean Koya, 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

PLAYGROUND AMBASSADORS

Julia Brothers, Jordan Carlson, Ben Chau-Chiu, Julia Crowley, Sheri Flanders, Claire Ganem, Eric Geller, Monica Ho, Tony Kim, Christine Liao, AJ Lily, Ely Sonny Orquiza, Andrew Perez, Ivan Rivas, Miyoko Sakatani, Braedyn Youngberg

PLAYGROUND STAFF

Jim Kleinmann, Co-Founder & Artistic Director
Jacque Bugler, Production Manager/General Manager
Lana Richards, Associate Director of Development
Jonathan Josephson, Director of Marketing & Communications
Bacilio Mendez II, Executive Producer
Norman Gee, Associate Producer
Katja Rivera, Associate Producer
Tessa Corrie, Casting Associate
Patricia Cotter, Casting Associate
Brittany Mellerson, Resident Designer
Sarah Gasser, Resident Stage Manager
Darius Adamson Jr., 2023-24 Producing Fellow
River Bermudez Sanders, 2023-24 Producing Fellow
Zoe Chien, 2023-24 Producing Fellow
Carmia Imani, 2023-24 Producing Fellow
Julie Lippert-Pasco, 2023-24 Producing Fellow
Xinyuan Pu, 2023-24 Producing Fellow
Christy Spence, 2023-24 Producing Fellow
Emily Zhou, 2023-24 Producing Fellow

PLAYGROUND BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Stephanie Prentice, Chair
James A. Kleinmann, President
Emilie Talbot, Vice President
Nitin, Treasurer
Diana Burbano, Secretary
Regina Guggenheim, Chair Emeritus
Tanvi Agrawal
Linda Amayo-Hassan
Hillary DeMartino
Rebecca Martinez
Katie May
Bacilio Mendez II
David Steele
Christian Wilburn
David Steele

www.PlayGround-sf.org
3286 Adeline St #8
Berkeley, CA 94703-2485
info@playground-sf.org
(415) 992-6677