PlayGround Announces Winter/Spring 2025 Education Offerings: Masterclasses by Jonathan Spector, Lydia R. Diamond & Steve Yockey + More
PlayGround, a leading national playwright incubator, has announced five new offerings as a part of its revamped education program for adults. The workshops and masterclasses will be lead by acclaimed playwrights Jonathan Spector, (Tony Award-Winner, Eureka Day), Lydia R. Diamond (Broadway: Toni Stone, Stick Fly), Steve Yockey (Emmy Nominee & Multiple NNPN Rolling World Premieres), and PlayGround Best of Alumni Linda Amayo-Hassan, Andrew Crabtree, and Howard Ho. Visit playground-sf.org/education/ for course descriptions and registration details.
Stephanie Prentice, PlayGround’s Education Coordinator has assembled these exciting educational offerings. “PlayGround’s education programs are open to the entire community and designed to support artists at every stage,” she said. “Offered in-person and online via Zoom, our Winter/Spring 2026 classes include multi-session workshops and one-night masterclasses led by celebrated PlayGround alumni and accomplished playwrights. We invite you to sharpen your skills, spark new work, and be part of a creative community dedicated to developing bold new voices for the stage.”
Registration for each session is limited to 12-20 participants. All registration fees support PlayGround programs and teaching artists.
Masterclass with Tony Award-Winner Jonathan Spector
Everything But The Writing
Online via Zoom
January 21, 2026: 6pm PT/9pm ET
Creating a life as a playwright is a three-legged stool: 1) The Writing (and all that leads up to it); 2) The Making (development, collaboration with directors, actors and designers, rehearsal, institutions ); 3) The Business (career, relationships, contracts, submissions, commissions, agents etc).
The first part gets talked about the most, and for good reason as it’s by far the most important. But the other two are also essential (and it’s a false separation between them, as business and artistic decisions very often inform each other). So in this session we’ll focus on sharing information and strategy around those crucial second two parts. We’ll explore questions like: How do you know if a director is going to be a good fit for your work? How do you build relationships with theaters? What should go in a contract? How do I think about my goals in a developmental reading? And the evergreen, How do you get your work produced? What are the specific challenges and opportunities that one faces as a Bay Area (LA, Chicago, etc.) playwright?
Jonathan Spector is a Tony Award-winning playwright and screenwriter based in Oakland whose plays include Eureka Day, This Much I Know, Birthright, Good. Better. Best. Bested., and In From The Cold. Jonathan’s work has been produced on and off Broadway, regionally and internationally at theaters including Manhattan Theater Club, The Old Vic, Miami New Drama, Pasadena Playhouse, Syracuse Stage, Colt Coeur, 59E59, Theater J, Asolo Rep, The Huntington, and Hampstead Theater among many others, and has been seen in the Bay Area at Marin Theater, Aurora Theater, Shotgun Players, Custom Made and Just Theater, where he was Co-Artistic Director. In the 25-26 season, he will be TCG’s 4th most produced playwright in the country. Jonathan is currently under commission with Manhattan Theater Club, Roundabout Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Trafalgar Theater and a writer/producer on an upcoming Netflix series. He is a PlayGround-SF alumnus playwright.
Masterclass with Emmy-Nominee Steve Yockey
A Deep Dive into Story Structure
The Broadwater Studio, Los Angeles
February 22, 2026: 6pm-8pm PT
Steve will lead an exploration of the use of structural prompts to develop story, focusing on short form and how that can then be applied to full-length plays, TV, and film. We will be writing and then developing participants’ ideas in the session. The session will conclude with a Q&A for participants’ questions about the class, the industry, life.
Steve Yockey is a Los Angeles-based writer. His plays Pluto, Mercury, Bellwether, Afterlife, Octopus, Large Animal Games, Cartoon, Very Still & Hard to See, Blackberry Winter, The Thrush & The Woodpecker, The Fisherman’s Wife, Wolves, Disassembly, Niagara Falls, To Tokyo & the Moon, Reykjavík, Sleeping Giant, Subculture, and Curiosities are published and licensed by Concord Theatricals. He holds an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Steve was a Co-Executive Producer on the series Supernatural and is the Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated creator/showrunner of HBO Max’s darkly comedic thriller The Flight Attendant. He is also the creator/showrunner of Netflix’s Dead Boy Detectives, adapted from the cult Vertigo/DC comic.
Masterclass with Broadway playwright Lydia R. Diamond
Writing the Monologue
Online via Zoom
March 25, 2026: 7pm-8:30pm CT
Whether you’re new to playwriting or looking to sharpen your skills, this class will explore the art of writing compelling monologues through in-class writing exercises, including character building and imagery work.
Lydia R. Diamond is an award-winning playwright whose works include Toni Stone, Stick Fly (Broadway), Smart People, and The Bluest Eye, among others. Her plays have been produced nationally at leading theaters including The Huntington, Steppenwolf, Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, Roundabout Theatre Company, McCarter Theatre Center, and the Guthrie Theater.
Diamond has been a W. E. B. DuBois Institute Non-Resident Fellow at Harvard, a Radcliffe Institute Fellow, a Sundance Playwright Lab Creative Advisor, a Sally B. Goodman Fellow, and an NEA/TCG Playwright in Residence. Her honors include the Horton Foote Playwriting Award, Joseph Jefferson Award, LA Critics Circle Award, National Arts Club Kesselring Prize, Kilroy’s List, and finalist recognition for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, among others.
She has written for Showtime (The Affair—Writers Guild Award nominee), NBC, HBO, Max, and Hulu. Diamond holds an Honorary MFA from A.C.T. and an Honorary Doctorate from Pine Manor College and is currently Associate Professor of Playwriting at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Intro to Screenwriting: The Craft, Navigating The Business, and Surviving The Lifestyle with Andrew Crabtree
Online via Zoom
Six Weekly Sessions, Tuesdays: 1/20-2/24, 6pm-7:30pm PT
Explore the craft of screenwriting, from story structure, character development, and genre to formatting, storytelling techniques, and the business of film. Learn how to craft compelling plots, develop memorable characters, give and receive notes, and navigate the industry with practical tools and insider strategies.
WGA & PGA member Andrew Crabtree is an award-winning filmmaker whose work includes Inherit the Viper, Neon Cowboy (Sundance Fellowship Finalist), and Companion. His films have earned festival awards and industry recognition, he has worked with studios including Lionsgate and Hulu as well as brands like GQ Magazine, Red Bull, and Coca Cola. He is a playwright alum of PlayGround-LA.
Building the Dynamic Short Play with Linda Amayo-Hassan
Six Weekly Sessions, Wednesdays: 2/11-3/18, 6:30pm-8:30pm PT
In person at PlayGround PlaySpace, Berkeley
3286 Adeline St, Berkeley, CA 94703
Join Linda in this fun six week course that is filled with creative writing prompts, storytelling exercises and working on your own short play. We’ll focus on specificity of character, nuanced dialogue and heightened conflict. The class will culminate with an in-class reading with actors!
Linda Amayo-Hassan is a Native & Chicana playwright, actor, and director from the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Theatre Cultura and is a theatre professor at Chabot College. Linda recently had a playwriting residency at Berkeley Reps Ground Floor, a residency with PlayGround-SF and had the honor of participating in The Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive. Her plays have been produced at PlayGround-SF, The Pear Theatre, Native Writers’ Theater, Same Boat Theater Collective and More Más Marami Arts. Linda has an MFA in Acting and Directing from the University of Missouri in Kansas City. She is a PlayGround board member, and an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Tribe.
Saying a Lot with a Little: Writing a 10-Minute Play with Howard Ho
Online via Zoom
Two Sundays: 3/22 & 3/29, 1pm-3pm ET
Where do you start when you write a 10-minute play? Whether you’re confronted with a prompt to write a new piece or you’re crafting a piece to enter into a festival or an awards submission, you need a clear idea for the play and a structure for that idea. This class will help students discover methods for coming up with those play ideas and crafting that structure. We will look at past Playground prompts, discuss strategies for dealing with the prompt, and do writing exercises to put those strategies into motion. We will also look at submission opportunities and how to make the most of those experiences.
Howard Ho is a Chinese-American playwright and composer based in New York City. He is a 2024 Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival winner (Beethoven’s Third), a 2017 and 2024 O’Neill National Playwrights Finalist (Various Emporia, Reset), a Bay Area Playwrights Festival Semi-Finalist (MOLL-E), and a Samuel French OOB Finalist (Where I’m From, End Of The Line). His work has been produced or presented by Moving Arts (Reset), Center Theatre Group Library Reading Series (Pretendo: A Musical), Playground (JIE JIE, Best of Playground 2024 Winner), Pan Asian Rep NuWorks Festival (Parity, Where I’m From), and Company of Angels (Taking A Toll, Will Call). He is also an award-nominated sound designer, journalist, and creator of a YouTube channel dissecting musicals (“Howard Ho Music”) with 150,000+ subscribers. He is a playwright alumnus of PlayGround-NY.
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. Visit https://playground-sf.org for more information.