Bay Area Playwrights Festival Opens in July

Playwrights Foundation's 39th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF) will open July 15, 2016 featuring staged readings of six acutely original, new works reflectin contemporary issues from the South/North Korean divide to institutionalized racial oppression. The plays are united by the struggles the mostly young protagonists grapple with, and by each emerging playwright's highly imaginative and poetic approach.

The Festival will run July 15-24, 2016 at the Custom Made Theatre in the heart of San Francisco's Theater District at 533 Sutter Street. Tickets are on sale June 1st at playwrightsfoundation.org.

The festival opens with a Korean social media fantasia, Hansol Jung's Wild Goose Dreams with a choral score by Paul Castles (7/15 8PM, 7/23 4PM), then the magic neorealism of Andrew Saito's whisper fish (7/16 12PM, 7/24 6PM), continuing with gamer misogyny eviscerated in Walt McGough's Non-Player Character (7/16 4PM, 7/22 8PM). The festival then features a futuristic allegory of life for families of color by Philana Omorotionmwan in her Before Evening Comes (7/16 8PM, 7/24 2PM), the drunken Vegas apocalypse of Jonathan Spector's Good, Better, Best, Bested (7/17 2PM, 7/23 8PM), and a sexy young stranger exploding a tight family unit in Sycamore by Sarah Sander (7/17 6PM, 7/23 12PM). Each will be performed twice over two weeks, with additional enrichment and social events to be announced. Daily schedule follows at end.

Directors confirmed to date for the festival are Logan Ellis, Jessica Holt, M. Graham Smith, Sango Tajima, and Christine Young. Laura Breuckner, Lydia Garcia, Mame Hunt, Andrew Kopke, Julie McCormick, and Lisa Marie Rollins will serve as dramaturgs.

BACKGROUND / PLAYS / DATES & TIMES

Friday, July 15 8PM Opening night features Wild Goose Dreams by Hansol Jung; with choral score by Paul Castles, and on Saturday July 23 at 4PM. Against a choral cacophony filled with social media chatter and coded messages, a North Korean defector and South Korean "goose father" (a Korean man who works in Korea while his wife and children stay in an English-speaking country for the sake of the children's education) hook up online to assuage their loneliness. But will their quiet, surreptitious intimacy be enough to cut through the noise? Performed with a live choir, this darkly humorous, highly theatrical piece deploys multi-sensory modalities to show humanity at a breaking point.

Saturday, July 16 at 12PM & Sunday, July 24 at 6PM

whisper fish by Andrew P. Saito - In this epic, massively imaginative story, the sacred and the profane unite two estranged Japanese-Peruvian siblings. Magical realism builds this highly theatrical and poetic play with the help of Glenn Miller and his all-fish orchestra, praying nuns, and a dancing chorus of masked Devils.

Saturday, July 16 4PM & Friday, July 22 at 8PM

Non-Player Character by Walt McGough - Aspiring video game designer Katja and her longtime friend Trent are an unstoppable team against animated monsters in the underworlds of SpearLight, an online role-playing game. But after a humiliating falling-out, Trent marshals an army of internet trolls to wage real-life war against Katja, and the fallout isn't just virtual. Based loosely on the GamerGate controversy, this play delves into a timely and boldly theatrical exploration of the misogyny in the games we play and who's winning.

Saturday, July 16 8PM & Sunday, July 24 at 2PM

Before Evening Comes by Philana Omorotionmwan - A shattering and provocative dystopian allegory for our times, the play is set in the year 2083. A draconian government mandate renders nearly all males of color home bound and cruelly disabled as they reach manhood, save for a few so-called beacons of virtue. But Mary, mother to four sons, is determined to find any way necessary to subvert her boys' fate.

Sunday, July 17 at 2PM & Saturday, July 23 at 8PM

Good, Better, Best, Bested by Jonathan Spector - During one long night of debauchery and desperation, bachelorettes, stage magicians, street performers, professional gamblers, and obnoxious tourists take a drunken stumble down the Las Vegas Strip looking for a good time, oblivious to the world around them. That night a devastating world crisis occurs and the partiers are forced to decide how much they should let it disturb their good time. With tremendous humor and ironic wit, the play explores questions of war, intimacy and cultural consumption in a hilarious and disturbing way.

On Sunday, July 17 at 6PM & Saturday, July 23 at 12PM

Sycamore by Sarah Sander explores what happens when the lens zooms in on your average, seemingly well-adjusted Midwestern, suburban family of four. Is "happily married" a thing for Louise and David? And what's up with their children's fierce competition for the amorous attention of the strange, quiet boy who moves in across the street? A riveting, poignant, sexy, and darkly funny play.