Lauren Yee and More to be Honored at PlayGround's 2026 Four-City Gala

PlayGround will honor four theatre professionals at their annual four-city gala on Monday, September 14th. In conjunction with the 25th anniversary of PlayGround's June Anne Baker Prize, one of the nation's longest-running play commissions dedicated to the next generation of promising women/non-binary playwrights, PlayGround will recognize significant theatre artists and producers who have elevated womxn playwrights and stories throughout their careers: Margo Hall, Lorraine Hansbury Theatre (San Francisco), Jessica Kubzansky, Boston Court Pasadena (Los Angeles), Emily Shooltz, Signature Theatre (New York), and Ericka Ratcliff, Chicago Shakespeare Theater (Chicago). The 2026 June Anne Baker Prize winners are Esther Banegas Gatica (PlayGround-Los Angeles), KT Frances Hartline (PlayGround-SF), Uma Incrocci (PlayGround-NY), and Toby Inoue (PlayGround-CH). The Gala honorary committee includes June Anne Baker Prize alumni Lauren Yee and Geetha Reddy (honorary co-chairs), as well as Rachel Bublitz, Patricia Cotter, Laura Domingo, Brady Lea, Alanna McFall, Erin Marie Panttaja, Evelyn Jean Pine, Bridgette Dutta Portman, and Kimberly Ridgeway.

The four-city cocktail gala will take place simultaneously on September 14 in San Francisco (American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary St, San Francisco, CA 94102), Los Angeles (A Noise Within, 3352 E Foothill Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91107), Chicago (Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 E Grand Ave, Chicago, IL 60611), and New York (The Brazen Tavern, 356 W 44th St, New York, NY 10036). Tickets are $150 ($75 tax-deductible). Host level, $500 ($350 tax-deductible), includes 2 tickets and host recognition. Host tables for 4 are available for $1,000 ($700 tax-deductible) and event sponsorship, including up to 12 tickets, is $5,000 ($4,100 tax-deductible). 

The June Anne Baker Prize was initiated by John H. Gilman in memory of his late wife. The Prize is awarded annually to a female or non-binary playwright selected from among that year's Best of PlayGround, representing a gifted new comedic and/or political voice for the stage. The Prize provides a commissioning grant for a new full-length play and support for developmental readings of the new work. Past recipients include Lauren Yee, Geetha Reddy, Patricia Cotter, and Genevieve Jessee, among others.
 

MEET THE PLAYGROUND HERO GALA CO-CHAIRS AND HONOREES

Geetha Reddy

(San Francisco) is a playwright and filmmaker. Her plays include The Employee Dharma Handbook (TheaterWorks Silicon Valley), Mahābhārata (Oakland Theatre Project) Far, Far Better Things (Shotgun Players/ TheatreFirst), Hela (with Lauren Gunderson, TheatreFirst), Safe House (SF Playhouse), Blastosphere (with Aaron Loeb, CentralWorks). Geetha's plays Me Given You, Girl in a Box, and On a Wonderverse  were part of the Playwright's Foundation's 'In the Rough' reading series. Safe House and On a Wonderverse were featured in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. She has been commissioned by TheatreWorks, SFPlayhouse,  Oakland Theatre Project, Shotgun Players, Crowded Fire, the Gerbode Foundation, and PlayGround (3). Her plays have also appeared in the San Francisco Fringe Festival, the Santa Rosa Quickies festival, the Best of PlayGround Festival, the Just Theatre Lab series, the Crowded Fire Matchbox series, and the Theatreworks New Works Festival. Her short film Obit appeared at LA Shorts, NY Indie Fest, Bend Film Festival, the GI Film Festival and many others. Geetha is a member of the Dramatist's Guild and alumna Resident Playwright at the Playwright's Foundation.

Lauren Yee

(New York) is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter based in New York. Recent plays include Cambodian Rock Band (South Coast Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, Signature Theatre), The Great Leap (Denver Center, Seattle Rep, the Atlantic, Steppenwolf, ACT), King of the Yees (Goodman Theatre, Center Theatre Group), and Mother Russia (Seattle Rep, Signature Theatre). Honors include the Doris Duke Artist Award, Whiting Award, Steinberg/ATCA Award, Horton Foote Prize, and Kesselring Prize. TV:  "Pachinko” (Apple), “Soundtrack” (Netflix), “Interior Chinatown” (Hulu), “Billions” (Showtime), “Clipped” (FX). She's previously developed pilots for Netflix and Apple, and is currently developing TV and feature projects for Netflix and Universal. BA: Yale, MFA: UCSD. laurenyee.com

Margo Hall

(San Francisco) is an award-winning actor, director, playwright, educator, and the Artistic Director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre (LHT). She was recently awarded the 2021 Kenneth Rainin Fellowship in Theater and listed as one of the YBCA 100 honorees for 2020. She debuted as a Theater Director with The World Premiere of Joyride, from the novel Grand Avenue by Greg Sarris, which was the Bay Area Critics Circle Winner for Best Original Script; the SF Weekly Black Box Awards for Best Production, Best Ensemble, Best Director; Drama-Logue Awards- Northern California for Best Production, Best Ensemble; the Backstage West-Garland Awards- Northern California for Best Production, Best Ensemble, and the Bay Guardian GOLDIE Award Winner for Stage. She recently directed FLEX, FAT HAM and Nollywood Dreams for SF Playhouse, and Garuda's Wing for Campo Santo. Hieroglyph by Erika Dickerson-Despenza was a co-production for LHT and SF Playhouse. The play was filmed live onstage and streamed virtually during COVID. Other LHT credits include Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body, Sunset Baby, In the Evening by the Moonlight, Soulful Christmas, Thurgood, and Rejoice! Other directing credits include How I Learned What I Learned for Lorraine Hansberry Theater, Ubuntu, and Marin Theatre Company, Barbecue, Red Velvet, and The Story, an SF Playhouse/Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Co-Production. Prior directing credits include Sonny's Blues, a story by James Baldwin, for Word for Word, which toured France. She co-directed Bulrusher with Ellen Chang for Shotgun Players, In the Red and Brown Water, and Polaroid Stories for UC Berkeley, and Once on This Island, Hamlet, Blood in the Brain, SPUNK, The Trojan Women, It Falls, Ragtime, and A Streetcar Named Desire for Chabot College. Margo's recent film credits include Louise in Bottled Spirits, a one-woman short; Lamya in The Come Up, Pastor Brown in Thirsty, Grammy in Artisan, Leslie White in All Day and a Night; Nancy in Blindspotting; and the voice of Melba in Pixar's Soul. TV credits include Nancy in Blindspotting -STARZ, Helen in Chances -Hulu, Marsha Watkins, and Blind Witness on Nash Bridges.
 

Jessica Kubzansky

(Los Angeles) is the Artistic Director of Boston Court Pasadena, a theatre dedicated to risky, adventurous new work and significantly reenvisioned classics. She is also an award-winning director working nationally, in theatres across the country such as Arena Stage, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, The Cherry Lane, Utah Shakespeare Festival, A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle, Portland Center Stage, South Coast Repertory Theatre, The Pasadena Playhouse, The Geffen Playhouse, and many more. Prior work with LATW includes: Tooth and Claw, Steel Magnolias, and Hold These Truths. Recently at Boston Court Pasadena, the world premieres of of her own immersive, site-specific production of Measure STILL for Measure, Tira Palmquist's The Body's Midnight, Kit Steinkellner's Ladies, Sarah Mantell's Everything That Never Happened, Stefanie Zadravec's Colony Collapse, Sheila Callaghan's Everything You Touch (also for Rattlestick at The Cherry Lane), as well as Luis Alfaro's Mojada, A Medea in Los Angeles (The Getty Villa), and RII (her own three-person adaptation of Richard II). Recently elsewhere, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Utah Shakespeare Festival), The Father with Alfred Molina (Pasadena Playhouse), Othello (A Noise Within), Jeanne Sakata's Hold These Truths (Arena Stage), Aditi Brennan Kapil's Orange (South Coast Rep), Stupid F*cking Bird (ACT, Seattle). Kubzansky received the Los Angeles Drama Critics' Circle's Margaret Harford Award for Sustained Excellence in Theatre.
 

Emily Shooltz

(New York) is the Artistic Director of Signature Theatre in New York City. She has two decades of experience identifying, cultivating and mentoring artists and arts administrators. She spent 14 years as the Associate Artistic Director at Ars Nova, where she worked to grow the non-profit from a fledgling development and producing organization to New York City's premier hub for emerging artists in live entertainment. In her years with the organization, she was integral to the commissioning, development and production of critically-acclaimed and award-winning shows including the Broadway musical KPOP, Dave Malloy's Tony Award-winning Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812; Heather Christian's multiple-award winning Oratorio for Living Things; Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R. Sheppard's Obie Award-winning Underground Railroad Game; Bess Wohl's nationally acclaimed Small Mouth Sounds; César Alvarez and the Lisps' Lortel Award-winning FUTURITY and new work with music-theater stars The Bengsons, Sky-Pony and Andrew Butler, among many others. She also co-created and oversaw Ars Nova's slate of artist development programs, where she worked with hundreds of emerging theater, music and comedy artists each year. Emerging playwrights and projects she fostered in Ars Nova's Play Group and resident artist programs have gone on to win every major theater award, including Tonys, Pulitzer Prizes, Obies, MacArthur Genius Awards, Whiting Awards, Drama Desk, Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Awards. Prior to Ars Nova, she served as the Literary Manager at Manhattan Theatre Club, where she oversaw the new play commissioning program and facilitated season planning for their Broadway and Off Broadway theaters. She has held staff and freelance dramaturgy positions at the Wilma Theater; Centerstage, Baltimore; Yale Repertory Theatre and the O'Neill Theater Center; has guest lectured at schools including NYU, Williams, Columbia, Yale, Montclair State University and The New School, and served on the selection committees for the Kesselring Prize and Princess Grace Award. She also consults on theater & television projects, live events and philanthropic work and has served as an adjunct faculty member at Montclair State University. Emily holds an MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama. Her work with emerging artists and writers has been profiled by Playbill Online and The Interval.

Ericka Ratcliff

(Chicago), storyteller and arts advocate, is committed to creating bold work that amplifies underrepresented voices, fosters dialogue and builds community through the power of theater. She currently serves as the Literary Manager at Chicago Shakespeare Theater and the Coordinating Producer for 100 Free Acts of Theater at Goodman Theatre. Formerly the Artistic Director at Congo Square Theatre, she programmed critically acclaimed productions such as Welcome to Matteson, What To Send Up When It Goes Down, and How I Learned What I Learned in collaboration with Goodman Theatre, and served as the Executive Producer of The Blackside digital series. As a director, her credits include Chlorine Sky (Steppenwolf for Young Adults), WHITE! (Definition Theatre), Blues for an Alabama Sky (UIC), Hit the Wall (NIU), and The Wolves (University of Chicago). She is also an ensemble member at Lookingglass Theatre. As an actor, she was last seen on stage in the Jeff Award-winning production of The Penelopiad at Goodman Theatre.
 

MEET THE JUNE ANNE BAKER AWARD WINNERS

Esther Banegas Gatica

(PlayGround-LA), she/her, is a Honduran bilingual playwright, actress, director, and translator. She's a graduate of Teatro Prometeo from Miami Dade College. She's obtained a BFA from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She's taught and performed with/at: Miami Hispanic International Theatre Festival, Syracuse Stage, the Gluck Foundation, and Fort Worth Fringe. Esther is a recent graduate from the University of California, Riverside with an MFA in writing for the performing arts. She is a Line Producer for Lime Arts productions and part of PlayGround-LA, as well as part of Black Voice News. Her short play, Waiting for… the Bus, was featured in Best of PlayGround(LA) '26. Follow her work @esteyg

KT Frances Hartline

(PlayGround-SF), she/her, is a Berkeley-based playwright and screenwriter. After working as a New York City public school teacher, she was editor for two New York-based magazines and wrote for Oakland and Parents Press. Her plays have appeared in festivals around the country, including It's Alarming, a Heideman Award finalist which premiered in Playground's Monday Night Series. Her screenwriting accolades include AFF Second Rounder and Finalist in the International PAGE Awards. She is now a Top Tier member of Roadmap Writers' Career Writer Program. Her greatest joy is squeezing into a hardcore punk show and watching the son she homeschooled absolutely shred on drums. Her short play, A Wayward Tale, will be featured in Best of PlayGround(SF) '26.

Uma Incrocci

(PlayGround-NY), she/her, has been a member of the PlayGround Writers Pool since 2018. Her play To Keep and Bear had a workshop at the New Ground Theater Festival at the Cleveland Playhouse in June 2024. Her short plays have been performed around the country and in Adelaide, Australia. You can catch her TV movies Romance with a Twist, Nature of Love, Hats off to Love and A Christmas Carousel on the Hallmark Channel. Her short play, Marathon Dan, was featured in Best of PlayGround(NY) '26.

Toby Inoue

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