Directors and Casting is set for the two PlayGround Festival premieres, A HISTORY OF FREAKS by Katie May, May 13-June 15 , helmed by circus arts performer and director Doyle Ott and ANNA CONSIDERS MARS by Ruben Grijalva, May 20-June 16 (Press /Opening: May 22 at 8pm), helmed by San Francisco Playhouse Producing Director Susi Damilano. The productions will run in rotating repertory as part of the 25th Season PlayGround Festival of New Works, May 13-June 16, 2019. Tickets for the entire PlayGround Festival are now on sale. For more information, visit http://playground-sf.org/festival.
Aurora Theatre Company continues its dynamic 27th season with an Aurora classic, Oscar Wilde's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. Newly announced incoming artistic director Josh Costello (Eureka Day, The Heir Apparent, Detroit) directs this uproarious farce about two young couples in the pursuit of love that upends social conventions with wildly subversive humor.
PlayGround has announced highlights of its 25th Season, including two world premieres to be featured in this year's PlayGround Festival and its return to New York for a 25th Season Gala Performance. The world premieres, Katie May's A HISTORY OF FREAKS and Ruben Grijalva's ANNA CONSIDERS MARS, were both developed at past PlayGround Festivals. Anna Considers Mars is a PlayGround/Planet Earth Arts co-commission. The productions open May 15 and May 22, respectively, and will run in rotating repertory as part of PlayGround's annual new plays showcase, the PlayGround Festival of New Works, through June 16 at PlayGround's state-of-the-art San Francisco home, Potrero Stage. On April 15, PlayGround will celebrate its 25th Anniversary New York-style with a special one-night only Monday Night PlayGround "Musical Theatre" Gala Performance at Theatre Row's Beckett Theatre on 42nd Street, featuring plays and performances by PlayGround alumni and other distinguished guests. For more information, visit http://playground-sf.org.
San Francisco Playhouse announced casting for Dipika Guha's Yoga Play. This will be its second production following the world premiere during South Coast Rep's Pacific Playwrights Festival. Bill Englishwill direct.
Aurora Theatre Company and its Board of Directors today announced that Josh Costello will become the company's next artistic director. Costello will succeed Tom Ross who last May announced his July 2019 departure after 15 years as in the role.
San Francisco Playhouse invites audiences to join the conversation with expert-led discussions following performances of Christopher Chen's world premiere play You Mean to Do Me Harm. Guest speakers will include Frank H. Wu, George Kich, Dr. Leslie E. Wong, and Lee Mun Wah.
San Francisco Playhouse kicks off its 2018/19 Mainstage series-the theater's 16th season presenting diverse and dynamic works-with Christopher Chen's You Mean to Do Me Harm, which was originally commissioned by the Playhouse and premiered in its Sandbox Series last season. Bill English will direct.
PlayGround, the Bay Areas' and Los Angeles' leading playwright incubator, marks the opening of its twenty-fifth season with a special one-night celebration and performance launching a bold new partnership.
PlayGround, the Bay Areas' and Los Angeles' leading playwright incubator, marks the opening of its twenty-fifth season with a special one-night celebration and performance launching a bold new partnership.
San Francisco Playhouse kicks off its 2018/19 Mainstage series-the theater's 16th season presenting diverse and dynamic works-with Christopher Chen's You Mean to Do Me Harm, which was originally commissioned by the Playhouse and premiered in its Sandbox Series last season. Bill English will direct.
PlayGround, the Bay Area's (and now Los Angeles') leading playwright incubator, will mark the opening of its twenty-fifth season with a special one-night gala celebration and performance, and the launch of a bold new partnership. In collaboration with NYC-based The 24 Hour Plays, PlayGround will present the inaugural The 24 Hour Plays: Bay Area, featuring fully produced and performed (i.e., off-book) performances of six original ten-minute plays by distinguished PlayGround alumni, written and developed over just twenty-four hours, and staged by an all-star cast of leading local directors and actors on Monday, September 17, at
The Playwrights Foundation has hired a new managing director, Kathy Li. Kathy (Ruoran) Li is a bilingual theater manager with professional experience both in the United States and in China, Kathy has recently served as Associate Managing Director for Yale Repertory Theatre and for Yale Cabaret, and has produced five plays while in graduate school. Prior to coming to the US, Kathy worked for Shanghai Cultural Exchange Agency to present international theater and dance for Shanghai International Arts Festival, and for Modern Drama Valley to organize community engagement events and support theater productions in her hometown Shanghai, China. Kathy holds an MFA in Theater Management from Yale School of Drama, and a BA from Shanghai Conservatory of Music.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. The characters in the play IDEATION are definitely paranoid, entertainingly so, but whether or not someone is out to get them is still a question mark at the end of the play. The regional premiere of IDEATION by Gremlin Theatre is a taut, thrilling, engrossing, and funny 90 minutes of work colleagues going down a paranoid rabbit hole, and it'll make your head spin, in the best way. Rarely has my logical math left brain side been so engaged and excited at the theater as I tried to follow these characters through their hypotheses and arguments and conclusions. Theories and algebraic equations are written on the white board, only to be erased and written over by a new theory. By the end you don't know what to believe, and neither do the characters in the play, but it sure is fun to watch their wheels spin.
The Playwrights Foundation, a launchpad for exceptional plays and playwrights announces the lineup for the 2018 Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF) running July 20-29, 2018. The six Playwrights were selected from more than 700 submissions nationally, 85% from outside the bay area, from more than 2 dozen states and Canada - coast to coast a very North American cohort.
Playwrights Foundation announces the plays and playwrights of the 2018 Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF) running July 20-29, 2018 at Potrero Stage, 1895 18th St in San Francisco. The Artistic Teams for #BAPF2018 features Directors Erik Pearson, Christine Young, Margo Hall, Daniel Banks, Lauren English, and Ken Savage. Dramaturgs joining the teams include Alex Mallory, Maddie Gaw, Lisa Evans, Vidhu Singh, Roweena Mackay, and the Legendary Nakissa Etemad.
PlayGround's Festival of New Works 2018 festival continues with the premiere of the full-length play SCAPEGOAT by William Bivins opening with a press night on May 23, running through June 17 (previews May 21 & 22), a co-production with Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.
Aaron Loeb's new play The Trials of Sam Houston directed by Kevin Moriarty seeks to rediscover the narrative of one of this period's most notorious figures.
PlayGround caps off its twenty-fourth season with Best of PlayGround 22, running May 10-27, 2018 (Press Night: May 12) at Potrero Stage. This fully-produced showcase of the best new playwrights and short plays have been selected from more than 150 submissions and 36 works developed as part of the season's Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series. Noteworthy director/performers Margo Hall, Becca Wolff, Soren Oliver, Jim Kleinmann, Katja Rivera, and Jenny McAllister join in to direct the Best of PlayGround 22 short plays.
PlayGround's Festival of New Works features the premiere of the full-length play BRIGHT SHINING SEA by Julianne Jigour opening with a press night on Wednesday May 16, running through June 16, (previews May 14 & 15). BRIGHT SHINING SEA is a co-production with Planet Earth Arts and one of two PlayGround commissioned full-length plays featured this season. In Julianne Jigour's Bright Shining Sea, six characters find their lives intertwined as they face the personal challenges caused by environmental degradation. Bright Shining Sea confronts destruction-personal and environmental-but presents connection and compassion as the means by which hope is possible. Julianne remarks "It asks us to view the Earth holistically, to recognize our interconnectedness, and to do what the current administration won't-to take responsibility for our planet, for each other, and for future generations.
