Julianne Jigour's BRIGHT SHINING SEA Comes to Potrero Stage

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.

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In Bright Shining Sea, the people navigate personal losses that the Earth echoes back to them. A couple struggles with the grief of a third miscarriage. A young farmer calls it quits and moves back in with his therapist mother. A scientist races to complete her research on ocean acidification as her memory begins to falter. Her teenage daughter knows the world will never be the same. BRIGHT SHINING SEA is directed by Tracy Ward with a cast that features Nicole Apostol Bruno, Anne Darragh*, Brady Morales-Woolery*, Lisa Morse*, Stacy Ross* and Aaron Wilton*. (*AEA)

PlayGround Festival alumni represent some of the Bay Area's top emerging writers over the past twenty years, including Aaron Loeb, Lauren Yee, Geetha Reddy, Garret Groenveld, and Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, among others. The second 2018 Festival of New Works full length play premiere is SCAPEGOAT by William Bivins opening on May 23, a co-production with Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. The PlayGround Festival also includes Best of PlayGround 22, a fully-produced showcase of the top short plays from the past season, staged readings of four new plays in development, and readings of short works by top high school dramatists as part of the 10th anniversary Young Playwrights Contest.

Julianne Jigour (BRIGHT SHINING SEA May 14-June 16) began writing with PlayGround-LA, PlayGround's sister company in Los Angeles, in 2015 and received the PlayGround Emerging Playwright Award in 2016 for her short play, Bright Shining Sea. She received a PlayGround/Planet Earth Arts commission to adapt and expand that play into a full-length in October 2015 and collaborated with PlayGround on the development of the work, initially at Stanford University as part of the Planet Earth Arts New Play Festival, and later at the 20th annual PlayGround Festival of New Works, where the play received two public staged readings. Julianne was a semifinalist for the 2015 KCACTF Gary Garrison Short Play Award and was selected for the 2014 Theater Masters National MFA Playwrights Festival. Her TV pilots, Antarctica and Arkansas Auguries, received grants from the 2014 and 2015 Carnegie Mellon/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation competitions. Julianne earned her MFA from Carnegie Mellon University and currently resides in Los Angeles. She has had staged readings and productions of her plays in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Aspen, Cleveland, and New York

Tracy Ward (Director, Bright Shining Sea) is an award-winning freelance director based in the Bay Area, focusing on New Works for the American Theater. Productions include work at AlterTheatre, Shotgun Players/Encore Theater, Bay Area Children's Theatre, ODC, and Z Space. She is a proud company member of PlayGround.

CAST: (* Member, Actors' Equity Association)

Nicole Apostol Bruno (Sylvia) has appeared in The Crucible (Los Altos Stage Company), Much Ado About Nothing (Marin Shakespeare Company), Peter and the Starcatcher (Hillbarn Theater), Let's Get Galactic! (YouthAware - New Conservatory Theatre Center). Other Regional Credits: Richard II, The Winter's Tale, Great Expectations (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Southern Oregon University.

Anne Darragh* (Wendy) has performed in the Bay Area for over 20 years. Her most recent performances include Barbecue at SF Playhouse and August:Osage County at Marin Theatre Company. She has performed in numerous world premieres including Tony Kushner's Angels in America at the Eureka Theatre as well as world premieres by Neena Beber, Michelle Carter, Anthony Clarvoe, Anne Galjour, Barry Gifford, Rebecca Gilman, Allan Havis, Denis Johnson, Lynne Kaufman, Julie Marie Myatt, Peter Nachtrieb, Edna O'Brien, Jane Prowse, Amy Sass, and Bill Talen among others. She is a company member of Stephen Pelton Dance Theatre Company and PlayGround. Next up is Wakefield by Brian Thorstenson. As always, thanks to her family.

Brady Morales-Woolery* (Paul) is a SF Bay Area based film and theatre actor. He has appeared on stage in theatres around the Bay Area, including productions at the Willows Theatre, Shotgun Players, Stage Bridge, and Cal Shakes. He originated the role of Mario Savio in FSM, a musical about the free speech movement at UC Berkeley, which was produced by Stage Bridge and workshopped at Berkeley Rep's Groundfloor.

Lisa Morse* (Maya) has performed locally with Marin Theatre, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Symmetry Theatre, Just Theatre, PlayGround, and Playwrights Foundation, as well as Missouri Rep, Kennedy Center, Boston Playwrights Theatre. Off Broadway: Lincoln Center, CSC, P.S. 122. Favorite roles: Woman in The Other Place, Beverly Onion in Abominable (PlayGround), Mom in Down a Little Dirt Road (Just Theater/PlayGround co-production), and Miss Finknagle in the film Miss Finknagle Succumbs to Chaos (PlayGround Film Festival selection). Lisa is a PlayGround Company Member.

Stacy Ross' (Eileen)* recent work includes Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing) at CalShakes, Leni (Riefenstahl) at Aurora and Elizabeth (the First) at Marin Theatre Company. She will next be seen at CalShakes in Everybody and War of the Roses. Ross is a PlayGround Company Member.

Aaron Wilton* (Brian) has been acting for 20 years and has numerous credits in Film, TV, video games, commercials and regional stages. Local credits include San Jose Rep, Aurora Theatre Company, San Jose Stage, Pacific Rep, Brava Theater, Shakespeare Napa Valley, Theatre Rhinoceros, Sacramento Theatre Company, Capital Stage, Cinnabar Theater and Jewel Theatre Company. He is a company member of PlayGround.

22nd annual PlayGround Festival of New Works - May 10-June 17, 2018

22nd annual PlayGround Festival of New Works runs May 10-June 17, 2018. with more than 40 public performances and staged readings over six weeks, the Bay Area's largest celebration of new plays and new playwrights.

The Festival includes:

-Best of PlayGround 22 (May 10-27, 2018), featuring the top six short plays from the 2017-18 Monday Night PlayGround season;

-Festival Staged Readings of four bold new works by PlayGround alumni (May 19-20 & 26-27, 20)

-World premieres of two PlayGround commissions - Julianne Jigour's BRIGHT SHINING SEA (May 14-June 16) and William Bivins' SCAPEGOAT (May 21-June 17)- originally developed at the 2016 PlayGround Festival.

PlayGround, the Bay Area's leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area's best new playwrights, including the monthly Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series, annual PlayGround Festival, full-length play commissions and support for the production of new plays by local playwrights through the New Play Production Fund, among others. To date, PlayGround has supported more than 200 local playwrights in the development and staging of 850 original short plays and 75 new full-length plays, including 22 that have since premiered in the Bay Area. PlayGround alumni - including some of the most distinguished new writers coming out of the Bay Area, such as Aaron Loeb, Lauren Yee, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, Geetha Reddy, among others - have gone on to win local, national, and international honors for their short and full-length work, including recognition at the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Humana Festival, Sundance Festival, The Lark, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and New York International Fringe Festival, among others. PlayGround recently completed renovated on its San Francisco home, Potrero Stage: PlayGround Center for New Plays, a 99-seat state of the art performance venue and 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. For more information on PlayGround and Potrero Stage, visit http://playground-sf.org.