San Francisco Playhouse Announces 2017-18 Sandbox Series

San Francisco Playhouse (Artistic Director Bill English; Producing Director Susi Damilano) today announced the three plays that will comprise its 2017-2018 Sandbox Series of World Premieres. The season explores Americans at work in contemporary society-from the world of video game design, to a typical office job, to a new business in Austria's most notorious birthplace.

Through this lens, all three plays challenge audiences to address questions and issues that are relevant to our everyday lives. The announcement of the new crop of Sandbox Series world premieres marks the ninth season of the award-winning series dedicated to nurturing new works-the only subscription series in the Bay Area devoted to solely presenting world premieres-and joins the six previously-announced Mainstage shows to complete the Playhouse's 2017-18 Season.

The 2017-2018 Sandbox Series of World Premieres:

NON-PLAYER CHARACTER | Presented at the Creativity Theatre
World Premiere by Walt McGough
February 7th to March 3rd, 2018 (Press Opening: February 15th)
Aspiring video game designer Katja and her longtime friend Trent are an unstoppable team against animated monsters in the virtual 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 her. Comic and poignant, Non-Player Character is a timely, boldly theatrical exploration of the games we play and who's winning.

IN BRAUNAU
World Premiere by Dipika Guha | Presented at The Rueff at A.C.T.'s Strand Theater
June 13th to July 7th, 2018 (Press Opening: June 21st)
American couple Justin and Sarah, reeling after the last election, decide to take their outrage to another place-the little known city of Braunau, Austria. In Braunau they embark on their plan to lease Adolf Hitler's childhood home and convert it to a "rainbow BnD" (bed and dinner) where people from all over the world can break bread, talk, and reclaim history. What could possibly go wrong?

WASHED UP ON THE POTOMAC | Presented at Custom Made Theatre Co.
World Premiere by Lynn Rosen
August 8th to September 1st, 2018 (Press Opening: August 16th)
Order is the name of the game in this D.C. proofreading office, but everything is a bit off today. It's ninety degrees in October, a costly mistake has been made on an important account, and someone is going to get fired. As three proofreaders ponder their futures, they become haunted and inspired by memories of a coworker whose body may have washed up on the banks of the Potomac today. Who will be the next to go? Or are they already gone?

The Sandbox Series is San Francisco Playhouse's new works program. The Playhouse's commitment to new works in the Sandbox Series has been honored by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Theatre Wing. Designed to bridge the gap between staged readings and Mainstage productions, the program combines top-notch directors and actors with limited design elements, allowing new voices in American theater to be heard while reducing the theatre's financial risk for full production at this stage of a play's development. The series has achieved significant critical and commercial milestones: Sandbox plays have won two Will Glickman Awards in the past three years; the Sandbox smash hit Ideation recently completed a successful Off-Broadway engagement in New York City; and George Brant's Grounded went on to international acclaim after its Sandbox premiere.

The San Francisco Playhouse 2017-18 Mainstage Season will begin with the Bay Area Premiere of Robert O'Hara's Off-Broadway critical hit Barbecue, a ferociously funny and incisive look at poverty, race, and social class. The Playhouse celebrates the holidays with the popular musical A Christmas Story, from the acclaimed Oscar-winning duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul known for the scores of the film La La Land, and the current Broadway smash hit Dear Evan Hansen. The New Year kicks off with Garson Kanin's American classic Born Yesterday, a comedy that explores personal and political oppression. The Mainstage season will continue with the West Coast Premiere of The Effect, Lucy Prebble's critically acclaimed 2012 play that premiered at London's National Theatre. Next, the World Premiere of Melissa Ross's An Entomologist's Love Story-an uproarious, edgy, and explicit look at love in our times-will hit the Playhouse stage. San Francisco Playhouse will conclude their 15th season with Sunday in the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical based on the life of artist Georges Seurat.

Founded in 2003, San Francisco Playhouse has been described by the New York Times as "a company that stages some of the most consistently high-quality work around." Located right in the heart of the Union Square Theater District, San Francisco Playhouse is the city's premier Off-Broadway company, an intimate alternative to the larger more traditional Union Square theater fare. Presenting a diverse range of plays and musicals, San Francisco Playhouse produces new works as well as re-imagined classics, "making the edgy accessible and the traditional edgy." San Francisco Playhouse provides audiences the opportunity to experience professional theater with top-notch actors and world-class design in a setting where they are close to the action. And with its bold Sandbox Series, dedicated to nurturing World Premieres, the Playhouse has become a significant player in developing new works as well. San Francisco Playhouse is committed to providing a creative home and inspiring environment where actors, directors, writers, designers, and theater lovers converge to create and experience dramatic works that celebrate the human spirit.

Sandbox Series Subscriptions are available immediately online at www.sfplayhouse.org, or by calling the box office at 415-677-9596. Subscriptions are $60 for three plays. Single Tickets ($30 and up) will go on sale to the public in June 2017.

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