San Francisco Playhouse Presents GRAVEYARD SHIFT

San Francisco Playhouse will celebrate the opening of the 10th Season of its Sandbox Series with the original production of graveyard shift, written by Korde Arrington Tuttle. Melissa Crespo will direct.

When Janelle relocates to Texas for the opportunity of a lifetime, she and her partner, Kane, are reminded that the consequences of being in the wrong place at the wrong time can be horrific. For three county police officers, how might those same consequences manifest themselves along racialized and gendered lines? graveyard shift is a love story about collision, opposing ideologies, interests, truth, and how the characters in this play make sense of them. Or don't.

"We are thrilled to open our 10th Sandbox Season with a new play ripped out of the headlines by one of the most exciting new voices in American theatre," said Artistic Director Bill English. "Mr. Tuttle miraculously finds a way to honor the outrage at injustice while still finding humanity in the perpetrators as well as the victims."

The cast of graveyard shift features Max Carpenter*, Amanda Farbstein, Sam Jackson, and Gwen Loeb*.

San Francisco Playhouse's production of graveyard shift is made possible by executive producers Cynthia and David Bogolub; producers Nancy Larsen and Sandra Hess; and associate producers William and Terilyn Voegtle.

Korde Arrington Tuttle (Playwright) is a multi-disciplinary artist from Charlotte, NC. He currently writes on the Netflix show MIXTAPE. His work has been developed and seen at the Ojai Playwrights Conference, the Obie Award-winning The Fire This Time Festival, The 24-Hour Plays: Nationals, the Obie Award-winning Harlem 9's 48 Hours... in Harlem at The National Black Theatre, HomeBase Theatre Collective, The Movement Theater Company, The New School's 2015 AfroFuturism Conference, and The Tenth Magazine, in collaboration with the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Korde is a recipient of New York Stage and Film's 2018 Founders' Award, 2018 Falco/Steinman Commission Award at Playwrights Horizons, and the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. Korde is also the recipient of the Steinberg Playwriting Fellowship, and was selected as a finalist for both the 2017 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Contest and City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting Contest. In 2016, his play, clarity, won the 41st Annual Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival, and was published in their successive anthology. Korde is a current Resident Artist at Lincoln Center Theater, Ars Nova, and is a Middle Voice Theatre Company member at Rattlestick Playwright's Theater. He received his MFA in Playwriting at The New School.

Melissa Crespo (Director) is a NYC based director of theater, opera and film. Recent credits include: Pedro Pan (NYMF); In the Blue Hour (Lil' Explosions); Brother Toad (Kansas City Repertory Theatre); The Review or How to Eat Your Opposition (WP Theatre); eat and you belong to us (NYU Tisch); ¡Figaro! (90210) (The Duke on 42nd Street & LA Opera); ABC Talent Showcase (Disney NYC); Destiny of Desire (Garden Theatre); Tar Baby (Edinburgh Fringe Festival & London Vault Festival); Upcoming: Native Gardens (Syracuse Stage, Geva Theatre Center & Portland Stage); Daughters of the Rebellion (Montclair State University). Fellowships/Residencies: Time Warner Fellow (WP Theatre); Usual Suspect (NYTW); The Director's Project (Drama League); Van Lier Directing Fellow (Second Stage Theatre); Allen Lee Hughes Directing Fellow (Arena Stage). Melissa received her MFA in Directing from The New School for Drama. http://www.melissacrespo.com

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.

*Member of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers.

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