THEATRE/ARTS/ENTERTAINMENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact: Jim Kleinmann at
(415) 992-6677 or [email protected].
PLAYGROUND CELEBRATES BAY AREA PLAYWRIGHTS
AT 19TH PLAYGROUND FESTIVAL OF NEW WORKS
MAY 7-JUNE 14, 2015 AT THICK HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO
ALL-FESTIVAL PASSES START AT $60
SAN FRANCISCO, (April 3, 2015) - PlayGround, the Bay Area’s leading playwright incubator, caps off its
2014-15 season with the 19th annual PLAYGROUND FESTIVAL OF NEW WORKS, running May 7-June 14,
2015, at San Francisco’s Thick House. This year’s expanded Festival features more than 44 performances
and readings by over a dozen local writers, including: BEST OF PLAYGROUND 19, a fully-produced
program of six 10-minute plays selected from more than 180 submissions to the Monday Night
PlayGround series; the world premiere of Robin Lynn Rodriguez’s HELLA LOVE OAKLAND (2013
PlayGround Festival selection) and Garret Jon Groenveld’s THE EMPTY NESTERS (2013 PlayGround
Festival selection), and staged readings of four bold new full-length plays in development. Individual
tickets are $25-$55 and All-Festival Passes (including priority seating tickets to all festival activities) start
at $60. Tickets are available through the Box Office at 415-992-6677 or online at http://playgroundsf.org/festival.
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BEST OF PLAYGROUND 19 (World Premiere)
Featuring New Works by: Rachel Bublitz, Genne Murphy, Erin Marie Panttaja, Kirk Shimano, Steven
Westdahl, and Davern Wright
May 7-24, 2015 at Thick House
http://playground-sf.org/bestof
The six ten-minute plays to be presented at this year’s Best of PlayGround are:
Reading Babar in 2070 by Rachel Bublitz, directed by Rebecca Ennals
Someone by Genne Murphy, directed by Jeffrey Lo
Preapocalyptica by Erin Marie Panttaja, directed by Katja Rivera
Art and Tech by Kirk Shimano, directed by Jon Tracy
Frankenstein's Grandmother by Steven Westdahl, directed by Tracy Ward
Cratchit by Davern Wright, directed by Jim Kleinmann
This year’s Best of PlayGround ensemble includes: Michael Barrett Austin, Millie DeBenedet, Melissa
Ortiz, Michael Phillis, Stephanie Prentice, Lindsey Marie Schmeltzer, and Jomar Tagatac.
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HELLA LOVE OAKLAND by Robin Lynn Rodriguez (World Premiere)
Directed by Rebecca Novick
May 11-June 13, 2015 at Thick House
http://playground-sf.org/hellaloveoakland
Hella Love Productions in association with PlayGround presents the world premiere of Robin Lynn
Rodriguez’s HELLA LOVE OAKLAND, running May 11-June 13. Can a conscientious mother choose
between raising awareness and raising her kids? This ninety-minute one-act play uses mixed genres of
spoken word poetry, turf dancing, meta and traditional theater to tell the stories of three women in the
city of Oakland, dealing with issues of equity in education and the experience of gentrification in urban
public schools. Rodriguez’s Hella Love Oakland was commissioned and developed by PlayGround, based
on her popular 2012 Best of PlayGround short (also a 20th Anniversary Celebration finalist). Directed by
Rebecca Novick and featuring Lisa Morse, Safiya Fredericks and Lizzie Calogero. An Equity-approved
project.
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THE EMPTY NESTERS by Garret Jon Groenveld (World Premiere)
Directed by Amy Glazer
May 18-June 14, 2015 at Thick House
http://playground-sf.org/emptynesters
Empty Nesters Productions in association with PlayGround and Virago Theatre Company present the
world premiere of Garret Jon Groenveld’s THE EMPTY NESTERS, running May 18-June 14. When Greg
and Frances drop their youngest child off at college in Arizona, they take a little vacation to the Skywalk
at the Grand Canyon West on their way back to Los Angeles. Returning to an empty home, these
helicopter parents are faced with the question, "What do you want to be when they grow up?"
Groenveld’s The Empty Nesters was a 2013 PlayGround Festival selection. It was further developed last
June at the TRU Voices New Plays Reading Series in NYC. Directed by Amy Glazer and featuring John and
Pamela Gaye Walker. An Equity-approved project.
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ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS:
RACHEL BUBLITZ (Reading Babar in 2070) is the Founder of the 31 Plays in 31 Days Project and a Youth
Ambassador for the Dramatists Guild of America. This is her second season with PlayGround. Rachel’s
full-length play, Of Serpents & Sea Spray, will open at Custom Made Theatre Co. in January of 2016.
Rachelbublitz.com
GARRET JON GROENVELD (The Empty Nesters) is a Poet and Playwright living in San Francisco. An
original writer of PlayGround his full-length plays include The Absence of Birds, Missives, The Serving
Class, The Empty Nesters and The Hummingbirds. An inaugural writer in Residence at the Playwights
Foundation, his plays have appeared in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival (1999, 2004), The Global Age
Project (2010, 2012), the TRU Festival (2006, 2014) and have been produced in San Francisco, New York,
Amsterdam, Bucharest, Romania, Zaragoza, Spain and Mexico City, Mexico. THE HUMMINGBIRDS is also
the winner of the Internationalists 2012 Global Playwrighting Competition with presentations in 6
Countries.
GENNE MURPHY (Someone) is a Philadelphia-born playwright / arts educator. Her plays include Hope
Street and Other Lonely Places (2011 O'Neill finalist, 2012 Azuka Theatre production) and Outside the
Wire (shortlist, 2013 BBC International Radio Play Competition). Genne is a member of PlayGround, the
2015 SF Olympians Festival and Philadelphia Young Playwrights’ Alumni Council.
ERIN MARIE PANTTAJA (Prepocalyptica) is in her third season as a member of the Writers Pool. She
received a Planet Earth New Play Festival commission to develop a new full-length play based on her
short Preapocalyptica, to be workshopped this spring at University of California Berkeley and Stanford.
Her plays have been produced at the Dublin Fringe Festival's Thread workshop and Mendocino College's
New Works Festival and as part of Twisted Christmas Live. She is also an engineer, designer, roboticist,
and homemaker.
ROBIN LYNN RODRIGUEZ (Hella Love Oakland) is a PlayGround Resident writer, who received the
Emerging Playwright Award when Hella Love Oakland was presented at the 2012 Best of PlayGround
Festival. She has also won PlayGround's June Anne Baker Award and her commissioned full-length of
Hella Love Oakland received a staged reading at its 2013 Festival. Her full-length play Hedge was a
finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival in 2011 and received a staged reading at the PlayGround
Festival in 2014. She recently began writing for the stage after being a theater teacher.
KIRK SHIMANO (Art and Tech) wrote the screenplay for Miss Finknagle Succumbs to Chaos, which
received the People's Choice Award at the 2013 PlayGround Film Festival. His plays include Love in the
Time of Zombies (San Francisco Theater Pub) and Pegasus: The Movie (The Play) (San Francisco
Olympians), which was inspired by his day job of illuminating imaginary things with imaginary lights.
STEVEN WESTDAHL (Frankenstein’s Grandmother) graduated from Emory University (BAs in English and
Theatre & Film), became a founding member of the SF Neo-Futurists (Best Theater, 2014, SF Weekly /
Best of the Bay, 2014, Bay Guardian), and will direct Zurich Plays, a Dada history of the Dadaist, at the SF
Fringe in 2015.
DAVERN WRIGHT’s (Cratchit) scripts include Would You Like the Can, Sir? (January 2015 PlayGround
People’s Choice Award) and Something’s Wrong with Peter (2011 Santa Fe Film Festival Official
Selection). He also acts, and can be seen this summer in Marin Shakespeare Company’s Cymbeline and
Richard III. He has an M.F.A. in Film Production from USC, a B.A. in Theatre from Williams College, and
currently teaches Film Editing at Academy of Art University.
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ABOUT PLAYGROUND:
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, PlayGround Festival of New Works, Best of PlayGround, full-length play commissions and
support for the production of new plays by local playwrights through the New Play Production Fund and,
PlayGround’s newest initiative, the PlayGround Film Festival. To date, PlayGround has supported nearly
200 local playwrights in the development and staging of over 700 original short plays and 55 new fulllength plays, including more than a dozen that have since premiered in the Bay Area. PlayGround alumni
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, Source Festival, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Aurora Theatre's Global Age Project,
Internationalists Playwriting Prize, and New York International Fringe Festival, among others. More
information at http://PlayGround-sf.org.
FOR CALENDAR EDITORS:
WHAT: 19th Annual PLAYGROUND FESTIVAL OF NEW WORKS, featuring more than 44 performances and
readings of bold new plays by over a dozen Bay Area playwrights. The Festival includes: BEST OF
PLAYGROUND 19 (world premiere), Robin Lynn Rodriguez’s HELLA LOVE OAKLAND (world premiere),
Garret Jon Groenveld’s THE EMPTY NESTERS (world premiere), and staged readings of four new fulllength plays in development.
WHERE: Thick House , 1695 18th Street, San Francisco, CA
WHEN: May 7-June 14, 2015
TICKETS: $25-$55. All-Festival Passes start at just $60. For more information about the PlayGround
Festival of New Works, call (415) 992-6677 or visit www.PlayGround-sf.org/festival.
--30-Media Contact: Jim Kleinmann, Artistic Director
PlayGround, 3286 Adeline St #8, Berkeley, CA 94703-2485