PlayGround-NY’s Season 1 Schedule, Community Open House & Auditions
PlayGround-NY, the first East Coast expansion of the celebrated California-based playwright incubator, is pleased to share plans for our inaugural season. The company will shortly announce the Season 1 Writers Pool, 36 early-career NYC-based playwrights competitively selected from more than 90 applications received this summer. Over the course of the upcoming 2021-22 season, these writers will generate over 150 original short plays, of which 36 will be developed as part of Monday Night PlayGround, a monthly script-in-hand staged reading series that is at the core of PlayGround’s multi-tiered writer development process. Each month, PlayGround announces a topic and invites members of the yearly Writers Pool to submit original ten-minute plays inspired by the topic and written in just four-and-a-half days. The top six scripts are staged by leading local directors and actors and presented this year online for a live (virtual) audience, beginning on Monday, October 25 and continuing on fourth Mondays through March. PlayGround-NY concludes its first season with the annual Best of PlayGround-NY Gala, Monday, April 25, 2022, featuring a curated selection of the top six short works from the current season. In addition to PlayGround-NY, we are also offering streaming access to this year’s PlayGround (SF) and PlayGround-LA seasons, with all events admission-free. Tickets for the 2021-22 are now available at https://tickets.playground-sf.org. For more information, visit https://PlayGround-NY.org/Monday.
Community Open House
PlayGround will host a virtual community open house on Sunday, August 19th, 8pm-9pm EDT for NYC-based artists interested in learning more about PlayGround-NY and ways to get involved in Season 1. To sign up for the Community Open House, register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrdu-trDoiHd3W4Row_NESzE6_29iLr7wV.
Auditions
PlayGround-NY will be holding open auditions for this season of performances via online video appointment (reservation required) on Sunday, September 19th, 3pm-5pm EDT. For more information and to schedule an audition slot, visit https://playground-ny.org/audition.
About PlayGround-NY
PlayGround-NY is the second regional expansion of the celebrated Bay Area playwright incubator and theatre community hub, PlayGround. PlayGround was launched in San Francisco in 1994 by co-founders Jim Kleinmann, Brighde Mullins, and Denise Shama. In 1996, Kleinmann became PlayGround’s first Artistic Director. Since its founding, PlayGround has developed and staged over 1,000 original ten-minute plays by nearly 300 Bay Area and Los Angeles early-career writers and has commissioned/developed 100 full-length plays by distinguished PlayGround alumni, premiering 34 of these through PlayGround’s innovative New Play Production Fund. In the process of staging those works, PlayGround has helped to identify some of the leading emerging writers and, at the same time, has effectuated the creation of a true community of theatre artists, bringing together hundreds of local actors, directors and playwrights.
PlayGround’s 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, The Lark, Humana Festival, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and New York International Fringe Festival, among others. Directors and actors participating in PlayGround are among some of the most distinguished theatre professionals, regularly working on leading local stages.
2021-22 Season
All performances will take place online via Vimeo live stream and will also be available on-demand for pre-registered guests. To ensure maximum accessibility, admission is free (donations gratefully accepted). Advance reservations are required and registered guests will receive a Vimeo Live link within 24 hours of the performance.
Monday Night PlayGround
October 25, 2021 @ 7pm ET / 4pm PT
November 22, 2021 @ 7pm ET / 4pm PT
December 27, 2021 @ 7pm ET / 4pm PT
January 17, 2022 @ 7pm ET / 4pm PT
February 28, 2022 @ 7pm ET / 4pm PT
March 28, 2022 @ 7pm ET / 4pm PT
Best of PlayGround-NY Gala
April 25, 2022 @ 7pm ET / 4pm PT
To reserve tickets, visit https://tickets.playground-sf.org.
For more information, visit https://PlayGround-NY.org or follow PlayGround-NY on Facebook (https://facebook.com/PlayGround.NewYork), Twitter (https://twitter.com/PlayGround_NY) and Instagram (https://instagram.com/playgroundnytheatre). For information on our sister programs, visit PlayGround and PlayGround-LA.