Monday Night PlayGround Blasts Off October 23 with “ORIGIN STORY”!

“A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” – Marcus Garvey, Political Activist 

PlayGround-NY blasts into its 3rd season of innovative new plays by taking you back the beginning! Join us for a new round of Monday Night PlayGround, featuring original short plays all inspired by the prompt “Origin Story”. Thirty-six New York writers have just four-and-a-half days to generate their original scripts inspired by the prompt as they vie for one of six slots in the first round of this year’s Monday Night PlayGround, performed at The Producers Club on October 23rd at 7pm ET. PlayGround-NY’s sister companies, PlayGround-SF, PlayGround-LA, and PlayGround-CH  will present their own interpretations of the theme on October 16th and October 9th, and October 30th, respectively. 

This transition from digital simulcasts to live theater marks a significant milestone for PlayGround, amplifying the excitement with limited audience capacity, ensuring an intimate and engaging experience. Join us on October 23rd at 7pm ET at The Producers Club for this admission-free event (donations welcome). Secure your seat and explore the complete schedule at https://playground-ny.org/monday/. Witness the birth of stories and celebrate this new chapter with PlayGround-NY.

The second season of PlayGround-NYs Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series on fourth Mondays, Oct-Mar, will be held in person at The Producers Club and via live simulcast (October 23, 2023-March 25, 2024). Each month, PlayGround announces a topic and writers have just four-and-a-half days to generate their original ten-page script. Recent topics have included: “What the World Needs Now…”, “Grief and Hope for Planet Earth”, “Give and Take”, and “Keep Moving  Forward.” The top six scripts are matched with directors and a cast of leading local professionals and rehearsed for just ninety minutes on the day of the performance. Following a brief technical rehearsal to add sound and other design elements, the six short plays are performed as script-in-hand staged readings for an in-person and live-stream viewing audience on third Mondays, October through March. Audience members can also experience the thrill of being a producer through the monthly People’s Choice Awards, helping to determine which plays and playwrights go on for consideration in PlayGround’s annual short play showcase, Best of PlayGround. Advance reservations are required. Admission is free but donations are gratefully accepted. Masks are strongly recommended for in-person performance and attendees should be symptom-free and have no recent exposure to individuals with COVID.

Why Free Admission? 

In May 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, PlayGround started streaming its live programs, greatly expanding access for artists and audiences, not only in the Bay Area but globally.During this time, PlayGround made a bold decision to offer all programs without an admission fee. Why this decision, especially when numerous arts organizations were grappling with financial challenges, and every dollar mattered for artist compensation? We chose free admission to reinforce our commitment to radical accessibility, ensuring that financial limitations wouldn’t deter anyone from participating. Many PlayGround artists began as audience members, and this move guaranteed that future PlayGround artists wouldn’t face obstacles to their involvement. While we offer the option for audiences to donate when reserving their free tickets, we hope you’ll consider doing so if possible. Your direct support enables us to sustain fair compensation for professional artists and maintain our commitment to accessibility for all. 

Thank you for your generous support!

Writers Pool

PlayGround-NY is excited to announce its Writers Pool, the thirty-six New York-based writers competitively selected to participate in the 2023-24 season and Monday Night PlayGround monthly series. 

The selected writers are: Claire Abramovitz, Anthony Anello, Todd Cerveris, Sean Dunnington, Barry Eitel, Madi Fabber, Bailey Jordan Garcia, Dana Leslie Goldstein, Lori Goodman, Melinda Gros, Patience Haggin, Michael Hagins, Stanley W. Hathaway, Howard Ho, Wade Lawrence Hollomon, Uma Incrocci, Avery Ingvarson, Rachel Leighson, Bailey C. Lewis, Bryson Lima, Bram McGinnis, Alex Moggridge, Danielle E. Moore, Lyra Nalan, Vicky Pham, Leah Plante-Wiener, Colby Poston, Erin Proctor, Jacob Marx Rice, Rachael Richman, Katie Ryan, Marcus Scott, Matt Sievers, Gaven D. Trinidad, Rebbekah Vega-Romero, and SMJ.

PlayGround-NY is the second regional expansion of the celebrated Bay Area playwright incubator and theatre community hub, PlayGround(SF). PlayGround, California’s leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s, Los Angeles’ and now New York’s and Chicago’s best new playwrights, including the monthly Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series, annual PlayGround Festival of New Works, full-length play commissions and support for the production of new plays by local playwrights through the New Play Production Fund. To date, PlayGround has supported over 300 early career playwrights, developing and staging more than 1,000 of their original short plays through the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned 100 new full-length plays by 70 of these writers through its Commissioning Initiative and, through the innovative New Play Production Fund, has directly facilitated the premiere of 34 plays at theatres of every size, including three that have gone on to NYC and other major theater communities. In 2017, PlayGround renovated and relaunched the former Thick House Theater in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill as Potrero Stage, a state-of-the-art center for new plays, home to PlayGround’s expanding artistic programs and some of the Bay Area’s most distinguished new play developers and producers. Over the past twenty-eight years, PlayGround has served to identify some of the most important new local voices for the theatre. PlayGround’s alumni have gone on to win local, national, and international honors for their short and full-length work, including recognition at the Humana Festival, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Glickman Awards (4 of the past 5 winners!), Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and The Lark’s Playwrights’ Week, among others. PlayGround received the 2009 Paine Knickerbocker Award for outstanding contributions to Bay Area theatre, 3 BATCC Awards for Best Original Script for PlayGround commissions, a 2014 National Theatre Company Grant from the American Theatre Wing (founder of the Tony Awards®), and a 2016 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award.

2023-24 Monday Night PlayGround Season Calendar

October 23rd, 2023 7pm ET at The Producers Club and simulcast via Vimeo live 
November 27th, 2023 7pm ET at The Producers Club and simulcast via Vimeo live
December 25th, 2023 7pm ET at The Producers Club and simulcast via Vimeo live
January 22nd, 2024 7pm ET at The Producers Club and simulcast via Vimeo live
February 26th, 2024 7pm ET at The Producers Club and simulcast via Vimeo live
March 25th, 2024 7pm ETat The Producers Club and simulcast via Vimeo live

For tickets and more information, visit https://playground-ny.org/monday/.