Best of PlayGround-NY Gala: In-Person & Online April 24!

Posted by on April 3, 2023

Help celebrate the best writers and short works from PlayGround-NY’s second season at the BEST OF PLAYGROUND-NY GALA, on Monday, April 24, 7pm EDT, live and in-person at The Producers Club (358 W 44th St) and simulcast online via Vimeo Live! The Best of PlayGround-NY Gala features a special live presentation of six short plays originally developed through the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series. Advance reservations are required. Admission is free but donations are gratefully accepted and all proceeds support PlayGround-NY artists. Audience members will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite play/playwright through the Best of PlayGround-NY People’s Choice Award and help initiate a new full-length commission to be adapted from the award-winning short. For more information or to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-ny.org/bestof.

The evening’s plays include:

Friendly Skies by Dana Leslie Goldstein
Jung by Matthew Park
Carnivores by Jacob Marx Rice
Human Programming by Natalie Sacks
The Holiday Party by Gaven Trinidad
Best Christmas Ever by Leela Velautham

This year’s honorable mentions go to: The Whisper by Josh Drimmer; Bugs Beat Back by Barry Eitel; and Elf Wanted by Alexander Perez.

ABOUT THE PLAYS

Friendly Skies by Dana Leslie Goldstein
Marion has finally made a New Year’s resolution to face her fear of flying. What could possibly go wrong?

Jung by Matthew Park
A prickly nursing home resident receives a new caregiver with whom she cannot communicate. Can they transcend the divide of language and the generations to find connection?

Carnivores by Jacob Marx Rice
Zeke is a cat. He’s led a good life of belly rubs and tuna fish. But owner is lying dead on the floor and he’s getting hungry.

Human Programming by Natalie Sacks
An android therapist and the scientist who built her have an ethical debate with unanticipated and far-reaching consequences.

The Holiday Party by Gaven Trinidad
Three gay friends prepare for their annual very intimate Holiday Party, but a huge misunderstanding forces the three to change course last-minute just before the guests arrive.

Best Christmas Ever by Leela Velautham
Max’s plans for a peaceful, solo Christmas get derailed.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS

DANA LESLIE GOLDSTEIN (Friendly Skies), she/her, has won the New England New Play Competition, Harold and Mimi Steinberg Playwriting Prize, Different Voices New Play Award, ACTF New Play Award and numerous development grants. Her work has been seen at Manhattan Theatre Club, Cherry Lane, Culture Project, Women’s Project, York, Theatre80, New Dramatists, Vineyard Playhouse, Brave New World, Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga (TN), Clamour Theatre (FL), American Stage Company (FL), Left Edge Theatre (CA), Pacific Theatre (Canada), TischAsia (Singapore), Baggage Productions (Australia), NYMF, on Ellis and Liberty Islands, at the UN and more. Member: BMI, Brave New World, Workshop Theater, PlayGround-NYC, Dramatists Guild. www.danalesliegoldstein.com

MATTHEW PARK (Jung), he/they, was born in New York and raised in Seoul, South Korea. His work revolves around the Asian-American experience, and investigates the ramifications of living under a scarcity mentality. His plays include Lessons (Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative finalist 2023, Bay Area Playwrights Festival semifinalist 2023), Assimilation (Pipeline PlayLab semifinalist 2021), Plague Year (Red Bull Theater’s Short New Play Festival 2020), and Hurricane Regan. His writing has been supported by the Playwrights Realm, New York University and Illinois State University. He is a member of PlayGround-NY’s inaugural Writers Pool and has been published by Stage Rights. BFA, NYU Tisch.

JACOB MARX RICE’s (Carnivores), he/him, plays have been produced and developed at The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, The Finborough Theatre in London, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Flea Theater, The New Ohio, Atlantic Theatre Stage 2, and others. His play Chemistry has premiered in seven cities across three continents, and Jacob’s screenplay adaptation is currently in development with Anonymous Content. Recent prizes include the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, an Ensemble Studio Theater Sloan Commission, the Faculty Award from the NYU/Tisch Department of Dramatic Writing and the Excellence in Playwriting Award at the New York International Fringe Festival. MFA: NYU.

NATALIE SACKS (Human Programming), she/her, is a Brooklyn-based playwright specializing in historical and sci-fi theater. Her play, THE YOUNG LADIES OF THE CLASS OF 1902 OF WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESENT, “AS YOU LIKE IT,” is a finalist for American Shakespeare Center’s (indefinitely postponed) 2021 Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries competition. Other plays include INVASIVE SPECIES (Benchmark Theatre), HEY SEXY: AN ENVIRONMENTAL PARABLE (The Bechdel Group), UNTIL WE GET IT RIGHT (semifinalist, Detroit New Works Festival), SHOOTING IN THE DARK (Queen Mary Theatre Company), 50 METERS (The Rude Mechanicals), THE QUEEN OF IRELAND (Turn to Flesh Productions), LOVING GRANDMA JEAN (The Bechdel Group), and SUSCEPTIBLE TO FIRE (The Dirty Blondes). Natalie is an inaugural member of the PlayGround-NY Writers Pool.

GAVIN D. TRINIDAD (A Holiday Party), they/he/siya, is a first generation Filipinx American theatremaker from NYC and is currently New York Theatre Workshop’s Community Engagement Associate. His artistic work examines the intersections of race, immigration, queerness, ritual, and community. He’s collaborated with folx in various administrative and artistic positions at places such as The Juilliard Drama Division, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Roundabout Theatre, May-Yi Theater Company, and the Arts Project of Cherry Grove. Theatre Communications Group named him as a member of the 2021 Rising Leaders of Color Cohort. He is an advocate for Mental Health Awareness and Suicide Prevention. https://www.gaventrinidadtheatre.com

LEELA VELAUTHAM (Best Christmas Ever), she/her, has been featured in the Best of Playground SF 24 and 25 and the best of Playground NY, is a two-time semi-finalist of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and won the University of Oxford’s New Writing Festival in 2011 for her play ‘Schroedinger’s Hat’. A full production of her one-act play “Post-scarcity Possibilities” was staged as part of the 2022 Meganne George Women’s Work Short Play Festival at the New Perspectives Theatre Company. She is currently a member of the New Perspectives Theatre Company’s 2022 Full-Length Lab.

ABOUT PLAYGROUND-NY

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 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 350 early career playwrights, developing and staging more than 1,500 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 60 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. Most recently, 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-nine 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 Steinberg Awards, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, The Lark’s Playwrights’ Week, New York International Fringe Festival, and 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. For more information, visit https://playground-ny.org.