December 23rd Monday Night PlayGround-NY: “Holiday Surprise”

“Maybe Christmas… doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more.”
– Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Tis the season for holiday cheer, family gatherings, and who-knows-what-else! Whether your holidays tend to bring on heartfelt reflections, meaningful connections, or endless confections, our writers are ready to dig into the wintery season and explore all of those things that are unexpected at this time of year.

Don’t miss our next Monday Night PlayGround on Monday, December 23 at 7pm ET, in-person at The Producers Club and simulcast. PlayGround-NY’s sister companies, PlayGround LA, PlayGround, and PlayGround-Chicago will present their own interpretations of “Holiday Surprise” throughout the month. As part of PlayGround’s commitment to radical accessibility, Monday Night PlayGround is admission-free (donations gratefully accepted) for online reservations and day-of admission in-person. Advance in-person reservations do requite an admission free of $10. For the complete schedule or to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-ny.org/monday.

The 4th season of PlayGround-NY’s celebrated Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series on the second Mondays, Oct-Mar, will be held in-person at the Broadwater Second Stage and live simulcast (November 25, 2024-March 24, 2025). 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: ”The Legacy of the Land We Inhabit”, “Origin Story”, “What the World Needs Now…”, and “Give and Take”. 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 the 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-NY’s annual short play showcase, Best of PlayGround-NY. 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?

At the beginning of the pandemic in May 2020, PlayGround began streaming all of its live programs, increasing accessibility to artists and audiences not only in the Bay Area but across the globe. At the same time, PlayGround made the bold choice to offer all programs admission-free. Why free admission, particularly when so many arts organizations were struggling to stay afloat and every dollar is a critical resource to support artist compensation? We chose free admission because it furthered our commitment to radical accessibility, ensuring that no one would be turned away for lack of resources. And as many of the PlayGround artists began their journey with us as audience members, it also ensured that the future artists of PlayGround would not encounter barriers to their participation. Of course, we offer audiences the opportunity to make a donation when reserving their free tickets and we hope that you’ll consider doing so if you’re able, recognizing that your direct support makes it possible for us to continue providing fair and equitable wages for professional artists while sustaining our radical accessibility efforts for all. And, as always, we thank you for your generous support!

PlayGround-NY Company

PlayGround-NY’s 2024-25 Writers Pool: Claire Abramovitz, Kamila Boga, Tré Calhoun, Todd Cerveris, Maisa Chiang, Chelyn Cousar, Eleanor Evans-Wickberg, Madi Fabber, Aaron Fentress, Saiya Floyd, Bailey Garcia, Dana Leslie Goldstein, Melinda Gros, Patience Haggin, Michael Hagins, Nay Harris, Bram Hartman, Miz Hashimoto, Stanley Hathaway, Ashley Hazzard, Howard Ho, Wade Hollomon, Sio Hornbuckle, LeKee Horton, Uma Incrocci, Nathaniel Johnson, Sohyun Kim, Jenny King, Janelle Lawrence, Danielle Moore, Lyra Nalan, Vicky Pham, Jacob Markx Rice, Katie Ryan, Réal Vargas Alanis, Camron Wright.

Supporting PlayGround-NY playwrights and the Monday Night series are the members of the PlayGround-NY Company, representing some of New York’s leading directors, actors, designers, and stage managers. The 2024-25 PlayGround-NY Company includes: Kayla Amani, Jen Anaya, Sergio Mauritz Ang, Rebecca Aparicio, Julia Brothers, Nathaniel Claridad, Sheila Collins, Gracie Connell, Julia Crowley, Sarah Guilbault, Neal Gupta, Noor Hamdi, SouJee Han, Amy Hart Nguyen, Monica Ho, Mary Hodges, Tyler Kent, Nikhaar Kishnani, Kalina Ko, Nico Krell, Austin Ku, Jully Lee, MeeWha Lee, Timothy Lee, AJ Lily, Ana Margineanu, Alex Moggridge, Ed Moreno, Norm Munoz, Wiley Naman Strasser, Graceson Nunez, Attilio Rigotti, Charlique C. Rolle, Abigail Rosen, Betsy Rosen, Paris Ruiz, Alex Shafer, Nick  Sholley, Olivia Songer, Illana Stein, Kimberly Van Vo, Rebbekah Vega-Romero, Rebecca White, Laith Zuaiter.

PlayGround, a national leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s, Los Angeles’, 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 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 36 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-seven 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, Glickman Awards (including 6 of the last 10), O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and New York International Fringe Festival, 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.