PlayGround-NY presents Season 2

MONDAY NIGHT PLAYGROUND

Topic: “GIVE AND TAKE”
November 28th, 2022 7pm ET
Vimeo Live Simulcast & On Demand

Human Programming
By Natalie Sacks
Directed by Tai Thompson
Sam ………………………………………………………Hannah Balagot
Zachary………………………………………………….Alex Moggridge

The Brunch Swap
By Rebbekah Vega-Romero
Directed by Kalina Ko
Teo………………………………………………………….…..….Carla Vega
Lolo……….………………………………..Maria Cristina Posada Slye
Christina……….…………………………………………..…..….Jully Lee

Give or Take
By Dana Leslie Goldstein
Directed by Olivia Songer
Betty……….………………………………….……….……..Julia Brothers
Max………………………………………………………….….Tyler Warren

The Wailing Neighbors
By Charles Velasquez-Witosky
Directed by Nathaniel P. Claridad
President of the Homeowners Association…Nikhaar Kishnani
Neighbor……………………………………………………..……Tyler Kent
Vice President……………………………………………….Sheila Collins

better than real
By Alexander Perez
Directed by Spencer Ryan Diedrick
Dom……………………………………………………….Bacilio Mendez II
Fiorella…………………………………………………………BW Gonzalez

Carnivores
By Jacob Marx Rice
Directed by Jim Kleinmann
Zeke…………………………………………………………….Louel Senores
Cheddar…..………………………………………………..Sarah Guilbault
Suds……………………………………………………….…….…Alex Shafer
Catticus…………………………………………………………Trinity Mikel

Stage Manager – Sarah Gasser
Visual Design Consultant – Colin Johnson

This live stream is produced under a SAG-AFTRA New Media Agreement.

PlayGround is a member of Theatre Bay Area and Theatre Communications Group,
and an Associate Member of the National New Play Network (NNPN).

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

Following tonight’s performance, we invite your participation in this month’s People’s Choice Award. Through the People’s Choice Award, our audience can play a direct impact in furthering the career of a promising new playwright. To vote, make a People’s Choice Award tax-deductible donation on behalf of your favorite play(s)/playwright(s) from the evening. Every donated dollar counts as a vote while directly supporting PlayGround’s award-winning incubator programs.

Cast your vote for your favorite play(s) by making a People’s Choice donation via Zelle (info@playground-ny.org), Venmo (our account ID is @playgroundsf and if they ask for the last four digits of my phone, it’s 8541) or on our website at https://tickets.playground-sf.org/TheatreManager/1/online?donationquick=168 (you can also visit the Monday Night PlayGround page for the People’s Choice donation button). Add a note/memo with your gift to indicate your favorite play(s) or email your selection to boxoffice@playground-sf.org.

At the end of next week, we’ll tally up the top vote-getter and automatic semi-finalist for our season-ending Best of PlayGround. It’s a powerful way of showing your support for new writers and their work, while helping PlayGround continue doing what we do!

ACKNOWLEDGING THE LEGACY OF THE LAND WE INHABIT

PlayGround-NY acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Munsee Lanape, the original inhabitants of the territory colonially known as the five burroughs of New York City. As the past and present Indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Munsee Lanape have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. We recognize the historic injustice of the forcible removal of the Munsee Lanape people from their ancestral lands, and that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the Ancestors, Elders and Relatives of the Munsee Lanape Communities and by affirming their sovereign rights as First Peoples. We honor the storytellers of the Lanape and are grateful for our ability to share and uplift Indigenous stories and those of other historically marginalized communities.

To learn about the legacy of the land you inhabit, visit Native-Land.ca | Our home on native land. To read the complete Land Acknowledgment Policy, click here.

PLAYGROUND’S ANTI-RACIST POLICY

PlayGround recognizes the impact of racial oppression within society and the American Theater and that we have been complicit in White Supremacy culture. Our goal is to co-create safety for our community by identifying and interrupting instances of racism and all forms of oppression when we witness them, through specific actions rooted in the principles of anti-racism and accessibility. In its endeavor to address the implications of our history, PlayGround is committed to its compliance with the following fundamental rights:
● The recognition of inherent dignity and worth of each human being.
● The recognition of equality of all human beings.
● Recognition of rights of ethnic, racial, cultural, linguistic and religious groups.
● Equality and non-discrimination.

PlayGround’s Anti-Racist Policy applies to: all members of the PlayGround community, including employees, independent contractors, volunteers, audience members, donors, and general members of the community.

To read the complete Anti-Racist Policy, click here.

THANK YOU TO PLAYGROUND MEMBERS!

We would like to thank PlayGround members for their contribution.

A Monday Night PlayGround membership is a tax-deductible donation and directly supports the more than 400 artists involved in a Monday Night PlayGround season. Members are guaranteed tickets and simulcast access to twenty-four (24) Monday Night PlayGround performances, weekly, October 10, 2022-May 1, 2023, with extended on-demand viewing. Click here to become a member.

BIOGRAPHIES

PLAYWRIGHTS

DANA LESLIE GOLDSTEIN (Give and Take), Dana Leslie Goldstein 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

ALEXANDER PEREZ (better than real), he/him, Alexander Perez is a Cuban-American Playwright/Desk Jockey/Dad making it work in the Big Apple. Since 2015 his plays have seen productions in New York City, London, Chicago, and beyond. Recent productions include Randy’s Dandy Coaster Castle (Egg & Spoon Theatre Collective , 2022), The In-Between (Pelmear Theatre, 2022), Randy’s Dandy Coaster Castle (IRT Theater, 2021) Prelude to a Hostile Takeover (Crafton Hills College, 2021), Vibe War or Bertie Works from Home (Open Floor Plan, 2020), Something, Somewhere, Somehow (Isle of Shoals Productions, 2020), Even if it Gets Us Nowhere (Access Theater ,The Social Club Theater, 2019). Randy’s Dandy Coaster Castle was a 2022 Finalist for the Southeastern Theatre Conference Ready to Publish Award.

JACOB MARX RICE (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) 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.

REBBEKAH VEGA-ROMERO (The Brunch Swap), she/her/ella, is a performer and scribe, who resides in her native NYC with her black cat, King Arthur Yoda. Rebbekah has graced stages across America: from Massachusetts (Luisa/The Fantasticks/Cape Playhouse) to Colorado (Martha Cratchit/A Christmas Carol/Denver Center) to Washington (Maria/West Side Story/5th Avenue), as well as in many more productions, readings and workshops. Rebbekah holds a BA in English from Boston University and is a YoungArts award-winning writer. Rebbekah’s poetry has been featured by Sixfold and Ars.Poetica; she wrote, starred in, and produced the short film “The Question,” a comedy about #DatingWhileMixed. Rebbekah hopes her work will inspire other mixed-race girls to realize “there’s a place for us.”

CHARLES VELASQUEZ-WITOSKY (The Wailing Neighbors), he/him, is a Cuban-American Playwright/Desk Jockey/Dad making it work in the Big Apple. Since 2015 his plays have seen productions in New York City, London, Chicago, and beyond. Recent productions include Randy’s Dandy Coaster Castle (Egg & Spoon Theatre Collective , 2022), The In-Between (Pelmear Theatre, 2022), Randy’s Dandy Coaster Castle (IRT Theater, 2021) Prelude to a Hostile Takeover (Crafton Hills College, 2021), Vibe War or Bertie Works from Home (Open Floor Plan, 2020), Something, Somewhere, Somehow (Isle of Shoals Productions, 2020), Even if it Gets Us Nowhere (Access Theater ,The Social Club Theater, 2019). Randy’s Dandy Coaster Castle was a 2022 Finalist for the Southeastern Theatre Conference Ready to Publish Award.

ACTORS

HANNAH BALAGOT (Human Programming, “Sam”), she/her, is a NYC based actor, dancer, and singer who believes art is a way to investigate all the ways we are connected. She loves to constantly be collaborating on new stories and danced theatre. Past performance credits include Anybodys in West Side Story (International Tour, Barrington Stage, North Shore MT), Ermengarde in Hello Dolly (Pioneer Theatre Co.), National Asian Artists Project’s Cinderella, and various new works in New York. More information at www.hannahbalagot.com

JULIA BROTHERS (Give or Take, “Betty”), she/they, is an actor/writer passionate about new work and living in the space where wisdom, love and laughter meet. Next up: a new solo piece about transformation, Lying Down with Lions.

SHEILA COLLINS (The Wailing Neighbors, “Vice President”), she/her, has appeared in numerous stage plays, including these iconic roles: Ruth, in A Raisin in the Sun; Emilia, in Othello; (Duke)Duchess of Birmingham, in Henry VIII; Leonato(a) in Much Ado about Nothing; and Grace Farrell in Annie. She’s also appeared in several TV shows: Grey’s Anatomy, Pretty Little Liars and General Hospital, and S.W.A.T., among others, as well as short films, two webseries and a feature film. She is happy to be working with Playground-NY again.

BW GONZALES (better than real, “Fiorella”), has worked for the following theatre companies: AmericanRepertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, The San Francisco Mime Troupe, The Huntington Theatre Company, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Denver Theatre
Center, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, LA Women’s Shakespeare, and Center Repertory Theatre. At the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ms. Gonzalez performed such notable roles as Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Masha in The Three Sisters, Cassandra in Trojan Women, Ariel in The Tempest, and Good Person of Szechuan as Shen Te/Shui Ta. Other plays include, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Uncle Vanya, Restoration, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and Titus Andronicus.

SARAH GUILBAULT (Carnivores, “Cheddar”), she/they, is a writer and performer living on unceded Lenape land in Harlem. They take inspiration from close friendships, epistolary correspondences, and a healthy dose of buffoonery. Sarah is a proud Playground New York company member.

TYLER KENT (The Wailing Neighbors, “Neighbor”), he/him, has been a PlayGround collaborator on both coasts. Credits include Berkeley Rep, The Metropolitan Playhouse, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, The Old Globe, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Kansas City Rep, Shotgun Players, and others. Tyler is also an audiobook narrator and a regular host at Marie’s Crisis in NY’s West Village. MFA The Old Golbe / USD; BA Whitman College.

NIKHAAR KISHNANI (The Wailing Neighbors, “President of the Homeowners Association”), she/her, Off-Off Broadway: Veil’d at Astoria Performing Arts Center. Regional Theatre: Queen at Geva Theatre Centre, A Doll’s House Part 2 at Actors Theatre Louisville. Film: Post-Term, Him&Her&Him. Television: Brown Nation, Code Switched, Geeta’s Guide To Moving On, Nepotism. Other Theatre: Twelfth Night at DePaul University, The Women Eat Chocolate at DePaul University, Prospero’s Storm at DePaul University, The Children’s Hour at DePaul University, The Qualms at DePaul University, The Rimers of Eldritch at Rutgers University. Additional Credits: Kishnani received her M.F.A. from The Theatre School at DePaul University. She is on house team, Octopus Queen, at Rubbish Comedy Collective.

JULLY LEE (The Brunch Swap, “Christina”; Associate Producer), she/her, is making her Broadway/New York debut in KPOP The Musical, currently in previews at Circle in the Square. She is the Artistic Director of Cold Tofu, the nation’s first and longest running Asian American improv company based in Los Angeles, and a Company Member of Playground-NY as a director, performer and associate producer. Select Theatre: The Joy Luck Club (national tour), Aubergine (South Coast Repertory), Hannah and the Dread Gazebo (Fountain Theatre/East West Players). Select TV: “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” “Young Sheldon,” “Jane The Virgin,” “This Is Us,” “The Fosters,” and “Veep.” jullylee.com

BACILIO MENDEZ II (better than real, “Dom”), he/him, is a PlayGround company member, writers pool playwright, and producing fellow. You can also find him in court, but he doesn’t recommend it.

TRINITY MIKEL (Carnivores, “Catticus”), she/her, is thrilled to work with PlayGround-NY and bring new art to life. Originally from California, she studied at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York. Trinity was last seen in Little Shop of Horrors at Mason Street Warehouse in Saugatuck, Michigan. Shoutout to Trinity’s family, friends, and everyone who was cheered her on so far.

ALEX MOGGRIDGE (Human Programming, “Zachary”), he/him, is delighted to return to Playground. THEATER Broadway: Betrayal, directed by Mike Nichols and starring Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz; Regional: Metamorphoses, Treasure Island, Three Sisters, Chinglish (Berkeley Repertory Theatre); Eat Your Heart Out, I Will Be Gone, (Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival); Clybourne Park, It’s a Wonderful Life, Baskerville(Long Wharf Theatre); Three Sisters(Yale Repertory Theatre); Christmas Carol, Beard of Avon (American Conservatory Theater) and others. PLAYWRITING The Boatman (Flint Repertory Theatre), Simon Dawes Becomes a Planet(Access Theatre, New York) FILM/TELEVISION Batman Begins; “The Defenders,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “Person of Interest,” “Trauma”.

LOUEL SENORES (Carnivores, “Zeke”), he/him, is delighted to be joining — all the way from California! — a PlayGround NY Monday Night PlayGround! Oh, the miracles of zoom theater! Louel is an actor, stage manager, and froyo shop manager based in Berkeley, CA. LouelSenores.com

ALEX SHAFER (Carnivores, “Suds”), he/him, moved to New York from the SF/Bay Area in 2018. He is so happy to be working with PlayGround again, as they open in NYC. Theatre highlights here in NY are Catapult! at Theatre for a New City, The Cradle Will Rock at Theatre 2020. Some theatre highlights the SF/Bay Area include Colonel McKean in 1776 at ACT, Dan/Jack in Value Over Replacement with Playground, Michael Flaherty in Playboy of the Western World at Cinnabar, Gaev in The Cherry Orchard at Hapgood, and Boolie in Driving Miss Daisy at RVP.

MARIA CRISTINA POSADA SLYE (The Brunch Swap, “Lolo”), she/her, is a proud Cuban American, a daughter of an immigrant, a fighter of equity and accountability, and a lover of the arts. New York Theatre-Evita (Mistress) at the New York City Center, ¡Americano! (Understudy Ceci, female swing) Off-Broadway. National Tours: Hello, Dolly!, The Bodyguard the Musical, Ghost the Musical, and Elf the Musical! Regional favorites: Somewhere (Rebecca) at the Geva Theatre, Jesus Christ Superstar at the Muny, several productions of West Side Story at various theatres. All Black Lives Matter. ¡Patria y vida!

TYLER WARREN (Give or Take, “Max”), he/him/his, is a recent Drama BFA graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. During his studies, he performed in productions at Playwrights Horizons, The Lee Strasberg Institute, and Stonestreet Studios. Following his studies, Tyler has acted in short films, commercials, and TV, in addition to continuing to create his own work as a playwright and a screenwriter. Tyler thanks Jim and the rest of the PlayGround-NY team for this opportunity. For more information, you can follow his handle @tylerjwarren on Instagram or TikTok and visit his website tylerwarren.com. Love to Sam, Jordan, and Tina.

DIRECTORS

NATHANIEL P. CLARIDAD (The Wailing Neighbors), he/him, directing credits include work at Weathervane Theatre, Southern Rep., Imagination Stage, Two River Theatre, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Out of the Box Theatrics, the One Minute Play Festival, New York Shakespeare Exchange, Peculiar Works Project, and a Drama League Resident in 2019 & 2016. He is also co-founder of Broadway Twisted, an annual event in North Carolina benefitting NCAAN and BC/EFA. Acting credits include Here Lies Love (The Public Theater), Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History…(St. Ann’s Warehouse), numerous regional and international credits from the Kennedy Center to the Sydney Opera House. Upcoming: starring in Tuna Christmas at Portland Stage.

SPENCER RYAN DIEDRICK (Better Than Real), he/him, is a Chicago-based theatre director, administrator, and advocate. Credits include BLACK CAT LOST by Erin Courtney (Red Tape Theatre), FRAGMENTED by Karissa Murrell Myers (Our Perspective), HERSHEL AND THE HANUKKAH GOBLINS (Strawdog Theatre), DESIRE, DESIRE, DESIRE by Christopher Durang (Eclipse Theatre), and SWEET SIXTEEN EXTRAVAGANZA!!! (Blue Goose Ensemble). Regional: Samuel D. Hunter’s LEWISTON/CLARKSTON at GhostLight Theatre in Benton Harbor, MI. His work has also been seen at American Blues, Griffin, Eclipse, Emerald City, Dandelion, (re)discover, the side project, Collaboraction, Raven, and TimeLine. He is thankful for his friends, family, and community.

JIM KLEINMANN (Carnivores; Artistic Director), he/him, co-founded PlayGround in 1994, along with playwright Brighde Mullins and director Denise Shama, and has served as Artistic Director since 1996. For PlayGround, he has provided artistic and administrative leadership for the past twenty-four seasons, developing PlayGround’s unique array of new playwright and new play incubator programs, including Monday Night PlayGround, the PlayGround Festival of New Works, the full-length play Commissioning Initiative, and more than one hundred short and full-length plays, including works by Garret Jon Groenveld, Aaron Loeb, Geetha Reddy, Lauren Yee, Katie May, and many others. Recent directing and dramaturgy credits include David Steele’s Vignettes on Love and Ruben Grijalva’s Value Over Replacement. He is a veteran arts administrator with more than thirty years of experience, including stints leading Traveling Jewish Theatre, Smuin Ballet and Berkeley Symphony, and received his MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

KALINA KO (The Brunch Swap, Associate Producer), she/her, is a Cantonese-American theater director, dramaturg, and literary administrator based in NYC. She is interested in the radical connection and community building of storytelling. Past experience includes directing Paige Conway’s Tag (drafted) and Sophie Poole’s Ethanol (NOMADS), assisting Will Detlefsen on T. Adamson’s The Straights (The JACK, Brooklyn), and script assisting Hansol Jung on Wolf Play (Soho Rep) and Amy Jo Jackson on Hatchetation (National Music Theater Conference).

OLIVIA SONGER (Give or Take), she/her, Olivia holds a BFA with honors in Drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA in Theatre Directing from The Lir Academy at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland’s National Academy of Dramatic Arts. Having worked all over the world, her strengths lie in creating across cultures with an ability to seek out and engage atypical audiences. Her work takes on a highly collaborative, non-hierarchical approach. Recent credits include Made by God (World premiere, Irish Repertory Theatre), Venus in Fur (Project Arts Centre), We Are Not Well (NYU Tisch/Clifford Odetts Commission), We Can’t Have Monkeys in the House (The Peacock Stage at The Abbey, National Theatre of Ireland), Disconnected (The New Theatre/Smock Alley Theatre). Selected assisting credits include Ironbound (The Geffen Playhouse, LA), Tribes (The Gate), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Rough Magic/Kilkenny Arts Festival) Unwoman III, (The Rabble, Dublin Fringe Festival) R+J: Star Cross’d Death Match (Three Day Hangover/Drunk Shakespeare.) She has directed developmental readings at Irish Repertory Theatre, Origin Theatre, Dixon Place, The Lab, Hot! Festival and more. She was a member of the 2019-2021 SDCF Observership Program, a Rough Magic SEEDS participant, a Contemporary Artist in Residence at the National Gallery of Ireland and served as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in the East Caribbean.

TAI THOMPSON (Human Programming), she/her, is a multidisciplinary artist specializing in immersive theater. Selected Works/Awards: 2022 Old Globe Classical Theatre Fellow, Long Distance Affair (2021 Miami New Times Award for Best Play, 2021 NoProscenium Audience Choice Award), Dark Star from Harlem (2020 AUDELCO Award Best Direction), Bus Stop Stories (2020 Knight Foundation New Works Award), 2019 Drama League Directing Fellow, 2018 Inaugural SDCF Observer. Resident Director at Juggerknot Theatre.

PRODUCTION

SARAH GASSER (Stage Manager) joined PlayGround in 2017 and has staged managed for the Monday Night PlayGround series and PlayGround Festival. She stagemanages for companies around the Bay Area, including Brava and Bay Area Children’s Theatre. In her administrative capacities, she assists with PlayGround’s marketing, social media, communications, and website, as well as serving as assistant to the Artistic Director.

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 250 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 90 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-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 Humana Festival, 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.

CONTRIBUTORS

PlayGround is deeply grateful for the generous contributions of the many individuals, foundations, gifts of $125 or more committed between October 1, 2021 & October 24, 2022.

GOVERNMENT, CORPORATE, & FOUNDATION DONORS

Alameda County Arts Commission • Amazon • American Rescue Plan Act & CARES Act • Art Space Development Corporation • Berkeley Civic Arts • The Bernard Osher Foundation • Bill Graham Supporting Foundation of the Jewish Community Federation & Endowment Fund • California Arts Council • California Nonprofit Performing Arts Grant Program • Creative Capacity Fund • First Republic Bank • The Fleishhacker Foundation • Goldman Sachs • Google • Grants For The Arts • Koret Foundation • Lenore & Howard Klein Foundation • The Leo J. & Celia Carlin Fund • Negley Flinn Charitable Foundation • NIAC • Nvidia • Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation • Planet Earth Arts • The Shubert Foundation • The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation • Zellerbach Family Foundation

INDIVIDUAL SUPPORTERS

SEASON SPONSORS ($5000+)

William Bivins, Emilie T. & Gordon C. Brooks, Jerome Joseph Gentes & Michael David Bourque, Lara Gilman & Jim Kleinmann, Peggy Haas, David Steele, Anonymous

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS ($2500–$4,999)

John H. Gilman, Regina S. Guggenheim

PRODUCERS CIRCLE ($1000-$2499)

Sidney Glass & Eleanor Clement Glass, In Memory of M. David MacCallum, Jr., Rebecca Martinez, Nitin, Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock, Marian Scheuer Sofaer & Abraham D. Sofaer, Anonymous (3)

PLAYWRIGHTS CIRCLE ($500-$999)

Thomas Patrick Broyhill, David Goldman, Jeff Gregory, Regina S. Guggenheim, Linda Kremer, Lisa A. Mammel, Lisa Morse, Nvidia, Nancy & Carty Spencer, J.B. Strasser, Susannah Wise & Scott Lebus, Anonymous (3)

PATRON ($250-$499)

Dr. Elaine Baskin & Kenneth R. Krechmer, Lily L Chow, Ruben & Keli Grijalva, Vicki Hamilton, Roxy Jones, Ray and Carla Kaliski, Annie Stuart, Lisa R. Taylor, Maury Zeff, Anonymous (3)

ASSOCIATE MEMBER ($125-$249)

Maura C. Berkelhamer, Dr. Katherine Ardis Blenko, Frieda de Lackner, Jessica Forbess, Mr. Eric Garcia, Sarah Gasser, Tom Goetzl, Gina Harris, Abbe S. Kalos & Kitt Saginor, Jennifer King, Douglas & Mary Ann Le Blanc, Gregg Le Blanc, Trynne Miller & David Prince, Everett & Julia Moore, Louis Parnell, Dr. Alan Pearl, Ms. Madeline Daly Puccioni, Mike Rosenthal, Lisa Gaye Thompson, Jeffrey Trescott, Liam Vincent, Mr. Darryl Wilburn, Janine & Darryl Wilburn, Robin L. Wimsatt, Kelli Wong, Anonymous (3)

To contribute to PlayGround-NY, visit https://playground-ny.org/contribute or contact PlayGround Associate Director of Development Lana Richards at lana@playground-sf.org or by phone at (415) 992-6677.

PLAYGROUND-NY WRITERS POOL

Sam Affoumado, Momo Akashi, Anthony Anello, Andy Boyd, Christin Cato, Todd Cerveris, Jayne Deely, Josh Drimmer, Barry Eitel, Bailey Elis, Jack Feldstein, Kari Floren, Ruth Geye, Dana Leslie Goldstein, Stanley Hathaway, Rachel Herron, David Hilder, Rebecca Kane, Elizabeth Lee, Dani Nelson, Matthew Park, Alexander Perez, Jacob Rice, Rachael Richman, Kathryn Ryan, Natalie Sacks, Louise Schwarz, Marcus Scott, Riley Tollen, Gaven Trinidad, Rebbekah Vega-Romero, Charles Velasquez-Witosky, Leela Velautham, Rhys Washington, Maggie Wilson

PRODUCTION & STAFF

Jim Kleinmann, Co-Founder & Artistic Director
Kalina Ko, Associate Producer
Jully Lee, Associate Producer
Abigail Rosen, Associate Producer
Sarah Gasser, Resident Stage Manager
Kelsey Bray, 2022-23 Directing Apprentice
Laith Zuaiter, 2022-23 Directing Apprentice

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c/o PlayGround
3286 Adeline St #8
Berkeley, CA 94703-2485