PlayGround-NY presents Season 6

prePLAY

“To Keep and Bear”
October 25, 2026 2pm ET
The Attic @ The Tank & Simulcast

MONDAY NIGHT PLAYGROUND

“AMERICA 250: The Dreamers, The Builders, & The Leaders”
October 26, 2026 7pm ET
Playwrights Horizons & Simulcast

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 boroughs 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.

Monday Night PlayGround Memberships

We are deeply grateful to our 2024-25 Monday Night PlayGround Members, whose direct support helps to underwrite artists fees for the Monday Night series across all four regions:

Dr. & Mrs. Sam & Naomi Abramovitz, Sharon Baldwin, Julie Berthold, Tim Bishop, Linda B Breaux-Smith, Emilie T. & Gordon C. Brooks, John Brown, Summer Broyhill, Madeleine Butler, Ben Cain, Sidney Glass & Eleanor Clement Glass, Joan Cleveland, Sheila Collins, Marilyn Berg Cooper, Logan Varas De Valdes, Betsy Dudak, Cathy Earnest, Ann Ehrmann, Krystyna Finlayson, Michael Tonjum & Jan Gilman, Hollis Greenwood, Elizabeth Groenewegen, Gail Hillebrand & Hugh Barroll, Brandy T Jones, Roxy Jones, Jacqueline Whittier Kubicka, Emily Kuroda, Mr. & Mrs. Douglas Le Blanc, Alice Lehmann, Karen & Matt Levesque, Kristy Lin Billuni, Melinda Lopez, Linda G Marks, Dolores Martinez, Dr. Sheila McCormick, Yvonne McIntyre, Cynthia L Morishige, Dan Morley, Molly Noble & Bob Guilbault, Annette Oliveira, Emily Brauer Rogers, George Rose, Jessica June Rowe, Michelle Ruscetta, John J. Ruskin, Miyoko Sakatani, Jennifer Schultz & Eric Rosenzweig, Mark Sherstinsky, Nancy W. Smith, Stan Stone, Cathy M Stonie, Mary Lou Torre, Kim Tram, Vicki Victoria, Dr. Eidell Wasserman, Bex White, Janine Wilburn, and Cindy Womack. Thank you!

To learn more about the Monday Night PlayGround membership program, click here.

prePLAY – Oct 25

To Keep and Bear
by Uma Incrocci
Alicia…………..Nikiya Mathis
Brody/Kid 4………….Christian Pedersen
Sydney/Kid 2…………….dana brooke
Liv/Kid 3……………..Victoria Fanning
Jet/Voice/Kid 1……………Susan Ly
Stage Directions……………..Charlique C. Rolle

Monday Night PlayGround – Oct 26

The Call
by Maisa Chiang
directed by Cassidy Kepp
Kate Warne………………..Nesziah Dennis

OFW
by Miles Orduna
directed by Nathaniel Claridad
Ruby………………..Marissa Carpio

Cooks
by Max Garcia
directed by Cooper Howell
Carlos Cooks……………..Xavier Reyes

Present
by Melvin Nungyao Yen
directed by Charlique C. Rolle
Mary Tape………………..Stephanie Jeane

The Year of the Ribbon
by Neha Talreja
directed by Reena Dutt
Charlotte Haley………………..Julia Brothers

The Ballad of Big Pharma
by Claire Abramovitz
directed by Jim Kleinmann
Cowboy………Jonathan Burke

Stage Manager – Sarah Gasser

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

PlayGround is a member of Theatre Bay Area and Theatre Communications Group.

PlayGround-NY is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. This program is also made possible in part with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

BIOGRAPHIES

PLAYWRIGHTS

CLAIRE ABRAMOVITZ (The Ballad of Big Pharma), she/they/any

MAISA CHIANG (The Call), she/her, is a Chinese & Taiwanese-American writer & director based in Brooklyn, NY.

COOPER HOWELL (Cooks), they/them, is a New York City–based director, playwright, producer, and theater anarchist engineering focused on engineering an audience revolution in theater. Their work collapses the distance between experiment and commerce, transforming theater in the AI age into high-voltage must see live “events” . Cooper made their Broadway debut as part of the Tony Award-winning directing team behind Cats: The Jellicle Ball at the Broadhurst Theatre, where they served as Resident Director. New York directing credits include their off-braodway debut Courting Mayhem, Black Girl in Paris: The Musical for NAMT festival 2026, Oscar’s Razor, Baldwin et Lucien, Little Kingdom, Death Comes in Threes, and Brother, Brother. As a playwright, they created THE LOOP, an immersive silent-disco adaptation of La Ronde and runner-up for NewFest’s 2025 Ryan Hudak LGBTQ+ Playwriting Award. Cooper is co-founder and Artistic Director of WILDEHAUS, an incubator and production company for America’s most radical performing artists. They are an alum of National Queer Theater’s Artistic Collective and Theater Producers of Color (2025 cohort).

MILES ORDUNA (OFW)

NEHA TALREJA (The Year of the Ribbon)

MELVIN NINGYAO YEN (Present), she/they, is a New York–based Taiwanese cultural critic, playwright, and theater maker whose work examines performance, migration, access, and the politics of being seen. She is a member of The Public Theater’s 2025–26 BIPOC Critics Lab and has held fellowships at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Playwrights Horizons. Her criticism and essays have appeared in HowlRound Theatre Commons, The Amp at Asian American Arts Alliance, The Public Theater, and her Substack, The Ritual of Seeing. Working across criticism and performance, Melvin writes about cultural intimacy, embodied attention, disability access, queer life, and the institutional structures that determine whose presence is recognized. Her plays include Bodega Cat, Something Blue, and more.

ACTORS

DANA BROOKE (To Keep and Bear, “Sydney/Kid 2”), she/her, is an award-winning actor based in NYC. Select credits include BABY ON A TRAIN with Mike Birbiglia, VENECIA with Chita Rivera, CLAUDIA LAZLO with Reed Birney, and the lead in the independent feature LAURA GETS A CAT (Amazon). She is a Company Member at B Street Theatre (CONSTELLATIONS, IRONBOUND, VENUS IN FUR, OTHER DESERT CITIES, THE REALISTIC JONESES, OUTSIDE MULLINGAR), and a Resident Artist with New Light Theater Project (ACCORDING TO THE CHORUS, SHAKE RAG HOLLOW). Select Theatre: Cherry Lane, 59E59, George Street Playhouse, New Jersey Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse, Florida Rep, Playhouse on Park, Edinburgh Fringe, Adelaide Fringe. Select TV: “Damages” (FX), “Ed” (NBC), “Canterbury’s Law” (FOX). www.danabrooke.com

JULIA BROTHERS (The Year of the Ribbon, “Charlotte Haley”) she/they

JONATHAN BURKE (The Ballad of Big Pharma, “Cowboy”) he/him,  is an Obie Award-winning actor best known for Prime Video’s “Harlem.” Broadway credits include CATS: THE JELLICLE BALL, for which he received a Chita Rivera Award nomination for Outstanding Dancer in a Broadway Show, THE INHERITANCE, CHOIR BOY, and TUCK EVERLASTING. His television credits include “New Amsterdam,” “Only Murders in the Building,” and “Bridge and Tunnel.” Film credits include Bradley Cooper’s IS THIS THING ON? and THE DISTINGUISHED. His Off-Broadway credits include TONI STONE, PATIENCE, LOVE + SCIENCE, and JOAN OF ARC: INTO THE FIRE. Jonathan is also a co-creator and executive producer of the series “Not Looking.” @itsjonathanburke

MARISSA CARPIO (OFW, “Ruby”) she/her, is ever grateful to be a part of telling bold stories that unsettle the status quo. An NYC-based actor, writer and producer, her onscreen credits include HOCUS POCUS 2, THE SLEEPOVER, and DON’T LOOK UP. Stage credits include LYSISTRATA (ETP), FALSE STARS (The Pack) and site-specific projects. Producing credits include the English-language World Premiere of Yukio Mishima’s play THE LIGHTHOUSE (Provincetown, MA), named in ‘Best Stage Productions of 2019’ by ArtsFuse Magazine.

NESZIAH DENNIS (The Call, “Kate Warne”) she/her, is a singer-songwriter/actress from good ole Richmond VA and is overjoyed to be working with PlayGround-NY. Recent credits include A STRANGE LOOP with RICHMOND TRIANGLE PLAYERS, SHREK THE MUSICAL with THE LYNN THEATRE COMPANY, and various cabarets at 54 Below (LET’S BE BAD, BLACK BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL). She’s also done many readings with WILDEHAUS THEATER COMPANY. You can follow Nesziah on Instagram @nesziahdennisofficial/@thewondertwinspod, TikTok @nesziahhh_ and you can listen to her single “Good Enough” anywhere you listen to music!

VICTORIA FANNING (To Keep and Bear, “Liv/Kid 3“) is a NYC based actor and singer. Fordham Theatre Alum. Select Credits: The Bakkhai (Agave), The Wolves (#25), Girlboss (Marlee), The Girls (Catherine). Recent Staged Readings: A High Lonesome Sound (Emmy), Mac In Cheese (Fran). Love always to Cason, her family and friends! www.VictoriaKennedyFanning.com IG: @VictoriaKFanning

SUSAN LY (To Keep and Bear, “Jet/Voice/Kid 1”) she/her, originally from Houston, is a local NY actor and excited to be back at Playground! BFA in Theater – SFASU; studied abroad at Rose Bruford- England, and at LA R.E.S.A.D – Spain. Thankful to the audience members who continue to support the arts and to all of the Artists who continue creating, inspiring, and using their voices to bring about change! www.sosusanly.com

NIKIYA MATHIS (To Keep and Bear, “Alicia”) she/her,  Nikiya Mathis made Broadway history as the first wig designer to receive a Special Tony Award for her work on “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”. A classically trained actress with an MFA from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, her television credits include Power Book III: Raising Kanan, The Blacklist, Chicago Med, Blue Bloods and more. As a designer, her Broadway credits include School Girls: or the African Mean Girls Play, Cats:The Jellicle Ball, Imaginary Invalid, Purpose, The Heart of Rock & Roll, Once Upon A One More Time; Death of a Salesman, and more.
An Obie, Henry Hewes, and Black Women on Broadway Award and 2x Drama Desk Award winner, Mathis also teaches masterclasses for the theater community and at institutions including NYU, Yale University, Princeton University, and UCONN. @nikiyamathis @our_black_tresses

CHRISTIAN PEDERSEN (To Keep and Bear, “Brody/Kid 4”) he/him, is a NYC based actor who has performed both on and off-Broadway, in Regional theatres across the country, and on TV. He is married to the brilliant playwright and screenwriter Uma Incrocci, and they try to never miss a morning solving NY Times puzzles together.

XAVIER REYES (Cooks, “Carlos Cooks”), he/him, is a proud born and raised Puertorican. Broadway: CATS The Jellicle Ball (Jennyanydots). Off Broadway: CATS The Jellicle Ball at PAC (Jennyanydots), This is Not a Drill at The York (Male Swing), Broadway Tour: 1st National Tour of Kinky Boots (Angel). Having worked all over the US, Puerto Rico, Japan, and Canada, favorite regional credits include: Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s (twice); Pulitzer Prize winning plays Sweat and Anna in the Tropics; Che in Evita; Moliere’s Scapin; Trading Places directed by Kenny Leon (Alliance Theatre); Next to Normal, In the Heights, Hair, Fun Home, Rent, WSS and many others. @XaviReyesActor

CHARLIQUE C. ROLLE (To Keep and Bear, “Stage Directions”; Associate Producer)

STEPHANIE JEANE (Present, “Mary Tape”), she/her, is thrilled to be back in the Playground with the wonderful artists of PG-NY! Past theater credits include Jane in The Heart Sellers (Depot Theatre), Meiko in Eureka Day (Shaker Bridge Theater), Helena in Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hip to Hip Theatre), Rosalind in As You Like It (Hamlet Isn’t Dead), Daisy in Dogeaters (Two River Theater); Burning Cloud (Chain Theatre), Look How Far You’ve Come (New York Theatre Festival). She also starred in the 2025 WNBA opening ceremony on ESPN. Her feature film, Midnight Momo, is an Official Selection for this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival. MFA Columbia. www.stephaniejeane.com; @stephaniejeane

DIRECTORS

NATHANIEL CLARIDAD (OFW), he/him, is a Helen Hayes Award nominated director. Selected credits: Ragtime (Broadway, Assistant Director); Trash (PAC NYC/OOTB); Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood (Imagination Stage, 2025 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding TYA Production). Other recent work at PlayMakers Repertory Company, Theater Alaska, Weathervane Theatre, TheaterWorksUSA, 2024/2025 Drama League/NYCC Musical Theatre Assistantship. As an actor 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. TV: New Amsterdam, Harlem MFA: UNC, Chapel Hill.

ADRIAN COSTA (Cooks)

REENA DUTT (The Year of the Ribbon), she/her, is dedicated to new and reimagined texts that catapult polarizing conversations by/with the underheard. She’s a New York Directing fellow with the Drama League, an AFI DWW+ participant (class of 2026), and works with Penguin Random House’s audio division on the regular. Her Broadway debut was assisting Kwame Kwei-Armah on The Collaboration at MTC . Find her direction in New York, Southern California, Arkansas and Florida on regional stages in the coming months. Catch films Comfort Food and Crossing the Desert on screen in the festival circuit. www.ReenaDutt.com for more information.

CASSIDY KEPP (The Call) she/her, is a theatre artist who creates safe spaces to generate new work and reinvented classics that explores gender and sexuality. She has been practicing this with companies and venues such as: The Tank, The Chain, The Wild Project, The Brick, and The Elysian. She has done two readings at the Lincoln Center Clark Studio Theatre (Peer Gynt & Crush/ Slash). Cassidy is Jackson Gay’s Associate Director on multiple projects including Hard Road to Heaven, a new country musical. She has her MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College and for her thesis directed Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl.

JIM KLEINMANN (The Ballad of Big Pharma; Artistic Director & Co-Founder), 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-eight 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, the New Play Production Fund, Potrero Stage: PlayGround Center for New Plays, and most recently the Innovator Incubator. For PlayGround, he has directed 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.

CHARLIQUE C. ROLLE (Present; Associate Producer)

PRODUCTION

SARAH GASSER (Stage Manager) joined PlayGround in 2017 and has staged managed for the Monday Night PlayGround series and PlayGround Festival. In the Bay Area, she has stage managed for Brava and Bay Area Children’s Theatre, among others.

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 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 past 10), 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.

STREAMING NOW AND COMING SOON

PLAYGROUND CONTRIBUTORS

PlayGround is deeply grateful for the generous contributions of the many individuals, foundations, corporations and government agencies whose contributions make our work possible. This list reflects gifts of $125 or more committed between October 1, 2025 & October 11, 2026.

GOVERNMENT, CORPORATE, & FOUNDATION DONORS

Adobe • Alameda County Arts Commission • Art Space Development Corporation • Berkeley Civic Arts • Berlanti Family Foundation • Bill Graham Supporting Foundation of the Jewish Community Federation & Endowment Fund • California Office of the Small Business Advocate • Fleishhacker Foundation • Google • Grants For The Arts • Hechale Productions • Illinois Arts Council • KFF • Kenneth Rainin Foundation • Koret Foundation • LA County Arts Commission • Lenore & Howard Klein Foundation • The Leo J. & Celia Carlin Fund • National Endowment for the Arts • Negley Flinn Charitable Foundation • New York State Council on the Arts • News Corp • NIAC • Nvidia • Ronald Whittier Family Foundation • SF Shines • The Shubert Foundation • SS&C Technologies • State Compensation Insurance Fund

SEASON SPONSORS ($5000+)

Emilie & Gordon Brooks, Daniel Cohn & Lynn Linton,  Keith Goldstein & Donna Warrington, Jim Kleinmann & Lara Gilman, Jackie Kubicka, Craig Moody, Darryl Wilburn, Janine Wilburn

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS ($2500-$4999)

John Gilman, Regina S. Guggenheim, Kathryn Hecht, Nitin Nitin & Vasugi Kailasam, Jessica June Rowe, Christian Wilburn, Anonymous

PRODUCERS CIRCLE ($1000-$2499)

Linda Ayres-Frederick, Anne Brady, Summer Broyhill, Madeleine Butler, Sheila Collins, Jediah Craig, Jessica Forbess, Greg Gorel, Gina & Steve Harris, Uma Incrocci, J. Lynn Jackson, Jonathan Josephson, Linda Kremer, Lisa Morse & Bruno Kurtic, Molly Noble & Bob Guilbault, Kendall Phillips, Evelyn Jean Pine, Bridgette Dutta Portman, Arthur Rock & Toni Rembe Rock, Kathryn Ryan, Sanjit Sengupta, William C. Thompson, Hector Zavala, Anonymous

PLAYWRIGHTS CIRCLE ($500-$999)

Randy Adams, Tom Bruett, Joy Carlin, Elizabeth Dudak, Leon Goertzen, Philip Gotanda, Martine Kei Green-Rogers, Raymond W Kaliski, Paul Kleinmann, margery kreitman, Kathy Roberts & Aaron Loeb, Bram McGinnis, Mark Peters, Cindy Redburn, John Ruskin, Matt Schwartz, Kurt Taylor, Matt W Wills

PATRON ($250-$499)

Linda Amayo-Hassan, Linda Ayres-Frederick / Phoenix Arts Association Theatre, Summer Broyhill, Ben Cain, Jediah Craig, Clint Fleener, Hechale Productions, Jonathan Josephson, Alex Loddengaard, Alan Maass, Tobi Marcus, Evelyn Jean Pine & Doug Peckler, Bridgette Dutta Portman, Stephanie Prentice, George Rose, John Ruskin, Kathryn Ryan, Kitt Saginor, Kristina Segesvary, Sanjit Sengupta, Mark Sherstinsky, Jerome Solberg, Jon & Susan Sweedler, Mary Lou Torre, Rebecca White, Susannah Wise, Maury Zeff

ASSOCIATE MEMBER ($125-$249)

Ruth Brayton, Cass Brayton, Tim Bryant, Valerie Butler-Newbern, Vilma Contreras, Marilyn Cooper, Deepanshu Dutta, Sharon Eberhardt, Sara Goetz, Patience Haggin, Howard Ho, Karen Levesque, Jack Needleman, Jack Needleman, Sitara Nieves, Stella Rajakumar, Karen Reaume, John Ruskin, Claudia Sarconi, John Schrom, Mary Lou Torre, Donna Young

To contribute to PlayGround, visit https://playground-sf.org/contribute or contact PlayGround Associate Director of Development Lana Richards at lana@playground-sf.org or by phone at (833) 992-6677.

PlayGround-NY Writers Pool 2026-27

Ash, Claire Abramovitz, Zee Bendici, Maisa Chiang, Chelyn Cousar, Jonathan Galvez, Max Garcia, Dana Leslie Goldstein, Anthony Goss, Brynn Hambley, Bram Hartman, Stanley Hathaway, Howard Ho, Uma Incrocci, Natasha Lancaster, Wade Lawrence Hollomon, Gaurav Mishra, Ed Moreno, Miles Orduna, Annie Raczko, Katie Ryan, Marcus Scott, Henrietta Steventon, Jordyn Stoessel, Scarlett Sun, Neha Talreja, Sophie Tegenu, Melvin Yen.

PlayGround Resident Playwrights 2026-27

San Francisco: Monique Adams, Robyn Brooks, Garret Groenveld, KT Frances Hartline**, Vicky Pham, Evy Pine, Sophia Ruf, Stan Stone, Maury Zeff.

Los Angeles: Michael P. Adams, Damian Arteaga*, Esther Banegas Gatica**, Rachel Harner, Jonathan Josephson, Mildred Inez Lewis, Richard Perez*, Cara Sanchez, Baylee Shlichtman; Daysha Veronica, Jennie Webb.

New York: Ash, Tom Bruett, Saiya Floyd, Dana Leslie Goldstein, Bram Hartman, Howard Ho, Wade Lawrence Hollomon, Nina Ki, Uma Incrocci**, Gaurav Mishra, Lyra Nalan.

Chicago: Anne Brady, Betsy Dudak*, Dana Hall*, Toby Inoue**, alfonzo solomon kahlil, Alex Kingsley, Bacillio Mendez II, Shail Modi, J.S. Puller, Matt Shultz, Katherine Swan.

* Playwrights under commission for the 2026-27 season
** June Anne Baker Award Winner

PlayGround-NY Company

Kayla Amani, Jen Anaya, Jackson Bradshaw, Julia Brothers, Eva Burgess, Tia Cassmira, Nathaniel Claridad, Sheila Collins, Gracie Connell, Julia Crowley, Sarah Guilbault, George Harris, Amy Hart Nguyen, Monica Ho, Mary Hodges, Stephanie Jeane Toussaint, Anya Josephs, Tyler Kent, Kalina Ko, Austin Ku, Willow Lautenberg, Jully Lee, Ana Margineanu, Alex Moggridge, Ed Moreno, Attilio Rigotti, Charlique C. Rolle, Abigail Rosen, Betsy Rosen, Paris Ruiz, Alex Shafer, Olivia Songer, Illana Stein, James Suarez, Rebecca White.

Staff

Jim Kleinmann, Co-Founder & Artistic Director
Abigail Rosen, Executive Producer
Kayla Amani, Associate Producer
Charlique C. Rolle, Associate Producer
Bailey Jordan Garcia, Casting Director
Sarah Gasser, Resident Stage Manager
Blaire Battle, 2026-27 Producing Fellow 
Ben Chau-Chiu, 2026-27 Producing Fellow 
Amanda Ng, 2026-27 Producing Fellow 
Savaun Stokes, 2026-27 Producing Fellow
Sissi Chen, 2026-27 Directing Apprentice
Karl Hawkins, 2026-27 Directing Apprentice
Anna Item, 2026-27 Directing Apprentice

PlayGround Ambassadors

Julia Brothers, Jordan Carlson, Ben Chau-Chiu , Julia Crowley, Sheri Flanders, Claire Ganem, Eric Geller, Monica Ho, Tony Kim, Christine Liao, AJ Lily, Ely Sonny Orquiza, Andrew Perez, Ivan Rivas, Miyoko Sakatani, Braedyn Youngberg.

PlayGround Equity Workgroup

Diana Burbano, Victoria Evans Erville, Norman Gee, Jim Kleinmann, Brittany Mellerson, Tiana Randall-Quant, Katja Rivera, M. Graham Smith.

PlayGround Board

Stephanie Prentice, Chair
James A. Kleinmann, President
Emilie Talbot, Vice President
Nitin, Treasurer
Christian Wilburn, Secretary
Regina Guggenheim, Chair Emeritus
Tanvi Agrawal
Linda Amayo-Hassan
Julia Brothers
Ben Cain
Howard Ho
Toby Inoue
Rebecca Martinez
Kendall Phillips
Jessica June Rowe

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Berkeley, CA 94703-2485