PlayGround Education’s 2026-27 Workshops & Masterclasses
PlayGround has announced three new offerings as a part of its revamped education program for adults! This season’s workshops and masterclasses will be lead by acclaimed playwrights Howard Ho (How Hamilton Works, The Music Theory of Lin-Manuel Miranda), Melissa Hillman (Bay Area producer/dramaturg), Octavio Solis (Quixote, La Posada Magica), Lauren Gunderson (The Book of Will, I and You) and Ashley Smiley (Dirty White Teslas Make Me Sad, a Rashomon).
Visit playground-sf.org/education/ for course descriptions and registration details.
UPCOMING PROGRAMS
The Secrets of Hamilton’s Success with Howard Ho
Wed Nov 18, 8pm-10pm ET via zoom
Ever wonder how the Broadway smash HAMILTON was created using the principles of music theory? And how did HAMILTON manage to seemingly break the rules of musical theatre while still largely being a traditional musical in many ways? Howard Ho has literally written the book on this topic! HOW HAMILTON WORKS: THE MUSIC THEORY OF LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA breaks down how the show was constructed from the most minute details of its musical storytelling to the broad overview of its metaphorical resonance and social commentary. In this class, Howard will condense his 300-plus page book into a 2-hour exploration, helping musical theatre writers discover how to apply the show’s storytelling and musical techniques to their own work, while giving casual fans a chance to dig deeper into the show’s many secrets.
Howard Ho is a Chinese-American playwright and composer based in New York City. He is a 2024 Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival winner (BEETHOVEN’S THIRD), a 2017 and 2024 O’Neill National Playwrights Finalist (VARIOUS EMPORIA, RESET), a Bay Area Playwrights Festival Semi-Finalist (MOLL-E), and a Samuel French OOB Finalist (WHERE I’M FROM, END OF THE LINE). His work has been produced or presented by Moving Arts (RESET), Center Theatre Group Library Reading Series (PRETENDO: A MUSICAL), Playground (JIE JIE, Best of Playground 2024 Winner), Pan Asian Rep NuWorks Festival (PARITY, WHERE I’M FROM), and Company of Angels (TAKING A TOLL, WILL CALL). He is also an award-nominated sound designer, journalist, and creator of a YouTube channel dissecting musicals (“Howard Ho Music”) with 150,000+ subscribers. He is a playwright alumnus of PlayGround-NY.
The Art of Self-Producing with Melissa Hillman
Tue Dec 1, 6pm-7:30pm PT via zoom
Would you love to self-produce your play but don’t know where to start? Or are you already committed to self-producing but feel overwhelmed by all the work and worried about future surprises? This webinar will provide you with the tools you need to successfully plan and execute a self-produced show from the very first planning stages to the week after your show closes.
East Bay-born Melissa Hillman has been part of the Bay Area theatre community for most of her life. She was the Artistic Director of Impact Theatre and served for a decade on TBA’s Theatre Services Committee. She holds a PhD in Dramatic Art from UC Berkeley, and has taught all over the Bay Area, including Cal, CSU East Bay, and the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre. She writes the blog Bitter Gertrude, and has been published by Methuen, HuffPo, TCG, and many others. As a dramaturg, she’s worked for a number of companies and playwrights, most recently as PlayCafe’s resident dramaturg. As a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant, she specializes in white allyship, cis allyship, and disability.
MORE DETAILS ANNOUNCED SOON!
PlayGround offers education programs in support of the company’s mission: to help develop significant new voices for the stage. Offerings include multi-session workshops and single-session master classes with distinguished PlayGround alumni and other leading playwrights. Registration generally closes one week before the first class. For information on our programs for young playwrights, see the Young Playwrights Project. Questions? Contact PlayGround Education Coordinator Stephanie Prentice.
PlayGround, a leading national 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 thirty-two 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 4 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. Visit https://playground-sf.org for more information.