PlayGround-NY Announces Best of 5th Season
PlayGround-NY, a leading national playwright incubator and theatre community hub, is pleased to share the lineup for Best of PlayGround(NY) ‘26. Originally developed among 24 new short plays through PlayGround-NY’s Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series, these plays will receive a special one-night encore performance on April 20, 2026 at 7pm ET at The Producers Club and simulcast under a unique new media agreement with SAG-AFTRA. Free to stream, watch on-demand, and at the door on show nights (donations gratefully accepted), advanced in-person reservations start at $10. For tickets and more information, visit playground-ny.org/bestof.
PlayGround-NY presents Season 5
BEST OF PLAYGROUND(NY) ’26
April 20, 2026 at 7pm ET at The Producers Club & Simulcast
Admission: Free (donations gratefully accepted)
The Best of PlayGround(NY) ‘26 selected plays/playwrights are:
Back Pay by Taylor A. Blackman
Freddie Fartfinger Saves the Day by Bram Hartman
Happy Birthday, Beatrice by Ash
Marathon Dan by Uma Incrocci
The Monsters Move On by Sio Hornbuckle
Oh Noklahoma! by Gaurav Mishra
Honorable Mention Finalists:
Duckling by Maisa Chiang
Ghost Light/The Light That Waits by Melvin Ningyao Yen
About the Plays & Playwrights
Back Pay by Taylor A. Blackman
The tooth fairy makes a visit to another child’s home, but is met with more than she bargained for.
TAYLOR A. BLACKMAN, he/him is a writer, actor, and producer from Chicago, Illinois. His written works include To Infinity, (Alfred P. Sloan/Ensemble Studio Theatre Commission), It’s Karen, B****” (2024 Fire This Time Festival, 2024 WE/US Playwrights of the Gender Minority publishing deal under Smith & Kraus), Riverside Drive (5th Floor Theatre New Works Grant Finalist, Hi-ARTS Residency), and Two of A Pair (PlayGround-NY). He is a current Comedy Central Laugh Lab TV Fellow, an Alfred P. Sloan/EST Commissionee, a Uptown Collective Renaissance Residency Fellow, and A Fire This Time Festival Fellow. As an actor, Taylor has collaborated and worked with Roundabout Theatre Company, The Movement Theatre Company, The Public Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, New York Stage & Film, Playwrights Horizons, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Page 73, Signature Theatre, The Parsnip Ship, and others. TV/Film Credits: FBI (CBS), Raising Kanin (STARZ), Alternatino (Comedy Central). Directing Credits include Movement Director for Sweet Chariot at The Public Theatre’s Under the Radar Festival, and 48Hours in Harlem Festival.
Freddie Fartfinger Saves the Dayby Bram Hartman
At bedtime, Drew and Grandma turn a superhero story about Freddie Fartfinger into an imaginative adventure that uses humor to gently explore grief, love, and how laughter helps us breathe again.
BRAM HARTMAN, he/him, is a New York-based writer. Bram studied playwriting at The Acting Studio. His short play “Come On, Ref!” will make it’s West Coast premiere this month. He lives in Hell’s Kitchen with his fiancé and cat.
Happy Birthday, Beatrice by Ash
They keep saying Beatrice killed Daniel, but you deserve to know the truth.
ASH, they/she, is an active composer, choral arranger, playwright, songwriter, sound designer, and music director for choir and theatre. As a writer, she is currently developing both musicals and plays, and she recently participated in the National Queer Theater 2025 Criminal Queerness Studio, Fresh Binder Spring 2025 Writer’s Cohort, and The Workshop Theatre’s Fall 2025 Writers’ Intensive. Ash is the former artistic director of Transpose PDX, and her choral work has been performed globally. As a queer, non-binary, Persian, and hard-of-hearing artist, they value storytelling as a means of connection, revelation, and celebration. Portland raised, NYC-based. MusicByAsh.com
Marathon Danby Uma Incrocci
Two strangers bond while cheering the New York City Marathon, and as secrets spill, their chance sidewalk encounter becomes a lesson in finally saying what you want out loud.
UMA INCROCCI, she/her, has been a member of the PlayGround Writers Pool since 2018. Her play “To Keep and Bear” had a workshop at the New Ground Theater Festival at the Cleveland Playhouse in June 2024. Her short plays have been performed around the country, and recently, in Adelaide, Australia. You can catch her TV movies “Romance with a Twist,” “Nature of Love,” and “A Christmas Carousel” on the Hallmark Channel.
The Monsters Move On by Sio Hornbuckle
A child is disturbed when the monster under her bed gives his two weeks notice.
SIO HORNBUCKLE, they/he, is a playwright and director living in Brooklyn. Their plays have been developed by November Theatre, Playwrights Foundation, and Columbia University NOMADS, and their short play EOL won Best Play at the Secret Theatre’s Act One: One Act Festival. They direct the sketch duo DUKES.
Oh Noklahoma! by Gaurav Mishra
I don’t think we’re in Oklahoma! anymore (this might be Purgatory.)
GAURAV MISHRA, he/him, is a playwright, composer, and sound designer based in NYC. He recently obtained an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU Tisch and is currently a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. He also holds degrees in Theatre & Performance Studies, Music Composition, and Economics from UC Santa Barbara. Gaurav has been employed in venues across New York, Florida, and California as a writer, composer, sound designer, production accountant, musician, and more. He has also been a restaurant jazz pianist and an international tax specialist. Gaurav loves birds, falling asleep to podcasts, and Lille, France.
About PlayGround
PlayGround was founded in 1994 by Jim Kleinmann, Brighde Mullins, and Denise Shama, beginning as a professional-academic partnership in residence at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and with initial sponsorship from SFSU’s Creative Writing Program. Early participating artists included Prince Gomolvilas, Garret Jon Groenveld, Daniele Nathanson, Sandra Hunter, Colman Domingo, Kent Nicholson, Antigone Trimis, Mary Coleman, and Rhonnie Washington. The fledgling organization moved to Project Artaud and A Traveling Jewish Theatre’s new 80-seat black box theatre in 1996, at which time Kleinmann took on sole leadership as PlayGround’s founding artistic director.
The company was in residence at Berkeley Repertory Theatre from 2003 until the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and has also presented at the San Francisco Main Library, Freight & Salvage, Zeum, A.C.T.’s Costume Shop, and Thick House, as well as co-producing with such notable Bay Area theatres as San Francisco Playhouse, Shotgun Players, Impact Theatre, San Jose Stage, and Magic Theatre, among others. PlayGround first brought its work to New York City with the 2008 co-production of Garret Jon Groenveld’s Missives, followed by the 2009 NY International Fringe Festival hit co-production of Aaron Loeb’s Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party, 2013 NY International Fringe Festival co-production of Katie May’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl. PlayGround celebrated its 25th anniversary with a one-night program of original short musicals at NYC’s Theatre Row in 2019.
PlayGround’s first ongoing regional expansion came in 2012 with the launch of PlayGround-LA at West Hollywood’s Zephyr Theatre. In 2018, PlayGround-LA relocated to Hollywood’s Broadwater Theaters (home of Sacred Fools Theater Company), where the company continues to present its Monday Night series. PlayGround expanded to NYC in 2021 and Chicago in 2022, with in-person performances (and simulcasts) beginning in the Spring of 2023, at NYC’s Producers Club and Chicago’s Theater Wit, respectively.
Over its 30 year history, PlayGround has grown into a leading national playwright incubator and theatre community hub, providing unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s and, more recently, Los Angeles’, New York’s, and Chicago’s best new playwrights through innovative programs such as the monthly Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series, annual PlayGround Festival of New Works, full-length play commissions, playwright residencies and production support through the New Play Production Fund.
To date, PlayGround has developed and staged more than 1,500 original short plays through Monday Night PlayGround and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned and/or developed several hundred new full-length plays by PlayGround alumni through its Commissioning Initiative, Playwrights Residency and Alumni Programs and, through the innovative New Play Production Fund, has directly facilitated the premiere of 40 full-length plays at theatres of every size, including many that have gone on to NYC and other major theater communities across the country.
In 2017, PlayGround launched Potrero Stage: PlayGround Center for New Plays, a 99-seat state-of-the-art performance venue to serve as a shared community resource for dozens of local companies and hundreds of artists. New programs in residence at Potrero Stage like the Free-Play Festival, Solo Performance Festival, and Innovator Incubator provide opportunities for local and national artists to self-determine and showcase their work in San Francisco at little to no cost.
More than 350 early-career playwrights have gotten their start at PlayGround, including Lauren Yee, Jonathan Spector, Geetha Reddy, and Cleavon Smith, helping to expand and deepen the canon of American 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, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and New York International Fringe Festival, among others. PlayGround serves one of the largest theatre artist networks in the nation, connecting hundreds of Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York artists in support of a common vision: the development of bold and diverse new voices and new works.
This work has not gone unnoticed. PlayGround has received numerous awards, including Playwrights Foundation’s Inaugural New Play Champion Award, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle’s Paine Knickerbocker Award for ongoing contributions to Bay Area theatre, and American Theater Wing’s National Theater Grant. In 2016, Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann was recognized by Theatre Bay Area as one of the Bay Area’s top 40 leaders. Three of PlayGround’s commissioned plays have won the San Francisco Bay Area Critics Circle award for Best New Play, and three have had subsequent productions in NYC. Four of the past five Will Glickman Award winners for best new play are PlayGround alumni. When other theatre companies think of producing new work, PlayGround artists are often their first call. As a result of PlayGround’s strong leadership, planning, and a willingness to take bold risks with high payoff, the new play ecosystem has been utterly transformed by PlayGround. For more information, visit PlayGround-NY.org.