PlayGround Zoom Fest Continues On-Demand!

PlayGround Zoom Fest Premiere Presentations (originally presented via Zoom live-stream May 10-30), are now available for on-demand viewing through June 13!

These fully-developed and produced Zoom Fest Premiere Presentations were the highlight of this year’s new works festival. They are now available for free on-demand viewing, and we invite you to make a donation via our website website or Venmo. Click the links below to self-register for on-demand viewing.

BEST OF PLAYGROUND 25
PERFECT by Jonathan Luskin
SAPIENCE by Diana Burbano

ZOOM PREMIERE PRESENTATIONS:

PERFECT by Jonathan Luskin
Directed by M. Graham Smith

Perfect is a dive into the brave new world of genetic engineering. Three interwoven stories, six actors, and ten characters explore the boundless desire for flawless children and the impossibility of objectively defining what that means. A cell biologist and her brilliant, wheelchair-using son discover their research is being used to indiscriminately clean disabilities from the human genome. An athlete, genetically engineered for speed and strength, is driven by his father to be a star, despite his disinterest in athletics. And a young couple, paralyzed by the uncertainty that comes with natural conception, turns to an app to design the “perfect” child.

Jonathan Luskin is a playwright whose recent work focuses on ethical issues in computer animation, medicine and science, and a founder of Flying Moose Pictures, a video production company serving the performing arts. Directed by M. Graham Smith, Perfect features Danny Gomez as “Garry”, Julia McNeal as “Charlie/ALISA”, Jordan Covington as “Chase”, Stephanie Prentice as “Morgan/Danny”, Aaron Wilton as “Mark/Sonny”, and Elena Wright as “Madeleine/Jeanine.” Perfect is presented with support from producing partner Catalyst: a Theatre Think Tank. and was originally developed by PlayGround and further developed through Laguna Playhouse and UC Davis’ Catalyst: A Theatre Think Tank.

SAPIENCE by Diana Burbano
Directed by Katja Rivera
Sapience follows Elsa, a doctor of primatology on the autism spectrum, who has hidden this fact from the world. She is currently working with an orangutan named Wookie, who Elsa hopes to prove is capable of learning human speech. Elsa’s 12-year-old nephew, AJ, is also on the Autism spectrum. He is “locked-in”— completely non-verbal. However, thanks to AJ’s so called “disability,” he and Wookie joyously discover that they can communicate with each other. This explodes Elsa’s carefully constructed, science-based worldview and forces her to drop the mask of normality she has worn her whole life.

Diana Burbano, a Colombian immigrant, is an Equity actor, a playwright focusing on female protagonists and social issues, and a teaching artist at South Coast Repertory and Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble. Directed by Katja Rivera, Sapience features Jen Anaya as “Elsa”, Franco Martinez as “AJ”, Livia Gomes Demarchi as “Miri”, Christian Haines as “Jason”, and Julia Belanova as “Wookie.” Sapience is presented with producing partners Theatre Cultura and Latinx Mafia.

BEST OF PLAYGROUND 25
The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2021

BLENDED HISTORIES by Akaina Ghosh, directed by Jim Kleinmann
Brother and sister try to recall the story of their estranged parents at their mother’s funeral. But sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction.

THE ART OF SUFFRAGE by Anne Yumi Kobori, directed by Jeffrey Lo
In the Manzanar Relocation Center, two Japanese-American teenagers struggle to reconcile their past, present and future.

PIVOT by Bacilio Mendez II, directed by Claire Ganem
When cancel-culture backfires and causes their latest post to go viral, two wannabe influencers may finally achieve their dream of celebrity… but at what cost?

ZAGRIATE by Chris Steele, directed by Sean Owens
In a seedy queer bar, strangers connect and an unlikely origin story unfolds, blending Greek mythology and trans personal history.

LA PLANCHADA by Eteya Trinidad, directed by Tessa Corrie
A man in an El Paso COVID ward struggles for breath while his niece, though more than a thousand miles away, may hold the secret to his survival.

CURRY AND CRUMPETS by Leela Velautham, directed by Katherine Hamilton
A simple homework assignment becomes infinitely more challenging when a student finds two sides of her own identity fighting for supremacy.

SASHA AND THE ANGELIER by Christian Wilburn, directed by Norman Gee
A young girl finds a new friend and temporary reprieve from a debilitating illness through her latest adventure novel.

PlayGround, the Bay Area’s leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’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 local playwrights in the development and staging of more than 950 original short plays and 80 new full-length plays, with 5 more commissions currently in development. PlayGround also operates Potrero Stage, a state-of-the-art 99-seat black box theatre in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, home to some of the Bay Area’s leading new play developers and producers, including PlayGround, Crowded Fire, Golden Thread, and Playwrights Foundation. For more information, visit https://playground-sf.org.