PlayGround presents 2nd Annual Innovators Showcase

PlayGround has announced an expanded lineup of programming for this year’s 2nd annual INNOVATORS SHOWCASE, featuring new works by the 2020 Innovator Incubator Cohort: Analog Theatre, The Forum Collective, Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project, Kunoichi Productions, The Moonrisers, Poltergeist Theatre Project, and Theatre Cultura. The Innovator Incubator was launched in 2019 to foster new innovative theatre companies and productions with a strong commitment to BIPOC representation. Following the success of last year’s Showcase premiere productions, this year every company in the 2020 Incubator Class was given full opportunity to craft their own unique premiere experience ranging from discussion panels to developmental readings to full-fledged debuts. The Showcase runs November 18-December 6 via Zoom live stream and all events are ADMISSION-FREE (donations can be made at the time of reservation and directed to the Incubator organization(s) of choice). For the complete schedule or to reserve tickets (one reservation = one zoom link good for up to two devices), visit https://playground-sf.org/incubator.

PlayGround, California’s leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s (and now Los Angeles’) 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 200 early career playwrights, developing and staging more than 850 of their original short plays through the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned 85 new full-length plays by 55 of these writers through its Commissioning Initiative and, through the innovative New Play Production Fund, has directly facilitated the premiere of 30 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, including the Innovator Incubator and Solo Performance Festival, and some of the Bay Area’s most distinguished new play developers and producers. In 2020, PlayGround responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, shelter-in-place orders and theater closures by launching the nation’s first fully-digital new play festival, the PlayGround Zoom Fest, which featured more than 30 play performances and staged readings over six weeks and engaged more than 250 local theatre artists and 14,000 viewers.

Over the past twenty-five 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. Visit https://playground-sf.org for more information.

SCHEDULE & EVENT DESCRIPTIONS

Weds, Nov 18th @ 7PM PT/ Sat, Nov 28th @ 2PM PT/ Sun, Dec 6th @ 7PM PT
The Forum Collective presents Ether (Episodes 1, 2 and 3)

 Ether is a devised, episodic anthology series of interconnected stories during the COVID-19 quarantine. Inspired by interviews with real people, each episode follows a character’s individual struggle to maintain their mental health, familial ties, and personal relationships as their world changes around them. Devised by Francisco Rodriguez of the Mexican American Theatre Conservatory and Marisa Gabriela Ramos, the premiere episode is “Calling Card” — a piece about two Latinx siblings struggling with isolation. The following will focus on mental health in the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. The first two episodes featured in the showcase will be pre-recorded and include a live panel discussion of the work immediately following with the creative team and the community members connected to each episode’s story. The final presentation will be a live-streamed performance about the fallout of the 2020 Presidential Election.

Thurs, Nov 19th @ 7PM PT
Analog Theatre presents How Do You Plug In An Analog?

A one-hour, live, multi-media discussion between Analog Theatre founders Elissa Stebbins and Rebecca Pingree and invited artistic guests, discussing styles and principles of physical theatremaking, and translating those practices into personal, anti-racist work and development. The event will include devised live performance, filmed performance, and conversation with the audience.

Fri, Nov 20th – Sun, Nov 22nd @ 7PM PT
Kunoichi Productions presents The True Tale of Princess Kaguya by Ai Aida

A modern metatheatrical retelling of the Japanese classic folklore ‘Kaguyahime’, translated ‘The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter’, Kunoichi’s debut production explores the life of a princess called Kaguya, found as a baby inside the stalk of a shiny golden bamboo. Deviating from the original tale in which a beautiful heroine becomes an object of male gaze, Kaguya is a rebellious tomboy revolting against princessly traditions, rejecting all male suitors, and reaching for an identity all her own. Featuring puppetry, shadow puppetry, folk music, kamishibai storytelling, and animation, this interstellar fable for the modern age questions how a Princess can break free of the permeating reach of patriarchy to become a truly independent individual.

Mon, Nov 23rd @ 7PM PT
Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project presents Black Face Matters by Willie Jones III

The launch of the Juneteenth Justice Project reached over 10,000 households with its streaming presentation of Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie Fringed Orchids by Los Angeles playwright Vincent Terrell Durham. A recent addition to this year’s Innovator Incubator cohort, the Project continues its mission of centering Black voices and Black artists with a staged developmental reading of Willie Jones III topical comedy, Black Face Matters. Some people are apprehensive about discussing issues of race, while others are eager to really take it on. In this new radically relevant piece, discussing race is an opportunity for learning through comedy.

Fri, Nov 27th – Mon, Nov 30th @ 7PM PT
Poltergeist Theatre Project presents I Am Dracula: a Docudrama Experiment, adapted by Chris Steele

A mysterious sickness is ravaging the city of San Francisco, leaving survivors feeling like a stranger to their own bodies. Abraham, one of these survivors, is sensing a trend amongst their interwoven circle of friends and it might have something to do with a hungry, ancient entity silently stalking among us. Through the lens of an impromptu Zoom Webinar documentary exposee, I Am Dracula explores the effects of living during a pandemic under a patriarchy through the lens of one of the most iconic Queer horror stories ever written. Perhaps when we search fervently enough for the monsters hiding in our midst, we might be faced with the even more horrifying monsters hiding inside ourselves.

Weds, Dec 2nd – Thurs, Dec 3rd  @ 7PM PT
The Moonrisers present Baboons in the Nighthouse by Christopher Magee

Continuing their tradition of mind-bending and imaginative storytelling through worlds eerily like and unlike our own, Baboons in the Nighthouse is a premiere production of a staged reading of a new in development script. The Moonrisers invite the audience into the process of their process to process, together but physically very apart, a table reading of this new offering. Who are the baboons? What are they doing in the Nighthouse? What is a Nighthouse? All of these questions and more may or may not be answered.

Fri, Dec 4th – Sat, Dec 5th @ 7PM PT
Theatre Cultura presents Corazón of a Latina by Linda Amayo-Hassan

Corazón of a Latina is a premiere presentation about Latinas living, thriving, struggling, and coping in the United States. This production focuses on the many roles Latinas play in our society, how they are perceived and how Latinas actually perceive themselves. It is a moment of reflection and a moment of expression for Latinas in America. Corazón of a Latina is written by Linda Amayo-Hassan in collaboration with April Ballesteros, Natalia Delgado,Letitia Duarte, Carla Gallardo, Livia Gomes Demarchi and Michelle Navarette.

PLAYGROUND INNOVATOR INCUBATOR 2020 COHORT

ANALOG THEATER
Leadership Team: Rebecca Pingree, Elissa Beth Stebbins

Analog Theatre’s mission is to create collaborative, out-of-the-box, multidisciplinary, multi-sensory storytelling, devising performances that rely on performing skills and collective acts of actor-audience imagination, rather than literal representations of reality onstage. Rather than competing with film to faithfully reproduce realism, Analog seeks to create rich settings, stories, and characters from empty space and bring alive objects that are inanimate. We believe simpler styles of storytelling can provide a catalyst for increased hope and imagination that is gravely needed in the world today. We use bodies, voices, instruments, audience interactions, improvisation, poetry, puppetry, maskwork, and mime, to create back-to-basics theatre magic.

THE FORUM COLLECTIVE
Leadership Team: Julius Rea, Marisa Ramos, Leigh Rondon-Davis, Ryan Takemiya, and Kieran Beccia

The Forum Collective is dedicated to creating a new structure of journalism theatre. Focused on shared governance, its members mirror an editorial board when analyzing a central piece of work in relation to a political, social, or historic trend. This structure allows the company to redefine journalism theatre and detach from traditional hierarchies that have previously excluded marginalized communities. Overall, their multidisciplinary projects blend live performance, visual & audio art, written articles, and digital data compositions. The end result relates to different types of people and learning styles while deeply exploring a central topic. Additionally, the company’s development process focuses on in-depth interviews, research, and community outreach to showcase the nuances in the narratives of marginalized groups. This unique mix of structure and intention leads to work that speaks for, to, and with audiences.

JUNETEENTH THEATRE JUSTICE PROJECT
Leadership Team: Aldo Billingslea

The Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project was launched by Aldo Billingslea to center Black theatre artists and new voices, address systemic racism in the theatre industry, and help raise much needed funds in support of Black Theatres around the country. The inaugural project featured more than half a dozen online staged readings of Vincent Terrell Durham’s play, Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie Fringed Orchids, on Juneteenth 2020, involving over sixty theatre companies from around the country and in support of a national GoFundMe campaign for Black Theater.

KUNOICHI PRODUCTIONS
Leadership Team: Ai Aida, Keiko Shimosato Carreiro, Nick Ishimaru

The mission of Kunoichi Productions is to create bold, innovative multidisciplinary theater with Japanese aesthetics, blending the ancient and the modern, using both comedy and philosophy, while fusing Eastern and Western theatrical elements. “Kunoichi” means “female ninja” or “female warrior.” We produce thought-provoking original plays with Japanese aesthetics, breaking traditions, taboos and gender/cultural assumptions; casting new light on old ideas or old stories; and engaging and challenging our audiences artistically, intellectually as well as politically through the fusion of different art forms – poetry, music, movement, visual arts, storytelling and puppetry. We are committed to supporting local artists with diverse backgrounds and talents, working and growing with them in an experimental, collaborative environment, and to bringing a fresh, multicultural perspective to the Bay Area and beyond.

THE MOONRISERS
Leadership Team: Christopher Magee, Michael Magee, Angel Hertslet

Moonrisers is dedicated to creating new works featuring the bizarre, the magical, and the surreal, that joyously celebrate escapism and embrace comedy of the absurd. To never linger overlong on a success but hurtle forward with new, exciting projects. To plant a seed of levity in our audience that can be carried and shared with others, in abundance. The Moonrisers seek to celebrate the Bay Area’s vibrant theater community and draw audiences out of the ordinary and into a magical world, just outside of their awareness, maybe missed or forgotten. To demonstrate that if looked for, if sought after, the world reveals phantasms, waking dreams, and fairy tales.

POLTERGEIST THEATRE PROJECT
Leadership Collective: Britt Lauer, Brooke Jennings, Caroline Portante, Chris Steele, Giselle Boustani-Fontenele, Jesse Annette Koehn, Lavale-William Davis, Linda Maria Girón, Ling Lee, Mey Lee, Sgt. Die Wies

Poltergeist Theatre Project’s mission is to reclaim Queer narratives through performance processes that dismantle toxic cultural norms, viscerally immerse audiences, and celebrate the innovation and liberation of Queer folx. The company’s vision is to create theatre that follows you home. Honoring San Francisco’s strong tradition of revolutionary art that ignites the flame of cultural and societal progress, Poltergeist creates radically queer, feminist, intrinsically participatory theater. Whether highlighting work by new artists or subverting and re-framing a problematic public domain play to create a brand new adaptation, Poltergeist seeks to normalize and centralize Other narratives. Focusing on the tenets of inclusivity, representation, and accessibility, Poltergeist seeks to remind this city of its deep roots in queer art.

THEATRE CULTURA
Leadership Team: Linda Amayo-Hassan, Dov Hassan, April Ballesteros

The mission of Theatre Cultura is, first and foremost, to provide the opportunity for local and national Latina theater artists to have a place for their voices to be heard in high quality, deeply invested productions. TC’s intention is to create theater that will inspire, inform, challenge, empower, embrace and reflect the lives and communities of Latinas of the SF Bay Area and around the country. Themes of immigration, Latinx and women’s issues will provide the main focus for content. Plays will mostly be original and selected from active, working Latina playwrights from around the country in order to build a community of professional Latina playwrights who wish to tell the stories borne of the Latina experience and create a dynamic connection between those artists and the communities they serve.

INNOVATORS SHOWCASE EVENT SCHEDULE:

Week One
Weds, Nov 18th, 7pm PT: The Forum Collective presents Ether, Episode 1: “Calling Card”, devised by Marisa Ramos & Francisco Rodriguez
Thurs, Nov 19th, 7pm PT: Analog Theatre presents How Do You Plug In An Analog?
Fri, Nov 20th, 7pm PT: Kunoichi Productions presents The True Tale of Princess Kaguya by Ai Aida
Sat, Nov 21st, 7pm PT: Kunoichi Productions presents The True Tale of Princess Kaguya by Ai Aida
Sun, Nov 22nd, 7pm PT: Kunoichi Productions presents The True Tale of Princess Kaguya by Ai Aida

Week Two
Mon, Nov 23rd, 7pm PT: Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project presents Black Face Matters by Willie Jones III
Fri, Nov 27th, 7pm PT: Poltergeist Theatre Project presents I Am Dracula: a Docudrama Experiment, adapted by Chris Steele
Sat, Nov 28th, 2pm PT: The Forum Collective presents Ether, Episode 2: “Untitled”, devised by Sharon Shao & Ryan Takemiya
Sun, Nov 29th, 7pm PT: Poltergeist Theatre Project presents I Am Dracula: a Docudrama Experiment, adapted by Chris Steele 

Week Three
Mon, Nov 30th, 7pm PT: Poltergeist Theatre Project presents I Am Dracula: a Docudrama Experiment, adapted by Chris Steele
Weds, Dec 2nd, 7pm PT: The Moonrisers present Baboons in the Nighthouse by Christopher Magee
Thurs, Dec 3rd, 7pm PT: The Moonrisers present Baboons in the Nighthouse by Christopher Magee
Fri, Dec 4th, 7pm PT: Theatre Cultura presents Corazón of a Latina by Linda Amayo-Hassan
Sat, Dec 5th, 7pm PT: Theatre Cultura presents Corazón of a Latina by Linda Amayo-Hassan
Sun, Dec 6th, 7pm PT: The Forum Collective presents Ether, Episode 3: “Untitled”, live performance devised by Julius Rea

Admission for all Innovators Showcase events are free. Advance reservations are required. To reserve tickets (one reservation = one zoom link good for up to two devices) or for more information about the Innovators Showcase, visit https://playground-sf.org/incubator.