PlayGround’s 2nd annual “Twisted” Holiday Show: A VERY HITCHCOCK CHRISTMAS!

PlayGround has announced the cast for its second annual “twisted” holiday show, “A VERY HITCHCOCK CHRISTMAS”, running December 10 & December 16-17 at Potrero Stage and simulcast, with on-demand access through New Year’s. The evening-length program features returning short plays by Jeffrey Lo, Alexis Standridge, and Eteya Trinidad, and three new short plays by Shoshanna Green, Michael B. Kaplan, and J.S. Puller, melding holiday themes and your favorite Hitchcock films, including “Rope”, “Rear Window”, “Lifeboat”, “Psycho”, “Strangers on a Train”, and “Rebecca”! Appearing in this years’ round of short holiday plays are: Anne Darragh, Natalia Delgado, L. Duarte, Gisela Feied, Leon Goertzen,  Gwen Loeb, Alicia Mason, Khary Moye, Karen Offereins, Louis Parnell, Krystle Piamonte, Rebecca Pingree, Louel Señores, Robert Sicular, Dave Sikula, Chris Steele, Isabel To, Maryssa Wanlass, Wayne Wong, and Hector Zavala. Admission is free (donations gratefully accepted) but advance reservations are strongly recommended. For more information or to reserve in-person or online tickets, visit https://playground-sf.org/hitchcockchristmas.

Lineup & Cast:

A Stranger On A Holiday Train by Jeffrey Lo
Directed by Linda Amayo-Hassan
Featuring: Gisela Feied, Hector Zavala, and Natalia Delgado
Based on “Strangers on a Train”

Life-Sleigh, Like Lifeboat But With A Sleigh, Get it? by Michael B. Kaplan
Directed by Norman Gee
Featuring: Louis Parnell, Karen Offereins, Rebecca Pingree, and Leon Goertzen
Based on “Lifeboat”

How The Bates (Almost) Stole Christmas by J.S. Puller
Directed by Katja Rivera
Featuring: Gwen Loeb, Chris Steele and Isabel To
Based on “Psycho”

A Window-ful Christmas by Alexis Standridge
Directed by Ely Sonny Orquiza
Featuring: Khary Moye, Alicia Mason, Wayne Wong, Krystle Piamonte, and L Duarte
Based on “Rear Window”

Christmas at Manderley by Eteya Trinidad
Directed by Tracy Ward
Featuring: Dave Sikula, Anne Darragh, and Maryssa Wanlass
Based on “Rebecca”

Santa on a Rope by Shoshanna Ruth Green
Directed by Jim Kleinmann
Featuring: Louel Señores, Krystle Piamonte, Robert Sicular, and L Duarte
Based on “Rope”

Production/Design: Jenna Stein-Corman (Stage Manager), Brittany Mellerson (Lighting Designer), James Goode (Sound Designer), Chris Steele (Costume Designer), and Dianne Harrison (Properties Artisan).

About the Playwrights

Shoshanna Green (Santa on a Rope, inspired by “Rope”), she/her, has done a lot of things and plans to do a lot more. Shoshanna says she’s from Philadelphia, but she grew up in Pittsburgh and her family lives in New Zealand. She is a UCB graduate and current writer on The Pack House Team Corduroy. More info at: www.ShoshannaRuthGreen.com

Michael B. Kaplan (Life-Sleigh, Like Lifeboat But With A Sleigh, Get it?, inspired by “Lifeboat”), had his first play produced in the One-Act Marathon at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York.  Since then he has worked primarily as a TV writer and producer on a dozen different prime time shows for ABC, NBC, FOX and the CW, including stints on such seminal shows as “Roseanne” and “Frasier.” He created “I’m in the Band” on Disney XD and “Dog with a Blog” on Disney Channel, serving as showrunner for both.  He has been nominated for four Emmy Awards, winning one, and received a BET Comedy Award for his work as a writer on “Girlfriends.”  He is the author of the “Betty Bunny” series of children’s books.  As a playwright, he is a member of EST/LA, Playground-LA, and The Group Rep Theatre.

Jeffrey Lo (Stuck Strangers, inspired by “Strangers on a Train”), he/him, is a Filipino-American playwright and director based in the Bay Area. He is the recipient of the Leigh Weimers Emerging Artist Award, the Emerging Artist Laureate by Arts Council Silicon Valley and Theatre Bay Area Director’s TITAN Award. Selected directing credits include THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE and THE SANTALAND DIARIES at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, HOLD THESE TRUTHS at San Francisco Playhouse, VIETGONE and THE GREAT LEAP at Capital Stage, A DOLL’S HOUSE, PART 2 and EURYDICE at Palo Alto Players (TBA Awards finalist for Best Direction), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER and NOISES OFF at Hillbarn Theatre, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, THE CRUCIBLE, and YELLOW FACE at Los Altos Stage Company. As a playwright, his plays have been produced and workshopped at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, The BindleStiff Studio, City Lights Theatre Company and Stanford University. His play WRITING FRAGMENTS HOME was a finalist for the Bay Area Playwright’s Conference and a semi-finalist for the O’Neill Playwright’s Conference. Jeffrey has also worked with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Asian American International Film Festival, San Jose Repertory and is a company member of Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company and SF Playground. In addition to his work in theatre he works as an educator and advocate for issues of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and has served as a grant panelist for the Zellerbach Family Foundation, Silicon Valley Creates and Theatre Bay Area. He is the Director Community Partnerships and Casting Director at the Tony Award Winning TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, a graduate of the Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute and a proud alumnus of the UC Irvine Drama Department. Jeffrey is also a founding member of OUR DIGITAL STORIES, for more info www.OurDigitalStories.org.

J.S. Puller (How The Bates (Almost) Stole Christmas, inspired by “Psycho”), she/her, is a playwright and author from the Windy City, Chicago. She has a master’s degree in elementary education and a bachelor’s degree in theatre from Northwestern University. She is an award-winning member of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education and is actively involved in researching the social-emotional benefits of arts education with the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. When not writing, she can usually be found in the theatre. She is the author of two novels, CAPTAIN SUPERLATIVE and THE LOST THINGS CLUB, both published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. She also has several published plays, including: WOMEN WHO WEAVE (Playscripts, Inc.), PERSEUS AND MEDUSA – IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME! (Lazybee Scripts), and THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD (Stage Rights).

Alexis Standridge (A Window-ful Christmas, inspired by “Rear Window”), she/her, is a recent graduate of Santa Clara University, where she studied Playwriting. She spends her time exploring queer theatre spaces in the Bay Area, and working with others to produce new works by upcoming young artists. When she’s not writing, Alexis works as a Coordinator for Santa Clara University, and enjoys being a dungeon master for Dungeons and Dragons games.

Eteya Trinidad (Christmas at Manderley, inspired by “Rebecca”), she/her, is a playwright, stage manager, and theater artist. She is a resident playwright at PlayGround and a member of the 2021 LezWritesBTQ Cohort at 3 Girls Theatre. Her writing has been recognized in the 2021 Best of PlayGround Festival with the June Anne Baker Prize, and as a finalist for the 2019 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Her work has also been seen at Berklee College of Music, SF Olympians Festival, Ross Valley Players, and Amios West, among others. www.eteyatrinidad.com

PlayGround, a national leading 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 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 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.

For more information about PlayGround’s “twisted” holiday show, visit https://playground-sf.org/hitchcockchristmas.

WHAT: PlayGround presents its second annual “twisted” holiday show, featuring returning short plays by Jeffrey Lo, Alexis Standridge, and Eteya Trinidad, and three new short plays by Shoshanna Green, Michael B. Kaplan, and J.S. Puller, melding holiday themes and your favorite Hitchcock thrillers, including “Rope”, “Rear Window”, “Psycho,” and more!

WHERE: Potrero Stage, 1695 18th St, San Francisco, CA 94107, and simulcast online

WHEN: December 10 & 16-17, 7pm PT at Potrero Stage & Simulcast / On-Demand thru December 31

TICKETS: Admission is free (donations gratefully accepted) but advance reservations are recommended. Masks are optional for in-person performance at Potrero Stage. Links for online viewing will be sent the day of the performance and can also be accessed through your PlayGround account at https://tickets.playground-sf.org (log in, click “home” for the main menu, then “tickets for upcoming performances”, select the proper show, and choose “watch”). If you have any questions, please contact the Box Office at boxoffice@playground-sf.org.  For more information about PlayGround’s “twisted” holiday show, call (415) 992-6677 or visit https://playground-sf.org/hitchcockchristmas.