PlayGround is a leading playwright incubator and theatre community hub with programs in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago. PlayGround’s mission is to support the development of significant new local voices for the theatre.
Since its founding in 1994, PlayGround has developed a unique model for identifying and nurturing the Bay Area’s best new writers, helping them to build a significant body of original work, and strongly weaving these artists into the Bay...
PlayGround is a leading playwright incubator and theatre community hub with programs in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago. PlayGround’s mission is to support the development of significant new local voices for the theatre.
Since its founding in 1994, PlayGround has developed a unique model for identifying and nurturing the Bay Area’s best new writers, helping them to build a significant body of original work, and strongly weaving these artists into the Bay Area’s family of theatre professionals. PlayGround pairs early development playwrights with established, professional actors and directors—many of whom are the Artistic Directors they need to know to get produced—and fosters the artistic relationships that develop.
PlayGround’s formal programs include: The Monday Night PlayGround monthly staged reading series and annual Best of PlayGround Festival, which have supported more than 300 early career playwrights through the development and staging of over 1,500 original short plays; the Commissioning Initiative, which has commissioned 100 new full-length plays by 65 PlayGround writers; the New Play Production Fund, which has facilitated the premiere of more than 36 works at theatres of every size, including many that have gone on to NYC and other major theater communities; Potrero Stage, PlayGround's state-of-the-art venue for the development and production of new plays; and the Innovator Incubator, helping to launch new diverse theatre companies.
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, Aurora Theatre's Global Age Project, New York Int’l Fringe Festival, and others. PlayGround is the recipient of an American Theatre Wing National Theatre Company Grant, the 2009 Paine Knickerbocker Award for outstanding contributions to Bay Area theatre, and 3 BATCC Awards for Best Original Script for PlayGround commissions.