February 12th Monday Night PlayGround: “FLASHBACK: 1994”
“And I’ll remember/The strength that you gave me/Now that I’m standing on my own/I’ll remember/The way that you saved me/I’ll remember”- Madonna, “I’ll Remember” (1994)
Don your best denim tuxedo and join PlayGround in celebrating its 30th anniversary with a musical Monday Night inspired by the year of PlayGround’s founding, 1994! Join us on Monday, February 12th at 7PM PT live at Broadwater Second Stage and simulcast online to be transported back to when the sitcom Friends first aired, MTV still showed music videos, and groups like Boyz II Men, New Kids on the Block and TLC reigned supreme with original short musicals inspired by the prompt “Flashback: 1994” and featuring music debuted that year. PlayGround’s sister companies, PlayGround SF, PlayGround NY, and PlayGround CH will present their own interpretations of the theme on February 19th, February 26th, and March 4th respectively. As part of PlayGround’s commitment to radical accessibility, Monday Night PlayGround is admission-free (donations gratefully accepted). Advance reservations are required. For the complete schedule or to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-la.org/monday.
The 12th season of PlayGround-LA’s celebrated Monday Night PlayGround LA staged reading series will be held in-person at Broadwater Second Stage and live simulcast on second Mondays, Oct-Mar (October 09, 2023 -March 11, 2024). Each month, PlayGround announces a topic and writers have just four-and-a-half days to generate their original ten-page script. Recent topics have included: “In Disguise”, “Give and Take”, and “Resolution”. The top six scripts are matched with directors and a cast of leading local professionals and rehearsed for just ninety minutes on the day of the performance. Following a brief technical rehearsal to add sound and other design elements, the six short plays are performed as script-in-hand staged readings for an in-person and live-stream viewing audience on second Mondays, October through March. Audience members can also experience the thrill of being a producer through the monthly People’s Choice Awards, helping to determine which plays and playwrights go on for consideration in PlayGround’s annual short play showcase, Best of PlayGround -LA. Advance reservations are required. Admission is free but donations are gratefully accepted. Masks are strongly recommended for in-person performance and attendees should be symptom-free and have had no recent exposure to individuals with COVID.
Why Free?
At the beginning of the pandemic in May 2020, PlayGround began streaming all of its live programs, increasing accessibility to artists and audiences not only in the Bay Area but across the globe. At the same time, PlayGround made the bold choice to offer all programs admission-free. Why free admission, particularly when so many arts organizations were struggling to stay afloat and every dollar is a critical resource to support artist compensation? We chose free admission because it furthered our commitment to radical accessibility, ensuring that no one would be turned away for lack of resources. And as many of the PlayGround artists began their journey with us as audience members, it also ensured that the future artists of PlayGround would not encounter barriers to their participation. Of course, we offer audiences the opportunity to make a donation when reserving their free tickets and we hope that you’ll consider doing so if you’re able, recognizing that your direct support makes it possible for us to continue providing fair and equitable wages for professional artists while sustaining our radical accessibility efforts for all. And, as always, we thank you for your generous support!
PlayGround-LA’s 2023-24 Writers Pool, the thirty-six Los Angeles-based writers competitively selected to participate in the monthly series, are: Michael P. Adams+, Tamadhur Al-Aqeel, Damian Alejandro Arteaga, Esther Banegas Gatica+, Jaisey Bates, Evan Baughfman+, Emily Bauer Rogers+, Summer Broyhill, Allie Costa+, Joe Luis Cedillo, Sandra Cruze, Amy Ellenberger, Lauren Gorski+, Grant Gottschall, Shoshanna Green, Rachel Harner, Briggs Hatton+, Susan C. Hunter, M.J. Kang+, Michael B. Kaplan+, Mildred Inez Lewis+, Rhea MacCallum+, Scott Mullen+, Peter Pasco, Lina Patel, Margo Wade Rofé, Jessica June Rowe+, Cara Sanchez, Baylee Schlichtman, Mark Sherstinsky+, Ayesha Siddiqui+, Maria D. Smith, Adrian Thomas, Evelyn Wu-Coffey, and Carolina Pilar Xique.
+ Past Best of PlayGround playwright.
Supporting PlayGround-LA playwrights and the Monday Night series are the members of the PlayGround-LA Company, representing some of the Los Angeles Area’s leading directors, actors, designers, and stage managers. The 2023-24 PlayGround-LA Company includes: Jahnavi Alyssa, Jerome Beck, Julia Belanova, Josef Bette, Sylvia Cervantes Blush, Summer Broyhill, Ben Cain, Hugo Carbajal, Jordan Carlson, Jordan Covington, Tom Dang, Frieda de Lackner, Hillary DeMartino, Carolyn Deskin, Rogelio Douglas III, Angel Dumapias, Eliza Frakes, Eric Geller, Danny Gomez, Cassie Grilley, Christian Haines, Julio Hanson, Matthew Henerson, Mark Jacobson, Alejandra Jaime, Alexia Jasmene, Kurt Kanazawa, Stephanie T. Keefer, Tony Kim, Emily Kuroda, Christopher Gary Lawson, Christine Liao, Lea Madda, Jackie Marriott, Gabi Mayorga, Paris McCarthy, Sherry Michaels, Krystal Mosley, Rachel Berney Needleman, Melissa Ortiz, Andrew Perez, Tansu Philip, Gary Poux, Tiana Randall-Quant, Maiya Reaves, Jesus Reyes, Ivan Rivas, Debba Rofheart, Tahmus Rounds, Mae Ruling, Collette Rutherford, Anthony Rutowicz, Richard Ruyle, Janet Song, Angela Sonner, William Warren, Charlotte Williams, and Jonathan Wray.
PlayGround-LA was launched in 2012 as the first regional expansion of PlayGround. A leading national playwright incubator, PlayGround 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.
WHAT: PlayGround presents MONDAY NIGHT PLAYGROUND “FLASHBACK: 1994”, an evening of original short musicals set in and featuring music of 1994!
WHERE: Broadwater Second Stage, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA & Simulcast Online
WHEN: Monday, February 12th, 2024 at 7pm PT
Additional Season Dates:
March 11, 2024 7pm PT in-person at Broadwater Second Stage and simulcast via Vimeo Live
TICKETS: Admission is free (donations gratefully accepted) but advance reservations are required. To reserve tickets for in-person or online viewing, visit https://tickets.playground-sf.org.