Announcing the 2025-26 Playwright Commissions

PlayGround is thrilled to announce the five playwrights who will receive paid commissions to adapt their award-winning short plays into evening-length works over the next year: Anne Brady, Madeleine Butler, Laura Domingo, Baylee Shlichtman, and Camron Wright! Each playwright will take part in the 2025-26 residency and receive readings and other development opportunities over the next 12 months.

People’s Choice Commissions

PlayGround audience members voted for their favorite Best of PlayGround plays, contributing to a commission fund to support the development of a new full-length play adapted from the Best of PlayGround short. This year’s People’s Choice commissions have been awarded to:

Anne Brady, Disloyal (PlayGround-Chicago)
Madeleine Butler, The Case of the Missing Messenger (PlayGround-SF)
Baylee Shlichtman, Good Romans (PlayGround-LA)
Camron Wright, Marcus & Martin (PlayGround-NY)

June Anne Baker Prize

The June Anne Baker Prize, established in 2002 by PlayGround supporter John H. Gilman in memory of his late wife, honors the top female or non-binary playwright each year, representing a gifted new comedic or political voice for the stage, and includes a full-length play commission. Past recipients include: Lauren Yee, Geetha Reddy, Bridgette Dutta Portman, and Kimberly Ridgeway, among others. The 2025 June Anne Baker Prize winner is Laura Domingo, whose Grandma’s First Festivus was featured in this year’s Best of PlayGround(SF) and the Best of the Best of PlayGround. Laura will utilize her commission to expand her short play Moeʻuhane which was performed in November 2024, as part of Monday Night PlayGround: Dreams and Nightmares. After the death of her beloved tūtū (grandmother), Lani is transported into a lush tropical island dream world — a realm where time folds, memory breathes, and myth walks beside her.

The complete lineup of 2025-26 Resident Playwrights will be announced by August 1, 2025.

About the playwrights:

ANNE BRADY, PlayGround-Chicago, she/her, is honored to be a first-year Writer’s Pool member. After earning a degree in Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University, Anne worked as a professional actress and playwright in Seattle before relocating to Chicago in 2012. Her plays have been produced around the West Coast as well as internationally. She studied playwriting with Chicago Dramatists and The Second City and has authored or co-authored over 20 children’s books. She lives in Bucktown with her husband and 2 kids and has an astonishing amount of Bluey committed to memory.

MADELEINE BUTLER, PlayGround-SF, she/her, has had various plays staged for Monday Night PlayGround including A Beautiful Evening, The Story of Our Lives (People’s Choice Award), The River God (Best of PlayGround 2016), The Last Pirogue, Beshert, Stuck, and The Case of the Missing Messenger. Her short plays have also been staged by Playwright’s Center of San Francisco, FABUM (Washington, D.C.), Drama with Friends, and 3 Girls Theatre, including an episode of a collaborative serial radio drama. She has regularly attended the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive since 2021 and studies playwriting on an ongoing basis with Anthony Clarvoe.

LAURA DOMINGO, PlayGround-SF, she/her, is a Native Hawaiian/Filipina writer and actor based on Oakland, CA. She just completed her first year with PlayGround and is honored to be this year’s winner of the June Anne Baker Prize. She has written screenplays for three Best Film winners for the 48-Hour Film Project (2019 – San Jose; 2020 – U.S. West; and 2021 – San Jose), and her short plays won runner-up in 2023 and 2024 for Silicon Valley Shakespeare’s 48-Hour Play Festival. She is part of the writing pool with SF-based sketch comedy company Killing My Lobster.

BAYLEE SHLICHTMAN, PlayGround-LA, she/her, writes weird and magical plays about navigating relationships and autonomy. She has had her work produced or developed with AlterTheatre Ensemble, Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble, Curtis Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre/ LA, The Larking House, Long Beach Shakespeare Company, New Relic Theatre, Playground-LA, Secondary Location Productions, South Texas College Latinx New Play Festival, UC Irvine, Urbanite Theatre, The Vagrancy Theatre, The Wayward Artist, and The Workshop Theatre among others.

CAMRON WRIGHT, PlayGround-NY, she/her, is a 2023 graduate from Howard University who majored in English and minored in playwriting. She is originally from Daytona Beach, Florida and has always loved storytelling in all forms. She has interned in the Archives Department of the John F. Kennedy Center of Performing Arts, the press team of American Ballet Theatre and recently for the Ojai Playwriting Conference in California. Her goal is to become a full time creative and pursue her passion for writing.

For more information about PlayGround’s commissioning program, visit https://playground-sf.org/commissioning.