PlayGround-LA Company in the News March-2020

See what PlayGround-LA Writers, Alumni, and Company Members are up to!

Amanda L. Andrei‘s play LENA PASSES BY, about a young Filipina Romanian American woman going on a quest for a magical ingredient to save her father’s life, will receive a virtual concert reading at USC’s New Works Festival 3 (RSVP here). Amanda is graduating from the University of Southern California’s MFA in Dramatic Writing this spring, and she is also thrilled to be joining the Echo Young Playwrights group!

If you had the opportunity to go back in time and give yourself the heads up about the pandemic, what would happen? Watch Future Shock, a new short film written, directed, and performed by Allie Costa.  Allie also recently booked and remotely recorded voiceover for two commercials and sang her heart out in various online cabarets. Her script YES, AND…  had its premiere performance at the Here We Go 24 Hour Zoom Fest, while A NOVEL IDEA was performed on Zoom via Play Club West’s Virtual Couch Potato Theater. More about these and other projects here. 

The opening speech from Jonathan Josephson’s THIS HUNGRY CHURCHYARD will be included in Smith and Kraus’ Best Women’s Monologues of 2020.  Click here to enjoy the award-sweeping production from Short+Sweet Dublin. Also, his one-act OF LOVE AND SHAMPOO is slated for its 6th overall production, but first one online! The performance will be produced later this month at Victoria West High School in Victoria, TX. More info here. 

Uma Incrocci co-wrote the TV movie NATURE OF LOVE airing this month on Hallmark Channel.

Frieda de Lackner’s film, MEETING MATT DAMON, written by Ron Burch, will be screened in the SF Playground Film Fest in May. She will also be directing ALL THUMBS, written by Aaron Loeb, for the SF Playground 25th Anniversary.

Mildred Inez Lewis’s play ROOST FIRST, THEN FLY, first read at Playground-LA, will be published by Applause Books in its The Best 10-Minute Plays 2021. PIECE WORK will be performed via Facebook Live on May 30 as part of The Roots and Wings Project’s “Women at Work” sponsored by the California Arts Council.  BAD PAPER, a play originally written for The Vagrancy was read by the Company of Angels.  /KOMPLISIT/ a full-length play that examines a group of women who support a man like Harvey Weinstein/Jeffrey Epstein will be read by the Playwrights Unit of Ensemble Studio Theatre-Los Angeles later this month. 

Ivan Rivas will be directing via Zoom, Linda Amayo-Hassan’s LA VIDA LOBO on May 11th for PlayGround’s Zoom Festival.

Carla Vega is co-hosting a FREE zoom workshop “Visioning Inside/Outside the Box: A Ritual and Exploration for Self Care and Creative Living”, hosted by TeAda Talks Creative Lab via Zoom on Wednesday May 20th. With PlaybackLA theatre ensemble, Carla is performing an experiential and healing improvisational show on May 30th, 8pm via zoom– Come and let us reflect your story! She also has a role in PLANET a short film available on Amazon Prime now. Carla is currently writing a new solo show, finding her voice as a songwriter, and happily watching her kitchen scrap garden grow on her windowsill while dreaming of hugs…

Christina Wren was cast in a beer commercial, directed via Zoom and filmed on her iPhone. She took the concept to Women of Color Filmmakers and WOCF created a Film Challenge for women in the group to write, produce and direct short films titled LAZARETTO that are to be filmed in quarantine. She’s super excited to finish hers and see how they all turn out! They should all be available online around the end of May. Also, the feature film, REHABILITATION OF THE HILL, that she produced and performs in will be streaming live on Vimeo on Demand starting May 14. However, most of the time she’s in sweatpants with two bambinos hanging off some part of her body.

Desiree’ York‘s play HUMAN(E) recently received a virtual developmental reading as part of the Pasadena Playhouse/Caltech New Science Driven Plays Festival (live reading originally scheduled for April 4 cancelled due to pandemic).  She is also looking forward to a virtual reading of her newest play, HIDING OUT LOUD on May 14.  Additionally, she has begun collaborating with a choreographer/dancer on a movement short film about the quarantine.  Thankful for Playground and her artistic community!