PlayGround Company in the News May-15

Read on to learn more about PlayGround Company Member and Alumni recent news, current happenings, and upcoming events.

Apparently the well-known women's bathroom icon had a secret. That triangle dress was never really a dress at all. It was a superhero cape, and we’ve been looking at her back all this time. Now that her identity is blown, she'll use her superpowers to take on one of the most heated issues in technology today: the underrepresentation of women in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematic) fields. The brainchild of Axosoft’s Tania Katan, the new graphic leads the charge for the company's #ItWasNeverADress campaign, which just launched Thursday at the Girls In Tech conference in Phoenix, AZ. http://www.cnn.com/videos/tech/2015/05/05/it-was-never-a-dress-tania-katan-axosoft.cnn

Michael Barrett Austin is loving being a part of Best of PlayGround 19 and cannot wait to open the show this week! The other members of the Best of PlayGround ensemble include: Jomar Tagatac, Michael Phillis, Melissa Ortiz, Stephanie Prentice, Lindsey Marie Schmeltzer, and Millie DeBenedet. http://playground-sf.org/bestof

Lisa Morse, Lizzie Calogero and Safiya Fredericks are in rehearsal for Robin Lynn Rodriguez’s HELLA LOVE OAKLAND, directed by Rebecca Novick, and beginning previews May 11 at Thick House as part of the 19th annual PlayGround Festival of New Works. http://playground-sf.org/hellaloveoakland

Teddy Spencer is currently playing Buddy in the staged reading of TALLEY & SON at the Aurora Theatre Company, through May 18th. After T&S, Teddy begins rehearsal for the World Premiere of WILL SHAKESPEARE'S LONG LOST FIRST PLAY (ABRIDGED), a co-production between the Napa Valley & Notre Dame Shakespeare Festivals, written and directed by Reed Martin and Austin Tinchenor.

Colin Johnson’s evening of short plays, The Creative Process, will be produced by Theatre Pub May 16,17,25 and 26 at Pianofight. He is writing a piece for Shotz SF: The Chekhov Variations on Wednesday May 13 at Pianofight. Full screening for his original full-length web series, MERRITT SQUAD, is Friday May 29 at, wait for it, Pianofight!

Katja Rivera is directing Erin Marie Panttaja's PREAPOCALYPTICA  for Best Of PlayGround, as well as directing the full-length version for the PlayGround Festival staged reading series. She recently directed staged readings of the full-length for the Planet Earth New Play Festival at Stanford and UC Berkeley, April 22-May 1.

In Andrew Saito's new play, Mount Misery: A Comedy of Enhanced Interrogations, Donald Rumsfeld engages in a battle of wits with Frederick Douglass on his vacation home, formerly a plantation.  Mount Misery opens this Friday, May 8, at The Cutting Ball Theater, and runs through June 7.  http://cuttingball.com/events/0607risk/mount-misery/

Gwen Loeb is starting rehearsals for the Nurse in ROMEO AND JULIET with SF Shakes.

Louis Parnell will be directing MOMENTS OF TRUTH, a new musical by Patricia Milton and Caroline Altman that will play Sept-Oct at the Royce Gallery in SF. This will be a 3GirlsTheatre production.

Rachel Bublitz is thrilled to have her ten minute play Reading Babar in 2070 open this weekend with the19th Best of PlayGround Festival. Coming up this June and July, Rachel's full length play Code Name: Brass Rose, inspired by the life of Nancy Wake, will be read at EXIT Theatre in DIVAfest's Loud and Unladylike Festival, http://divafest.info/ and on July 24th there will be a public reading of another full-length play of Rachel's, Of Serpents & Sea Spray, with Custom Made Theatre Company, custommade.org. Rachel is the recipient of this year’s June Anne Baker Prize and will be honored at the May 16 performance of Best of PlayGround.

Trevor Allen’s play WORKING FOR THE MOUSE will play at City Lights Theater Company in San Jose 5/24 & 5/31 https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?ticketing=clt01 and also at EXIT Theatre, SF 6/5-6/13 http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1577734 Blackboxtheatre.com is producing the 49 Miles podcast project: http://www.blackboxtheatre.com/#!49miles/c1kmp It’s an online digital theatre piece based on his play, 49 MILES (Originally produced by Crowded Fire) Featuring the voices of Stacy Ross, James Carpenter, Amy Resnick, Michael Gaffney, Christian Caggigal and many others.

Cindy Goldfield is currently in rehearsal for the inaugural show at ACT’s new Strand Theatre.  LOVE AND INFORMATION starts previews June 3rd.

Karen Hartline’s ten-minute play, MOON, will be performed in August at Women in Theatre's Kauai Shorts Festival in Kauai, HI.

Anne Darragh, Stacy Ross, and Rosie Hallett are currently performing in THE WAY WEST at Marin Theatre Company, which runs through Sunday, May 10. Use the code WestRH for free tickets!

Brian Herndon will be appearing as Thing and an Ancestor in THE ADDAMS FAMILY at San Jose Stage.

Robert Sicular is playing Charlie "The Duck" Clench in One Man, Two Guvnors at Berkeley Rep. Previews begin this week, opening is May 15th, and it plays through June. 

Anthony Williams' scene from Some Girl(s) by Neil LaBute is featured in the Directors' Showcase this Thursday at 8pm and Friday at 2pm at UC Berkeley in the Durham Studio Theatre.

David Cramer and Aaron Wilton are going to be in a reading of Golden Boy at the Eugene O'Neill Foundation Tao House on the 17th.  Also, on the 11th and 18th, Teddy Spencer, Lindsey Marie Schmeltzer and Aaron are doing the Talley & Son reading at the Aurora.

Ross Peter Nelson will be awarded an MFA in Playwriting from the University of New Orleans at a commencement ceremony on May 15th. His thesis play, Becoming Number Six, was a semifinalist at both the Ashland New Plays Festival and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival.