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 Playwrights Foundation Announces the 2016 Bay Area Playwrights Festival Lineup! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: David Hyry (415) 864­3547 ​
[email protected] PLAYWRIGHTS FOUNDATION Announces the Plays and Playwrights of the 39th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival July 15 – 24, 2016 at Custom Made Theatre, San Francisco Six Outstanding Playwrights Selected for Developmental Workshops Hansol Jung, Walt McGough, Philana Omorotionmwan, Andrew Saito, Sarah Sander & Jonathan Spector SAN FRANCISCO​
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Playwrights Foundation is thrilled to announce the lineup for the ​
39th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival​
(BAPF), which will run July 15­24, 2016 at Custom Made Theatre in the heart of San Francisco’s Theater District at ​
533 Sutter Street​
. Tickets are on sale June 1st at ​
http://tinyurl.com/BAPFtix​
. This year’s BAPF includes all emerging writers: ​
Hansol Jung’s ​
Wild Goose Dreams,​
Walt McGough’s​
Non­Player Character,​
Philana Omorotionmwan’s ​
Before Evening Comes​
, Andrew Saito’s ​
whisper fish,​
Jonathan Spector’s ​
Good, Better, Best, Bested, and ​
Sarah Sander’s Sycamore​
. It’s not often that you can predict future success at such a high level, but through its developmental workshops at the Playwrights Festival, the Playwrights Foundation has delivered an astonishing record of achievement. Last year’s festival launched Lauren Gunderson’s ​
The Revolutionists​
​
at Cleveland Playhouse, and Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm’s ​
Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies​
, to premiere at DC’s heralded Mosaic Theatre next season. This season Aaron Loeb’s ​
Ideation​
premiered at 59E59 off­Broadway to great acclaim, last season saw George Brant’s ​
Grounded​
at the Public Theater; and in 2011 Katori Hall’s ​
The Mountaintop enjoyed its Broadway premiere. These are just a few examples of the successful outcomes playwrights enjoy as a result of the developmental process the Festival has nurtured over almost 40 years. “Selection of this year’s plays ­ from over 500 submissions ­ was led by up­and­coming local director, Logan Ellis (formerly of Magic Theatre), who has a sharp eye for edgy contemporary voices,” says Playwrights Foundation Artistic Director Amy Mueller. “Every one of these emergent writers are grasping live theater by the throat and shaking it open ­ making it a relevant, transcendent experience for today’s young audiences. It’s no wonder that young and vibrant theater companies seeking new work look to the Bay Area Playwrights Festival for their next season.” ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS Hansol Jung​
is a playwright and director from South Korea. Her play ​
Cardboard Piano ​
premiered at the 40th Annual Humana Festival of New Plays. She has commissions from Playwrights Horizons, Ma­Yi Theatre, and a Shakespeare translation for Play On! at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. In addition to her own work, she has translated over 30 English musicals into Korean, and holds a Playwriting MFA from Yale School of Drama. Walt McGough​
is a Boston­based playwright. His plays have been produced in Chicago and Boston and he was a finalist for the Dramatists Guild's 2016 Lanford Wilson Award. He holds an MFA in playwriting from Boston University. His work can be found on the New Play Exchange, and at ​
waltmcgough.com​
. Philana Omorotionmwan​
is a published poet, and the daughter of a Louisiana mother and a Nigerian father. She is a graduate of Stanford University where she studied under the mentorship of Cherríe Moraga Her short plays have premiered in New York at Ensemble Studio Theatre and Manhattan Theatre Source. She was a Playground SF company playwright in 2010­2011.  Philana is currently pursuing an MFA in Playwriting at Ohio University and is a member of Dramatists Guild of America, Inc. Andrew P. Saito​
's plays include ​
Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night ​
and ​
Mount Misery: A Comedy of Enhanced Interrogations,​
both produced at The Cutting Ball Theater while he was Andrew W. Mellon Resident Playwright. His play ​
Stegosaurus (or) Three Cheers for Climate Change​
was produced at Faultline Theater. Saito was a Fulbright Scholar in Papua New Guinea, and holds an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. He has collaborated with the Andean theatre company Kusiwasi, and the Peruvian Yuyachkani. Saito is an alumnus member of Playwrights Foundation’s Resident Playwrights Initiative. Sarah Sander ​
is a Brooklyn­based emerging playwright. She’s a New Georges Affiliated Artist and graduate of the Public Theater’s 2015 Emerging Writers Group and has had her worked developed and produced in New York at Dramatist Guild Fellowship and P73’s Interstate 73. She was nominated for a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, NTC’s Stavis Award and Williamstown's Weissberger Award. She received her MFA from University of Iowa. Jonathan Spector​
's plays have won ‘Best of Theater’ in SF Weekly and SF Bay Guardian. As a two­time winner of the Global Age Prize, he is now under commission at the Aurora Theater. He is winner of PlayGround’s Emerging Playwright Award and Theatre Bay Area’s TITAN award. He holds an MFA in playwriting from San Francisco State, and is a member of the current class of Resident Playwrights Initiative at Playwrights Foundation. Paul Castles​
is an internationally­working composer based in New York City and Sydney. His work has been performed in Asia, Australia, Europe, and the United States. ​
The Fountain ​
(with South Korean librettist by Chae­ kyung Lee) was produced by Theater Troupe Georipae and won Best New Musical at the 6th Daegu International Musical Festival. Their other collaborations include adaptations of ​
Miss Julie ​
for the 2012 International Festival for the Centenary of Strindberg in Seoul and ​
The Man Who Never Yet Saw A Woman’s Nakedness ​
by Mortiz Rinke for the 2014 Miryang Summer Festival. ABOUT THE PLAYS
Wild Goose Dreams​
by Hansol Jung:​
A darkly humorous story of survival in the Korean North/South divide that features a choir singing chatter from social media and the internet, composed by Paul Castles. Non­Player Character​
by Walt McGough:​
Based loosely on the GamerGate controversy, this play delves into a timely and theatrical exploration of the misogyny in the games we play and who’s winning. Before Evening Comes​
by Philana Omorotionmwan:​
A dystopian futuristic allegory in which the state enacts laws that render all but a few black men disabled upon reaching manhood. whisper fish​
by Andrew P. Saito:​
​
In this epic, massively imaginative story, the sacred and the profane unite two estranged Japanese­Peruvian siblings, with the help of Glenn Miller and his all­fish orchestra, praying nuns, and a dancing chorus of masked Devils. Sycamore​
by Sarah Sander:​
A poignant, sexy and darkly funny play about a midwestern family on the brink of disintegration when both their son and daughter compete for the sexual interest of a young, quiet stranger. Good, Better, Best, Bested ​
by Jonathan Spector:​
​
A long, drunken stumble down the Las Vegas Strip, in which bachelorettes, stage magicians, street performers, professional gamblers, obnoxious tourists and historical soldiers reckon with global crisis, and are forced to decide how much they should let it disturb their good time. ​
A hilarious and disturbing play about cultural consumption. ABOUT THE BAY AREA PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL
The BAPF is the oldest and most successful new play festival in the US. Established in 1976 by Robert Woodruff, the festival has continuously discovered original and distinctive new voices in the theater, and invested in the development of their work. Among the first crop of writers at the inaugural BAPF was the young Sam Shepard – little did Woodruff know at that time how Shepard’s work would shape the landscape of American theatre. Since then many prize winning, nationally significant playwrights got their first professional experiences at the BAPF. Examples include Pulitzer Prize winners Nilo Cruz and Annie Baker, MacArthur Award winner Sam Hunter, and Katori Hall and Rajiv Joseph prior to their Broadway debuts. The BAPF’s ongoing success in discovering and supporting newly emerging writers is its enduring legacy. ABOUT PLAYWRIGHTS FOUNDATION Founded in 1976, Playwrights Foundation is today widely recognized as one of the top playwright development organizations in the U.S., dedicated to the creative development and career acceleration of contemporary playwrights. We serve emerging and mid­career playwrights, primarily from the San Francisco Bay Area, but not exclusively. We seek to identify exceptional writers and give them space, time and professional artistic collaborators to explore new theatrical ideas, allowing them to experiment and take risks with structure, form and/or content in an environment that is free from the pressures of the marketplace. Playwrights we have worked with have won every award in the theater including the Pulitzer, the Obie, the National Critics Circle Award, and many more. FESTIVAL AT A GLANCE WHAT: 2016 Bay Area Playwrights Festival WHERE: Custom Made Theatre 533 Sutter Street, 2nd Floor @ Powell San Francisco 94102 WHEN: July 15–24 2016 Performances run over two weekends, ​
July 15–17​
, and ​
22–24​
2016 TICKETS: Tickets go on sale ​
June 1​
and will be available via ​
http://tinyurl.com/BAPFtix CONTACT: ​
(415) 626­2176 ​
​
P​
hotos and Information at ​
www.playwrightsfoundation.org