PlayGround Returns With BEST OF PLAYGROUND(CHICAGO) '24 April 29

PlayGround has announced the selected plays and playwrights for our annual ten-minute play fest, BEST OF PLAYGROUND(CHICAGO) '24, including first-time festival writers Daniel Arzola, Zach Barr, alfonzo kahlil, Juliet Kang Huneke, and J.S. Puller and returning Best of alumna Tanuja Devi Jagernauth. PlayGround will celebrate these artists and their place within the next generation of great playwrights in Chicago and beyond.

Tickets can be reserved at https://tickets.playground-sf.org for live performances at Theater Wit and simulcast online, April 29 at 7pm CT and on-demand for one week. Admission is free (donations gratefully accepted) but advance reservations are required.

From over 150 submissions and the 36 plays staged this season for PlayGround's Monday Night PlayGround series, PlayGround's artistic leaders have selected six ten-minute plays to give full productions in "Best of", based on the plays' artistic excellence and dynamism and the playwrights' unique voice: Weekend at Wilson's by Daniel Arzola, The Sea and Its Keeper by Zach Barr, Therapy with the Vampire by Tanuja Devi Jagernauth, 1994: clinton files by alfonzo kahlil, Mycelium by Juliet Kang Huneke, and 1994: Stealing the Scream by J.S. Puller.

Since 1997, PlayGround has recognized over 150 of the most promising new writers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago through the annual Best of PlayGround, including Lauren Yee, Jonathan Spector, Geetha Reddy, and Cleavon Smith, among others. 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 3 of the last 5), O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and NNPN Rolling World Premieres, among others.

Lineup & Synopses (alphabetically by playwright)

Weekend at Wilson's by Daniel Arzola
President Wilson is down for the count, all eyes point to the First Lady.

The Sea and Its Keeper by Zach Barr
Ida Lewis, the most famous lighthouse keeper in America, wrestles with the Sea - perhaps for the last time.

Therapy with the Vampire by Tanuja Devi Jagernauth
Even blood-sucking overlords need a safe space to unload.

1994: clinton files by alfonzo kahlil
1994 crime bill. the aftermath.

Mycelium by Juliet Kang Huneke
Two thoughtful mushrooms encounter a woman in crisis.

1994: Stealing the Scream by J.S. Puller
In 1994, Norwegian footballer Pal Enger stole The Scream, but this play explains why he did it.

About the Playwrights

DANIEL ARZOLA (Weekend at Wilson's), he/they, is a Mexican-American playwright born and raised in the Chicagoland area. They frequently work on several productions in regional theaters and is currently working on several new works, including a new play recently selected as a National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist at the O'Neill and a brand new musical that combines American folk music with various genres of Latin music. They also work as a director, frequently working on new play developments.

ZACH BARR (The Sea and Its Keeper), they/them, is a multidisciplinary theatre artist based in Chicago. They are currently a member of the Three Brothers Theatre Playwrights Residency. Zach's play NEW OLEANNA received a reading at Red Theater in September 2023, and their adaptation of WINNIE-THE-POOH received a staged reading at the Den Theatre in July 2022. Additionally, Zach is the creator of the video essay series AND NOW THEY SING, discussing the history of the performing arts (youtube.com/@andnowtheysing). They are aro/ace.

Tanuja Devi Jagernauth (Therapy with the Vampire ) she/her, is an Indo-Caribbean playwright and dramaturg who believes in the necessity of creation during times of destruction. In 2016, she shifted career paths from Traditional East Asian Medicine to theatre in hopes of practicing four frameworks for collective liberation and wellness through theatre: self/community care, harm reduction, trauma awareness, and body positivity. Inspired by healing justice and PIC abolition, Tanuja employs comedy, magical realism, the fantastic and the absurd to raise questions around how we heal and fight back against internal and external oppressions and build a prison- and police-free world.

alfonzo solomon kahlil (1994: clinton files), he/they, is a poet, playwright, and performance artist, raised on the W(b)estside of Chicago, who believes whatever doesn't kill you, makes for great art. Dramatist of SCORPIO & THE NEW / NEW TESTAMENT, alfonzo's art utilizes the polyphony of spoken word and performance as a medium to explore the realm of the profane, the profound, the sacred, and the taboo of the interpersonal. alfonzo holds a BFA in theatre from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and is represented by Stewart Talent. alfonzo was previously seen in The Island (Court u/s John), Allegiance (Goodman), The Dream Engine (Kirby), Track 13 (Young Fugitives), The Seekers (Bushwick), Lectures (Cloud), EFFICIENCY (Dixon), HOLD UP, CANNABITCHES, and CHICAGO FIRE.

JULIET KANG HUNEKE (Mycelium), she/her, is a playwright and performer who is passionate about theatre that is larger than life. Juliet graduated from Northwestern University in 2022. Most recently, she was awarded the ReImagine: New Plays in TYA grant to develop her new play for young audiences, HANNAH AND HALMONI SAVE THE WORLD!. Other writing credits include: MECHANICALS (production, Impostors Theater Co Footholds Vol. 4), CENTERVILLE NEW JERSEY HAS A PROBLEM WITH TROUT (production, Vertigo Productions), HOME FOR THE SUMMER (workshop, American Music Theatre Project), and THE WILD (workshop, Jewish Theatre Ensemble). When she's not acting or writing, Juliet teaches silly theatre classes at Chicago Children's Theatre.

J.S. PULLER (1994: Stealing the Scream), she/her, is a playwright and author from the Windy City, Chicago. She is an award-winning member of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education and has written about the social-emotional benefits of arts education with the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. She is the author of two novels, CAPTAIN SUPERLATIVE and THE LOST THINGS CLUB, both published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. She also has several published plays, including: WOMEN WHO WEAVE (Playscripts, Inc.), PERSEUS AND MEDUSA - IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME! (Lazybee Scripts), and THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD (Stage Rights).

About PlayGround

Founded in 1994 by Jim Kleinmann, Brighde Mullins and Denise Shama, PlayGround has grown into a leading national playwright incubator and theatre community hub, providing 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 Theater Wit, 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.

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