Playground Announces 2nd Annual Solo Performance Festival

PlayGround has announced the lineup for its second annual PlayGround Solo Performance Festival, a celebration of the best in Bay Area solo performance, running January 24-February 10 at Potrero Stage. The festival features 12 double-bill performances by 11 local artists over three weeks, including new works by Ron Campbell, Julie Gieseke, Malcolm Grissom, Emil Guillermo, Michael Phillis, Fred Pitts, Kathryn Seabron, and Talisha Tolliver, as well as special guests Marga Gomez, Matthew Martin, and Nina Wise, with each evening running a little over two hours. PlayGround opens the program to the next generation of performers with a special Open Mic Night on Monday, January 28, at 8pm.

The festival, initiated last winter as one of PlayGround's new "pop-up" programs, represents an extension of PlayGround's mission and commitment to the discovery of bold new voices for the stage and the first PlayGround offering fully dedicated to solo performance.

Tickets, on sale beginning December 1, are $31-$46 and All-Festival Passes start at just $93 (unlimited access to all 11 artists, 12 performances and a reserved seat for Open Mic Night). For more information or to purchase tickets, visit http://playground-sf.org/solofest or call (415) 992-6677.

Ron Campbell HOW TO FAIL

Jan 27-7PM / Feb 3-7PM / Feb 10-7PM Being dumb for dummies in one uneasy lesson.

Julie Gieseke BORDERLINE A**HOLE

Jan 25-8PM / Jan 31-8PM / Feb 9-8PM After years of chasing unavailable women, Julie thought she found her ideal girlfriend; they just can't agree on one thing - that Julie is the problem.

Marga Gomez THE LATIN STANDARDS HOUR

Jan 25-8PM "The Latin Standards Hour" is Marga Gomez's 55 minute, streamlined and supercharged version of "Latin Standards," her critically acclaimed funny and true story of perseverance and creative addiction passed down from immigrant father to lesbian daughter. As a tribute to her dad, a blustery Cuban showman, Marga defies reason and launches a hipster comedy night at "Esta Noche," a doomed Mission district Latino drag club, during the onset of San Francisco's gentrification crisis. "Critic's Pick" NY Times.

Malcolm Grissom STOP HAVING ZOMBIE SEX

Feb 2-8PM / Feb 7-8PM Stop Having Zombie Sex is a humorous and intimate exploration of love, intimacy, sex, and monsters. A sequel to last year's Me, My Song, and I.

Emil Guillermo EMIL AMOK: SEX & AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Jan 27-7PM / Feb 1-8PM / Feb 7-8PM Emil Amok Guillermo begins his Filipino American journey from his dad's colonization to his own encounters with race in America from the Mission, to Harvard, to NPR. It's Spalding Gray meets Ferdinand Marcos in a story rarely told about America's first colony.

Matthew Martin MATT ON TAP

Feb 1-8PM Award-winning actor and drag performer Matthew Martin is "laying down the irons", scorching the floor with persuasive percussion and returning to his Tap Roots in this new work-in-progress!

Michael Phillis PATTY FROM HR WOULD LIKE A WORD

Jan 24-8PM / Feb 2-8PM / Feb 8-8PM No, you're not fired... but it may be even worse. Patty is giving a company-wide presentation and attendance is MANDATORY. But when things go spectacularly wrong, everyone's least favorite HR manager goes outrageously off-script and inadvertently destroys every human resource in her path. This new solo comedy by award-winning writer/performer Michael Phillis (D*Face, Dolls) is a hilarious and poignant parody of corporate culture and political correctness that skewers the San Francisco elite and disrupts the disruption generation.

Fred Pitts THE CALIFORNIA MISSIONS AND RACE TOUR

Jan 24-8PM / Feb 3-7PM In 2012, Fred visited all 21 California Missions and discovered which famous black people folks thought he most resembled.

Kathryn Seabron ANGRY BLACK WOMAN

Jan 26-8PM / Feb 8-8PM "They" say we are living in a "post-racial" society where "all lives matter". However, Black women are fighting for their humanity. They are demanding to be seen, heard, valued and respected. Activist and raconteur Kathryn Seabron has a tale to tell. She is the quintessential "Angry Black Woman". In this one-woman show, she chronicles misogynoir, the patent hatred of Black women, that has made her exasperated to shed light on the racism and sexism that infects her daily life. She is here to educate and preach.

Talisha Tolliver SIR, I'M SORRY, MA'AM!

Jan 26-8PM / Jan 31-8PM / Feb 10-7PM Stories of a tall, outspoken, educated, Black man...I mean woman!

Nina Wise CURRENT

Feb 9-8PM Nina Wise will create an evening-length improvisation based on the events of the past 24 hours.

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