Playwrights Foundation Presents 2020 ROUGH READING SERIES

Playwrights Foundation's first Rough Reading of the year is Emmylu by Boni B. Alvarez, directed by M. Graham Smith. Using the tragic 2017 Las Vegas shooting as a point of departure, Emmylu explores how Trumpism appeals to many people of color. Readings of Emmylu by Boni B. Alvarez are on on January 13, 7:30pm, Roble Hall, Stanford University and January 14, 7:30pm, Theatre of Yugen, San Francisco.

The second Rough Reading is Side Effects by Star Finch, a Playwrights Foundation Resident Playwright, directed by Sean San Jose. The play asks us to consider where exactly privilege and hope intersect-and to what effect? Readings of Side Effects by Star Finch are on February 10, 7:30pm, Roble Hall, Stanford University, and February 11, 7:30pm, Theatre of Yugen, San Francisco.

Playwrights Foundation's third Rough Reading of the year will be in partnership with San Francisco Playhouse to showcase The Pitch by Aaron Loeb, a Playwrights Foundation Alum and San Francisco Playhouse commission, directed by Bill English. Readings are on March 2, 7:30pm, Roble Hall, Stanford University, and March 3, 7:30pm, Theatre of Yugen, San Francisco.

Now in its 13th year, the Rough Readings Series is a monthly series of new works by rising local and national playwrights. Playwrights Foundation presents a new work in development, with an opportunity to meet the writer, and participate in the creative effort of bringing contemporary theater to life. Like the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the works are presented by Bay Area professional actors and directors. Two readings are held for each script. The Rough Readings are produced in partnership with National Center for New Plays at Stanford University. All readings are Pay What You Can.

Emmylu by Boni B. Alvarez

January 13 & 14

Directed by M. Graham Smith

Using the tragic 2017 Las Vegas shooting as a point of departure,

Emmylu explores how Trumpism appeals to many people of color.

January 13, 7:30pm, Roble Hall, Stanford University, January 14, 7:30pm, Theatre of Yugen, SF

Using the tragic 2017 Las Vegas shooting as a point of departure, Emmylu explores how Trumpism appeals to many people of color, specifically immigrants of color. At the center of the play is Perla Robles, a dutiful Filipina housewife, who is forced to reconcile her political beliefs with her family loyalty when the President goes after her daughter.

Boni B. Alvarez is a Los Angeles-based playwright-actor and a native of the SF Bay Area,. His plays include America Adjacent, Bloodletting, Fixed, Nicky, Dallas Non-Stop, Dusty de los Santos, Driven, and Ruby, Tragically Rotund. His plays have been produced at Center Theatre Group - Kirk Douglas Theatre, Echo Theater Company, Coeurage Theatre Company, Skylight Theatre Company, Theatre Rhinoceros, and Playwrights' Arena. He has been a Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award, Aurora Theatre's Global Age Project, and Clubbed Thumb's Biennial Commission. He is currently in Skylight Theatre's PlayLAb and Geffen Playhouse Writers' Room. He is an Adjunct Lecturer at USC and a Resident Playwright of New Dramatists.

Side Effects by Star Finch

February 10 & 11

Directed by Sean San Jose

This play asks us to consider where exactly privilege

and hope intersect-and to what effect?

Feb.10, 7:30pm, Roble Hall, Stanford University, Feb. 11, 7:30pm, Theatre of Yugen, SF

In playwright Star Finch's Side Effects we travel back to 2009 in order to better interrogate the present as it relates to the American Dream, gentrification, and the marijuana industry.

The play follows two very different (weed smoking) households in San Francisco's Bernal Heights neighborhood. On one street we find a married couple struggling to start a family in their newly purchased home. On another street we're introduced to a mother and daughter in the process of rebuilding their relationship upon the daughter's return home from a marijuana-related prison sentence. This play asks us to consider where exactly do privilege and hope intersect-and to what effect?

Star Finch is a native San Franciscan trying her best to hold ground amidst the erasure of gentrification. She's a member of Campo Santo Theater Company and a Resident Playwright at Playwrights Foundation. Her plays include H.O.M.E. [Hookers on Mars Eventually] and BONDAGE (Princess Grace Award semifinalist, Relentless Award honorable mention). She was the lead writer on the collaborative performance piece Babylon is Burning, a loose adaptation of Jeff Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop; and on Death Become Life: Banish Darkness, a collaboration with AXIS Dance, Ensemble Mik Nawooj, and Crowded Fire Theater. Finch has also contributed to various collaborative projects including TheaterFirst's PARTICIPANTS and Campo Santo's ETHOS DE MASQUERADE. She's held residencies in Crowded Fire's R&D LAB and AlterTheater's Alter Lab. She is a recipient of the San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Commission in Theater.

The Pitch by Aaron Loeb

March 2 & 3

Directed by Bill English, in partnership with San Francisco Playhouse

The Pitch by Aaron Loeb, a Playwrights Foundation Alum

and San Francisco Playhouse commission

March 2, at 7:30 PM, Roble Hall, Stanford University, March 3 at 7:30PM, Theatre of Yugen (SF)

People would sacrifice anything to work with star investor May Lee. When May meets an entrepreneur that radiates talent it's her turn to decide what must be sacrificed in the name of making her mark. Aaron Loeb brings psychological suspense to the world of Silicon Valley as characters explore purpose, identity, success, playing the game, and who you can trust.

Aaron Loeb's work has been performed around the world. His full-length plays include Ideation (which premiered Off Broadway in 2016), The Trials of Sam Houston, The Proud, Brown, First Person Shooter, Blastosphere (with Geetha Reddy), and Abraham Lincoln's Big, Gay Dance Party (Off-Broadway premiere in 2010). Loeb received the Will Glickman award for Best New Play in the Bay Area for Ideation in 2013. He is the resident playwright of San Francisco Playhouse and a member of the Dramatists Guild, Inc.

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