San Francisco Playhouse Presents The World Premiere Of THE DAUGHTERS By Patricia Cotter

San Francisco Playhouse announced casting for the first production of their 2019/2020 Sandbox Series of World Premieres: The Daughters, written by Patricia Cotter. Jessica Holt will direct the world premiere production, presented at the Creativity Theater.

An essential San Francisco story, The Daughters follows the 60-year journey of a community-from the initial secret meeting of the first lesbian social club in San Francisco to closing night of the last lesbian bar. As women loving women gather in defiance of convention (and the law), they drink, debate, politicize, flirt, drink more, dance hard, make out, fall in love, break up, make history, and change the way the world thinks about the multi-dimensionality of female sexuality. The Daughters is a play about the transformation of identity, gender, and sexuality across generations in the queer epicenter of the universe.

"The moment the Playwrights Foundation reading of The Daughters was over, we reached out to the playwright, Patricia Cotter, about presenting it at the Playhouse," said Bill English, Artistic Director. "Ms. Cotter's play captures a priceless piece of local history and brings to life the struggles and triumphs of a community so vital to the soul of our city. We are thrilled to bring this important story to our Empathy Gym."

The cast of The Daughters features Erin Anderson*, Olivia Levine, Em Lee Reaves, Katie Rubin*, Molly Shaiken, and Jeunée Simon*.

San Francisco Playhouse's production of The Daughters is made possible by executive producer Elizabeth Groenewegen; producer Nancy Larson; associate producer Melissa Shaw; and artistic underwriter Elizabeth Armstrong.

Patricia Cotter (Playwright)'s awards include American Academy of Arts Letters, Richard Rodgers Award, Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award. Plays include: 1980 (Or Why I'm Voting For John Anderson) Chicago's Jackalope Theatre 2017, Jeff Awards nominee for Best New Play, The Surrogate, winner of the 2016 Susan Glaspell Award, finalist at the 2016 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, produced at Centenary Stage Company, NJ, in 2017, Rules of Comedy, produced in 2015 Humana Festival of Ten-Minute Plays. The Stars Look Very Different Today was produced as part of Theatreworks 17th Annual New Works Festival, 2018. Drinking On A Plane in 2018, and The Anthropology Section in 2015both produced by The Actors Theatre of Louisville's The Tens, The Break Up Notebook (a GLAAD Award nominee). Musicals (librettist/ adaptations) include Rocket Science: A Musical, received readings at Playwrights Horizons in New York (directed by Kathleen Marshall) and was produced at The Village Theatre, Seattle; The Break-Up Notebook: A Musical (based on her play), at The Vineyard Theatre in New York. Patricia adapted The Surrogate for Kanbar Entertainment and the film is slated for a 2020 release. Patricia's most recent play; After All I Did For You is a commission from Theatre Lab at FAU as part of the Fair Play Initiative with a reading scheduled for October 2019. She is in residence as a playwright at the Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco. In addition to writing for the stage, Patricia has written for Twentieth Century Fox Television, Disney Theatrical, and Comedy Central.

Jessica Holt (Director) primarily directs new and contemporary plays and musicals. She is committed to telling stories of consequence and is thrilled to make her San Francisco Playhouse directing debut with The Daughters, a special San Francisco story very dear to her heart. Recent directing projects: Fun Home (Virginia Stage Company), The Resting Place by Ashlin Halfnight (Magic Theatre), The Wolves (A.C.T.'s Young Conservatory), Female Beginner by Edith Freni (Ensemble Studio Theatre). Selected directing credits also include: Bright Half Life by Tanya Barfield (Magic Theatre), Ugly Lies the Bone by Lindsey Ferrentino (Alliance Theater), The Children by Philip Howze (YSD/Carlotta Festival of New Plays), Speech and Debate by Stephen Karam (Barrington Stage Company) and Act 5 of Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge (Magic Theatre). Additionally, she has developed and directed work at Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor, Rivendell Theatre, NYU, Pocono Mountains Music Festival, AADA, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, Sewanee Writers Conference, Cutting Ball Theater, and New Conservatory Theatre Center, among others. She has developed new plays with Will Arbery, Bekah Brunstetter, Christopher Chen, Megan Cohen, Jenny Connell Davis, Gabriel Jason Dean, L Feldman, Mark Kendall, Deborah Zoe Laufer and Ken Weitzman, among others. She is currently developing the new musical The Code by The Kilbanes commissioned by A.C.T's Young Conservatory and the new play The Last White Man by Bill Cain. Next up: Sense and Sensibility (Virginia Stage Company). O'Neill National Directing Fellow. MFA in Directing (Yale School of Drama). Proud member of the SDC.

The Sandbox Series is San Francisco Playhouse's new works program. The Playhouse's commitment to new works in the Sandbox Series has been honored by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Theatre Wing. Designed to bridge the gap between staged readings and Mainstage productions, the program combines top-notch directors and actors with limited design elements, allowing new voices in American theater to be heard while reducing the theatre's financial risk for full production at this stage of a play's development. The series has achieved significant critical and commercial milestones: Sandbox plays have won two Will Glickman Awards in the past three years; the Sandbox smash hit Ideation recently completed a successful Off-Broadway engagement in New York City; and George Brant's Grounded went on to international acclaim after its Sandbox premiere.

*Member of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers.

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