San Francisco Playhouse to Present ON CLOVER ROAD

San Francisco Playhouse (Artistic Director Bill English and Producing Director Susi Damilano) announce the second show of its seventh season of the Award-Winning Sandbox Series will be performed at The Rueff, upstairs at A.C.T.'s new Strand theater complex. On Clover Road, a thriller by Steven Dietz is a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. Susi Damilano will direct.

The Cast includes Sally Dana*, Adam Elder*, Nancy Kimball, Rachel Goldberg and Michael Storm*,

An abandoned motel. A distraught mother. A cruel private investigator. Will mother and daughter be reunited? How far can you push the bonds of family-and how far will you go to bring them back? In this smart, harrowing, edge-of-your-seat thriller, the answers are shocking.

Kate Hunter has been searching for her daughter for over four years. Now that she's been located, Kate must carefully extract her from a cult by trusting a complete stranger to de-program her at an abandoned motel on Clover Road. Will mother and daughter happily reunite? Or will the shadow of a memory she's held on to for the past four years be all that Kate has left of the daughter she once knew? This thriller will have you guessing, hoping, and left with a strong desire to keep your loved ones close.

"We are thrilled to be partnering with A.C.T. by presenting this brand new play in their beautiful new theatre," said Bill English, Artistic Director of San Francisco Playhouse. "Producing On Clover Road at The Rueff marks yet another leap in the evolution of the Sandbox Series, and we are proud to be a part of the artistic revival of Central Market."

Located a level above The Strand's Toni Rembe Theater, The Rueff is a 1,500-square-foot space that offers soaring views of City Hall, flexible seating, and a dynamic layout-with the versatility to accommodate performances, education programs, readings, and workshops. Lofty ceilings, a wall of multi-light wooden sash windows, and a prep kitchen and actor's lounge adjacent to the space make The Rueff well equipped for a range of special events.

On Clover Road is the final stop in its rolling world premiere sponsored by the National New Play Network (NNPN). Previous San Francisco Playhouse collaborations with NNPN include Grounded and in a word, both Sandbox Series word premieres. The first production of On Clover Road happened this summer in July, at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in West Virginia. The Phoenix Theater in Indiana will is presenting concurrently with the San Francisco Playhouse production.

The mission of The Sandbox Series is to promote new works utilizing top-notch directors and actors. Sandbox Series shows, with limited design elements and reduced financial risk, bridge the gap between "readings" and "main stage" productions offering increased exposure to the new voices in American Theater.

Steven Dietz (Playwright) His thirty-plus plays and adaptations have been produced in regional theatres and internationally have been seen in England, Japan, Germany, France, Australia, Sweden, Austria, Russia, Slovenia, Argentina, Peru, Greece, Singapore, South Korea and South Africa. He received the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award for FICTION-produced Off-Broadway by the Roundabout Theatre Company; the PEN USA West Award in Drama for Lonely Planet; the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Play for Sherlock Holmes; The Final Adventure; and the Yomiuri Shimbun Award (the Japanese "Tony") for his adaptation of Shusaku Endo's novel, Silence. Other widely produced plays include the Pulitzer-nominated Last of the Boys, Inventing Van Gogh, Private Eyes, God's Country, Halcyon Days, and The Nina Variations which premiered at CATF in 1996. CATF produced his Yankee Tavern in 2008.

Susi Damilano (Director) is co-founder and Producing Director of the San Francisco Playhouse. Directing credits include Playhouse productions of Company, Stupid f-ing Bird, Into the Woods, A Behanding in Spokane, Den of Thieves and Wirehead* ; the West Coast Premieres of Honey Brown Eyes*, Dead Man's Cell Phone, Coronado, The Mystery Plays and Roulette and the world premieres of Rhett Rossi's From Red to Black and Daniel Heath's Seven Days in the Sandbox Series. She is a five-time recipient of the Bay Area Theatre Critic Circle (BATCC) award for Best Female Performance in Abigail's Party, Harper Regan, Bug, Six Degrees of Separation, and Reckless. At the Playhouse she has performed leading roles in Tree, Bauer, Abigail's Party, Harper Regan, Coraline, Slasher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Landscape of the Body, First Person Shooter, Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, The Crucible, Kimberly Akimbo, Our Town and The Smell of the Kill. (*nominated for BATCC Directing award.)

The National New Play Network (NNPN) is the country's alliance of non-profit professional theaters dedicated to the development, production, and continued life of new plays. Since its founding in 1998, NNPN has supported more than 300 productions nationwide through its innovative National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere program, which provides playwright and production support for new works. Additional programs - its annual National Conference, National Showcase of New Plays, and MFA Playwrights Workshop; the NNPN Annual and Smith Prize commissions; its residencies for playwrights, producers and directors; and the organization's member accessed Collaboration, Festival, and Travel banks, and online information sessions - have helped cement the Network's position as a vital force in the regional theater landscape. NNPN's programming allows its members and their affiliated artists to create, grow, and share new work across the country and around the world, and it strives to pioneer, implement, and disseminate ideas and programs that revolutionize the way theaters collaborate to support new plays and playwrights. Its most recent project, The New Play Exchange (www.newplayexchange.org), launched in January of 2015, is already changing the way playwrights share their work and others discover it. NNPN's 31 Core and more than 65 Associate and University Members - along with the more than 250 affiliated artists who are its alumni, the thousands of artists and artisans employed annually by its member theaters, and the hundreds of thousands of audience members who see its supported works each year - are creating the new American theater. For more information please visit www.nnpn.org.

Founded by Bill English and Susi Damilano in 2003, San Francisco Playhouse has been described in the New York Times as "a company that stages some of the most consistently high-quality work around." Located right in the heart of the Union Square Theater District, San Francisco Playhouse is the city's Off-Broadway company, an intimate alternative to the larger more traditional Union Square theater fare. The San Francisco Playhouse provides audiences the opportunity to experience professional theater with top-notch actors and world-class design in a setting where they are close to the action. The company has received multiple awards for overall productions, acting, and design including the SF Weekly Best Theatre Award and the Bay Guardian's Best Off-Broadway Theatre Award. Presenting a diverse range of plays and musicals, San Francisco Playhouse produces new works as well as re-imagining classics, "making the edgy accessible and the traditional edgy." The company's 2012-2013 season marked its 10th anniversary and as it moved to a newly renovated venue, The San Francisco Chronicle raved: "On the verge of opening its 10th season, the company that lived a hand-to-mouth existence for its first few years has become the little playhouse that could. It quickly established a reputation for attracting some of the Bay Area's best acting and directing talent, as well as for its exciting play choices. And with its bold Sandbox Series, it's become a player in developing new works as well." San Francisco Playhouse is committed to providing a creative home and inspiring environment where actors, directors, writers, designers, and theater lovers converge to create works that celebrate the human spirit.

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