Sandbox Series presents ZENITH at A.C.T.'s Costume Shop

San Francisco Playhouse (Bill English, Artistic Director; Susi Damilano, Producing Director) concludes its 2016-2017 Sandbox Series for new works with the World Premiere of Zenith, written by Kirsten Greenidge. Lauren English directs. Performances will be held at A.C.T.'s Costume Shop.

It seems that hardly a day goes by when the media doesn't confront us with yet another unspeakable act, leaving us searching in vain to make sense of the perpetrators' motivations. Kirsten Greenidge's Zenith humanizes one such shocking incident, and explores the complex reasons why we do what we do.

Angela is a loving aunt who strives to be perfect. But beneath her "in-charge" persona and perfect façade, something is wrong. Daring in structure and rich in detail, Zenith teases out the complex and interwoven threads of a mysterious and shattering event that makes us question whether we can ever truly fathom another human being.

The cast features Sally Dana*, Nia Fairweather*, Khary Moye, AdrIan Roberts*, Atim Udoffia*, and Indiia Wilmot.

San Francisco Playhouse's production of Zenith is made possible by Associate Producers Nancy Austin & Bill Cawley, Sandra Hess, and RHE Charitable Foundation.

The Sandbox Series is San Francisco Playhouse's new works program. Their 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. Sandbox Series plays have won two Will Glickman Awards in the past three years, and the Sandbox smash hit Ideation recently completed a successful Off-Broadway engagement in New York City.

Kirsten Greenidge (Playwright) enjoys the challenge of placing underrepresented voices on stage. In May 2012 Kirsten received an Obie for her play Milk Like Sugar, which was first commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse and TheaterMasters, and then produced at La Jolla and then Playwright's Horizons as a coproduction with Women's Theater Project. Milk Like Sugar was also award a TCG Edgerton grant as well as a San Diego Critics Award. Boston audiences are familiar with Kirsten's latest play The Luck of the Irish, which was presented at the Huntington Theater Company in the spring of 2012 and enjoyed a warm reception and extended run. A former NEA/TCG playwright in residence at Woolly Mammoth, previous works by Kirsten include several Boston Theater Marathon pieces, Bossa Nova (Yale Rep, 2010 and also an Edgerton New Play Award recipient), Thanksgiving in Company One's Grimm (2010), Rust (The Magic Theater, 2007), 103 Within the Veil (Company One, 2005) and Sans Culottes in the Promised Land (Humana, 2004). She has enjoyed development experiences at Sundance, Sundance at UCross, the O'Neil, Pacific Playwrights Festival (South Coast Rep), and Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Kirsten was the inaugural fellowship for Page 73's playwriting fellowship program. Current projects include commissions from CompanyOne, Yale Rep, Denver Center Theater, The Goodman, La Jolla Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, and Emerson Stage, where she and director Melia Bensussen will adapt the Pulitzer Prize winning book Common Ground. Early in her career Kirsten was a recipient of the Lorraine Hansberry Award and the Mark David Cohen Award by the Kennedy Center's American College Theater Festival. She attended Wesleyan University and The Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa. She is an Assistant Professor of Theater at Boston University's Center for Fine Art as well as being a resident playwright at New Dramatists. She is a member of Boston's Rhombus writing group.

Lauren English (Director) is a founding member and Artistic Associate at San Francisco Playhouse. Favorite onstage roles there include: Lindsey in You Mean to Do Me Harm, Pilot in Grounded, Sally in Cabaret, and Lisa in The Glory of Living. Previous San Francisco Playhouse directing credits: 123 by Lila Rose Kaplan, Inevitable by JorDan Puckett and The Mystery Plays by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. Locally, she has worked at The Aurora Theatre Company, California Shakespeare Festival, Word for Word, Marin Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, Marin Shakespeare Company, among others. Selected New York Theater performance: TACT's Off Broadway Production of The Cocktail Party, Hamlet at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and The Idealist at The New York Times Theatre. Also in NY she worked at The Public Theater, Ensemble Studio Theater, Lark Theatre and Playwrights Realm. Lauren teaches privately as well as teaching at Studio ACT, Berkeley Rep. MFA, NYU Grad Acting. For all mothers, everywhere. www.laurenenglish.net

San Francisco Playhouse
Founded in 2003, San Francisco Playhouse has been described by 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 premier Off-Broadway company, an intimate alternative to the larger more traditional Union Square theater fare. Presenting a diverse range of plays and musicals, San Francisco Playhouse produces new works as well as re-imagined classics, "making the edgy accessible and the traditional edgy." 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. And with its bold Sandbox Series, dedicated to nurturing World Premieres, the Playhouse has become a significant 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 and experience dramatic works that celebrate the human spirit.

*Actors appear courtesy of Actors' Equity Association.

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