PlayGround-Chicago presents Season 2

MONDAY NIGHT PLAYGROUND

Topic: “Origin Story”

October 30, 2023 7pm CT

Live at Theater Wit + Simulcast & On-Demand

Acknowledging the Legacy of the Land We Inhabit

PlayGround-Chicago acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the people of the Council of Three Fires, including the Ojibwe, Potawatomi and Odawa, the original inhabitants of the Chicago metropolitan area. As the past and present Indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Council of Three Fires have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. We recognize the historic injustice of the forcible removal of the Ojibwe, Potawatomi and Odawa people from their ancestral lands, and that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the Ancestors, Elders and Relatives of the Council of Three Fires Communities and by affirming their sovereign rights as First Peoples. We honor the storytellers of the Ojibwe, Potawatomi and Odawa and are grateful for our ability to share and uplift Indigenous stories and those of other historically marginalized communities. In working with artists and audiences from all over the country, PlayGround-Chicago asks that each member of the PlayGround-Chicago community representing a different geographical space respectfully acknowledge the legacy of the land they inhabit.

To learn about the legacy of the land you inhabit, visit Native-Land.ca | Our home on native land. To read the complete Land Acknowledgment Policy, click here.

PlayGround-Chicago’s Anti-Racist Policy

PlayGround recognizes the impact of racial oppression within society and the American Theater and that we have been complicit in White Supremacy culture. Our goal is to co-create safety for our community by identifying and interrupting instances of racism and all forms of oppression when we witness them, through specific actions rooted in the principles of anti-racism and accessibility. In its endeavor to address the implications of our history, PlayGround is committed to its compliance with the following fundamental rights:

• The recognition of inherent dignity and worth of each human being.
• The recognition of equality of all human beings.
• Recognition of rights of ethnic, racial, cultural, linguistic and religious groups.
• Equality and non-discrimination.

PlayGround’s Anti-Racist Policy applies to: all members of the PlayGround community, including employees, independent contractors, volunteers, audience members, donors, and general members of the community.

To read the complete Anti-Racist Policy, click here.

Monday Night PlayGround Memberships

We are deeply grateful to our 2023-24 Monday Night PlayGround Members, whose direct support helps to underwrite artists fees for the Monday Night series across all four regions: Sharon Baldwin, Jaisey Bates, Tim Bishop, Ms. Linda B Breaux-Smith, Summer Broyhill, Madeleine Butler, Ben Cain, Sidney Glass & Eleanor Clement Glass, Joan Cleveland, Ms. Marilyn Berg Cooper, Ann Ehrmann, Ms. Cherielyn Ferguson, Krystyna Finlayson, Michael Tonjum & Jan Gilman, Hollis Greenwood, Dana Hall, Rachel Harner, Gail Hillebrand & Hugh Barroll, Brandy T Jones, Ms. Anne M. Krause, Emily Kuroda, Ms. Kristy Lin Billuni, Mr. John Lindner, Jonathan Luskin & Leslie Katz, Rhea MacCallum, Dr. Sheila McCormick, Ms. Cynthia L Morishige, Molly Noble & Bob Guilbault, Ms. Vicki Oswald, Bridgette Dutta Portman, Mrs. Elizabeth Poston, Mr. George Rose, Jessica June Rowe, Michelle Ruscetta, John J. Ruskin, Kathryn Ryan, Miyoko Sakatani, Louel Senores, Mark Sherstinsky, Nancy W. Smith, Mr. Richard Dana Swart, Kim Tram, Michael E Tuton, Dr. Eidell Wasserman, and Janine Wilburn. Thank you!

To learn more about the Monday Night PlayGround membership program, click here.

BECOME A MEMBER TODAY!

Who’s Town? What Town?
by Shail Modi
Directed by Jim Kleinmann
Stage Manager…………….Beau Malone
A……………………………Amanda DePinto
B……………………………………JoJo Brown

The Origin of Zeke Wolf
by Dana Hall
Directed by Spencer Diedrick
Ms. Miller…………….Diana Simonzadeh
Martha……………..Andrea Conway-Diaz
Ted……………………..Braedyn Youngberg

How The Owl Gained Her Wisdom
by Zach Barr
Directed by Spencer Diedrick
Directing Apprentice – Sade’ May
The Storyteller…….Valerie Butler-Newbern
The Owl…………………………….Juliana Liscio

An Origin Story
by Ian Michael Minh
Directed by Joel Willison
Him………………………..Nick Trengove
Her…………………………Sheri Flanders

Therapy with the Vampire
by Tanuja Devi Jagernauth
Directed by Devin Christor
Dracula.……………………..Scott Gryder
Meghna Choudry………….JoJo Brown

Cousin Todd
by J.S. Puller
Directed by Charlique Roller
Cas……………………….Sheri Flanders
Clarence…………………..Ruby Gibson
Todd………………………Dakota Pariset

Stage Manager: Miranda Hernandez

This live stream is produced under a SAG-AFTRA New Media Agreement.

PlayGround is a member of Theatre Bay Area, League of Chicago Theatres, and Theatre Communications Group.

People’s Choice Award

Following tonight’s performance, we invite your participation in this month’s People’s Choice Award. Through the People’s Choice Award, our audience can play a direct impact in furthering the career of a promising new playwright. To vote, make a People’s Choice Award tax-deductible donation on behalf of your favorite play(s)/playwright(s) from the evening. Every donated dollar counts as a vote while directly supporting PlayGround’s award-winning incubator programs.

Cast your vote for your favorite play(s) by making a People’s Choice donation via Zelle (info@playground-sf.org), Venmo (our account ID is @playgroundsf and if they ask for the last four digits of my phone, it’s 8541) or on our website at https://tickets.playground-sf.org/TheatreManager/1/online?donationquick=16 (you can also visit the Monday Night PlayGround page for the People’s Choice donation button). Add a note/memo with your gift to indicate your favorite play(s) or email your selection to boxoffice@playground-sf.org.

At the end of the week, we’ll tally up the top vote-getter and automatic semi-finalist for our season-ending Best of PlayGround. It’s a powerful way of showing your support for new writers and their work, while helping PlayGround continue doing what we do!

Biographies

PLAYWRIGHTS

ZACH BARR (How The Owl Gained Her Wisdom), they/them, is a multidisciplinary theatre artist based in Chicago. Their new play ENDURING JEST is currently being developed through the Three Brothers Theatre Playwrights Residency, and their play NEW OLEANNA received a reading at Red Theater in September 2023. Zach has been a semi-finalist for festivals at Normal Ave Productions and Wild Imaginings, and have had plays read at The Den Theatre and Chicago Dramatists. They are the creator of the theatre history video essay series “And Now, They Sing” on YouTube (youtube.com/@andnowtheysing).

DANA HALL (The Origin of Zeke Wolf), she/her, is a Chicago-based playwright, actor, and mental health therapist. Her works have been produced for national and international audiences. The Theater Association of NYS (TANYS) awarded her Excellence in Playwriting. She was a finalist for the Morecambe Fringe John Clarke Memorial Prize for scriptwriting. During the pandemic list 2022, the New York Journal named her one of the 50 under 50 most influential creators. She is currently in residence with the Dramatists Guild Institute’s Certificate of Dramatic Writing program and Playground-Chicago. Her plays have been published with Next Stage Press, Heuer, Stage Plays, & Smith Scripts. She is also a member of the Dramatists Guild, League of Professional Theatre Women, Honor Roll!, and International Centre for Female Playwrights. DanaHallCreates.com

TANUJA DEVI JAGERNAUTH (Therapy with the Vampire), she/her, is an Indo-Caribbean playwright and dramaturg who believes in the necessity of creation during times of destruction. In 2016, she shifted career paths from Traditional East Asian Medicine to theatre in hopes of practicing four frameworks for collective liberation and wellness through theatre: self/community care, harm reduction, trauma awareness, and body positivity. Inspired by healing justice and PIC abolition, Tanuja employs comedy, magical realism, the fantastic and the absurd to raise questions around how we heal and fight back against internal and external oppressions and build a prison- and police-free world.

IAN MICHAEL MINH (An Origin Story), he/him, is a Chicago-based actor and playwright who loves exploring ways to give underrepresented faces access to telling beloved, familiar stories. Ian is an artistic ensemble member with Midsommer Flight and has appeared on Chicago stages including Lookingglass Theatre, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Writers Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, Teatro Vista, and Oak Park Festival Theatre. His writing can be found on the New Play Exchange and everything else at ianmichaelminh.com. Ian does what Lavina Jadhwani tells him to, except he’s not getting an iPhone.

SHAIL MODI (Who’s Town? What Town?), he/him, is a recent college graduate, and an even more recent Chicago resident. He spends the time he doesn’t spend trying to act trying to write. He enjoys the mysteriously mundane, and the mundanely mysterious. His dream is to be in a Bollywood film without knowing Hindi, or how to sing or dance.

J.S. PULLER (Cousin Todd), she/her, is a playwright and author from the Windy City, Chicago. She has a master’s degree in elementary education and a bachelor’s degree in theatre from Northwestern University. She is an award-winning member of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education and has written about the social-emotional benefits of arts education with the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. She is the author of two novels, CAPTAIN SUPERLATIVE and THE LOST THINGS CLUB, both published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. When not writing, she can usually be found in the theatre. Sometimes haunting it.

ACTORS

JOJO BROWN (Who’s Town? What Town?, “B”; Therapy with the Vampire, “Meghna Choudry”), she/her, Jojo Brown is a stage & screen actor from Chicago. Off-Broadway credits include ‘Charm’ and ‘7 Minutes’. In addition to her breakout role as Mindy on Disney/Hulu’s ‘Single Drunk Female’, she has also made appearances on NBC, Showtime, Comedy Central, FX, and TV Land.

VALERIE BUTLER-NEWBERN (How The Owl Gained Her Wisdom, “The Storyteller”), she/her, Valerie Butler-Newbern focuses on commercials, industrials, Indie film and theater. She played Natalie in Tomato Tattoo at Theater Wit for Best of Playground-Chicago’s 2023 Gala. She returns to the Wit for Playground-Chicago Season 2. She can be seen in the award winning short films Identity and Bosom. As well as Aspen Dental and Marcum commercials. Valerie started her acting career in 2020 training at Acting Studio Chicago, The Green Room and Vagabond School of the Arts. Valerie continues to train to improve her craft. She is a native Chicagoan, a strong believer in lifelong learning and having fun!

ANDREA CONWAY-DIAZ (The Origin of Zeke Wolf, “Martha”), she/her/hers, is thrilled to make her PlayGround Theater debut and in the staged-reading of The Origin of Zeke Wolf. Andrea has participated in several theater productions and staged readings in and around Chicago including Voice of Good Hope, Thirteen Days and Emma’s Child at City Lit Theater, Creating Arthur at Theater Wit, and a staged reading by Jeff Sweet called Rappuccini’s Pizza. She has appeared in several independent films and is also a voiceover actor. Andrea is represented by Gill Talent Network and Chicago Talent Network.

AMANDA DEPINTO (Who’s Town? What Town?, “A”) he/him, most recently appeared in Eleanor’s Very Merry Christmas Wish (DMT Productions) the Jeff-Award Winning Buyer & Cellar (Pride Films & Plays), Jesus Christ Superstar (Lyric Opera Chicago), and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Drury Lane Theatre at Water Tower Place). He has performed in a multitude of cabarets, including SIMPLY SCOTTY (with Nick Sula), WOZ: A Rock Cabaret, and Life Is A Cabaret – The Music & Words of Kander & Ebb, at Davenport’s, Skokie Theatre, and Auditorium. B.A. in Theater, Texas Tech University. MeTV’s Green Screen Adventures earned him three National Daytime Emmy Awards. www.thescottgryder.com

SHERI FLANDERS (The Origin Story, “Her”; Cousin Todd, “Cas”), she/her, is a Chicago based comedian, actor, and writer, who has performed stand-up, and musical comedy at the 4th Annual Black Women in Comedy Laff Fest in NYC. Her comedy pilot Bent Out of Shape is a Semifinalist in the 2023 Screencraft Comedy Competition, a Semifinalist in the Filmmatic Comedy Screenplay Season 8 Awards, a Quarterfinalist in the Stage 32 Comedy Screenwriting Contest, and a Semifinalist in the Creative Screenwriting Pilot Competition. A graduate of the Second City Conservatory, and teacher in the training center, her performance background includes improv, stand up, musical theater, commercials, Shakespeare, corporate training and voice over work. Sheri is a freelance journalist, theater critic, and comedy writer whose work has been featured in many publications including the Chicago Sun-Times and The Chicago Reader. She has covered the Sundance Film Festival for the past four years, and has been featured as a critic on WTTW Chicago Tonight, and WGN Radio. Sheri’s short story The Silver Edge was the recipient of an Author’s fellowship at the Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, and is being adapted to a screenplay. Her article Black Artistic Leaders Take Charge at Several Chicago Theaters was a finalist for the 2020 Peter Lisagor Awards for journalism. As an actor, she is represented by NV Talent.

RUBY GIBSON (Cousin Todd, “Clarence”), she/her, is a Chicago-based actor, writer, and dramaturg from Nashville, Tennessee. Since graduating from Northwestern University with a B.A. in Theatre and Playwriting, she’s been thrilled to work on new plays as an actor (Women Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe) and playwright (Improv Playhouse’s TYA tour of The Little Prince). Up next, see her in Saluting the Sun (Steele Productions) at Theatre Wit, or stop by Evanston Public Library for some rad teen arts programs!

SCOTT GRYDER (Drowning in the Desert, “Mirai”) he/him, most recently appeared in Eleanor’s Very Merry Christmas Wish (DMT Productions) the Jeff-Award Winning Buyer & Cellar (Pride Films & Plays), Jesus Christ Superstar (Lyric Opera Chicago), and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Drury Lane Theatre at Water Tower Place). He has performed in a multitude of cabarets, including SIMPLY SCOTTY (with Nick Sula), WOZ: A Rock Cabaret, and Life Is A Cabaret – The Music & Words of Kander & Ebb, at Davenport’s, Skokie Theatre, and Auditorium. B.A. in Theater, Texas Tech University. MeTV’s Green Screen Adventures earned him three National Daytime Emmy Awards. www.thescottgryder.com

JULIANA LISCIO (How The Owl Gained Her Wisdom, “The Owl”), she/her, is an actor and playwright from Skokie, Illinois. She is a writer with Shattered Globe’s Inclusive Playwright Project, and this summer her play Rambutan will be presented as part of the Steppenwolf Lookout Series. Her plays have also received readings with Chicago Dramatists and ShakespeareMoves (UK). As an actor, her credits include productions with Oak Park Festival Theatre, Strawdog, The National Theatre for Children, Citadel, and Surging Theatrics. This fall she will understudy Catherine in Shattered Globe’s production of A View From The Bridge. She holds a BA in Theatre from Loyola Chicago, and is represented by Shirley Hamilton.

BEAU MALONE (Who’s Town? What Town?, “Stage Manager”), he/they, is a Chicago-based theatremaker hailing from different places.

DAKOTA PARISET (Cousin Todd “Todd”), he/him, is a Chicago actor from Beaver Crossing, Nebraska. Thanks to PG-Chi for another opportunity! Other work includes: The Lightbulb Factory, BYOT, Chicago Dramatists, City Lit, Unheard of Company and Collaboraction. He recently performed in in “The Survivalist” and “Strangulation Day” as part of CTB’s Rhino Fest 2023. Additional thanks to The Artistic Home and to my family – Love you to the Moon and back!

DIANA SIMONZADEH (The Origin of Zeke. Wolf, “Ms. Miller”), she/her, Diana Simonzadeh is thrilled to join PlayGround-Chicago’s Monday Night season opener! Regional Theatre: The Corpse Washer at Actors Theatre Louisville’s Humana Festival; Perfect Mendacity at Asolo Rep. Film (Indie): Oops! I’ve Been Driven Mundane; The Reunion; The Glass House; The Origins of Wit and Humor; Remote Viewing; Waterwalk; Qwerty; The Widow; All We Had; Television: Chicago Fire; Matadors. Other Theatre: Night Over Erzinga and Scorched at Silk Road Rising; Homebody/Kabul at Steppenwolf Theatre; Return to Haifa at Next Theatre; LeBourgeois Avant-Garde and King Richard 111 (The Big Dick) at Sliced Bread Productions; Bye Bye Birdie at Drury Lane Theatre; West Side Story and Oklahoma! at Pheasant Run Theatre. She is a recipient of an Equity Jeff Award.

NICK TRENGOVE (An Origin Story, “Him”) he/him, is an actor, director, and writer. He recently relocated from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he performed frequently with Playground SF. He is thrilled to be returning to Chicago and performing with Playground’s Chicago chapter. He holds an MFA from DePaul University. He also produces and performs on a queer DnD actual-play podcast Queers on Dice.

BRAEDYN YOUNGBERG (The Origin of Zeke Wolf, “Ted”), he/him, is thrilled to be joining PlayGround-Chicago in their mission to develop local playwrights! Regional theatre credits include “Don Armado” (Loves Labors Lost), “Roderigo” (Othello), and “Antonio” (Twelfth Night) with Marin Shakespeare Company, “Orlando, et al” (As You Like It) with SF Shakes, “The Monster” (Young Frankenstein) with Spreckels PAC, and “Brad Majors” (The Rocky Horror Show) with Sixth Street Playhouse. Braedyn has trained locally with The Second City and iO Chicago, as well as regionally with Shakespeare & Company.