January 6th Monday Night PlayGround: “Holiday Surprise”

“Maybe Christmas… doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more.”
– Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Tis the season for holiday cheer, family gatherings, and who-knows-what-else! Whether your holidays tend to bring on heartfelt reflections, meaningful connections, or endless confections, our writers are ready to dig into the wintery season and explore all of those things that are unexpected at this time of year.

Join us for the Monday Night PlayGround-Chicago on Monday, January 6 at 7pm CT, in-person at Theater Wit and simulcast, produced in association with Theater Wit. PlayGround-Chicago’s sister companies, PlayGround LA, PlayGround-SF, and PlayGround-NY will present their own interpretations of “Holiday Surprise” throughout the month. As part of PlayGround’s commitment to radical accessibility, Monday Night PlayGround is admission-free (donations gratefully accepted) for online reservations and day-of admission in-person. Advance in-person reservations do requite an admission free of $10. For the complete schedule or to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-ch.org/monday.

The 4th season of PlayGround-Chicago’s celebrated Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series on select Mondays, Oct-Mar, will be held in-person at Theater Wit and live simulcast (December 3rd, 2024-April 7, 2025). Each month, PlayGround announces a topic and writers have just four-and-a-half days to generate their original ten-page script. Recent topics have included: ”The Legacy of the Land We Inhabit”, “Origin Story”, “What the World Needs Now…”, and “Give and Take”. The top six scripts are matched with directors and a cast of leading local professionals and rehearsed for just ninety minutes on the day of the performance. Following a brief technical rehearsal to add sound and other design elements, the six short plays are performed as script-in-hand staged readings for an in-person and live-stream viewing audience on the second Mondays, October through March.

Audience members can also experience the thrill of being a producer through the monthly People’s Choice Awards, helping to determine which plays and playwrights go on for consideration in PlayGround-Chicago’s annual short play showcase, Best of PlayGround-Chicago. Advance reservations are required. Admission is free but donations are gratefully accepted. Masks are strongly recommended for in-person performance and attendees should be symptom-free and have no recent exposure to individuals with COVID.

Why Free?

At the beginning of the pandemic in May 2020, PlayGround began streaming all of its live programs, increasing accessibility to artists and audiences not only in the Bay Area but across the globe. At the same time, PlayGround made the bold choice to offer all programs admission-free. Why free admission, particularly when so many arts organizations were struggling to stay afloat and every dollar is a critical resource to support artist compensation? We chose free admission because it furthered our commitment to radical accessibility, ensuring that no one would be turned away for lack of resources. And as many of the PlayGround artists began their journey with us as audience members, it also ensured that the future artists of PlayGround would not encounter barriers to their participation. Of course, we offer audiences the opportunity to make a donation when reserving their free tickets and we hope that you’ll consider doing so if you’re able, recognizing that your direct support makes it possible for us to continue providing fair and equitable wages for professional artists while sustaining our radical accessibility efforts for all. And, as always, we thank you for your generous support!

PlayGround-Chicago Company

PlayGround-Chicago’s 2024-25 Writers Pool: Daniel Arzola, Kirsten Baity, Zach Barr, Henry Bender, Siah Berlatsky, Kevin Blair, Gabriella Bonamici, Jessie Bond, Anne Brady, Julie Campbell, Donaldson Cardenas, Ana F. Dalipi, Mikayla De Guzman, Rachel DuBose, Betsy Dudak, Liz Haas, Dana Hall, Toby Inoue, Tanuja Devi Jagernauth, Jerluane Jenkins, alfonzo kahlil, Beth Kander, Juliet Kang Huneke, Alex Kinglsey, Rachel Linton, Alan Maass, Marnie Monogue, Lani Montreal, Dakota Pariset, Mary Parisoe, Andrew Piechota, Jessica Puller, Jay Rehak, Keegon Schuett, Matt, Schutz, Katherine Swan.

Supporting PlayGround-Chicago playwrights and the Monday Night series are the members of the PlayGround-Chicago Company, representing some of New York’s leading directors, actors, designers, and stage managers. The 2024-25 PlayGround-Chicago Company includes: Manny Buckley, Valerie Butler-Newbern, Devin Christor, Andrea Conway-Diaz, Ana F. Dalipi, Vivian Delgadillo, Spencer Diedrick, Eileen Dixon, Sheri Flanders, Skylar Frishman, Ashley Graham, Scott Gryder, Charlotte Harris, Carmia Imani, Hannah Lynn Kato, Benjamin Kelly, Beau Malone, Ilsa Morales, Alka Nayyar, Leanna Oliveira, Dakota Pariset, Kendall Phillips, Shariba Rivers, Charlique Rolle, Diana  Simonzadeh , Brooke-Erin Smith, Peter Stielstra, Tyler Struble, William C. Thompson, Kezia Waters, Karla Wren, Braedyn Youngberg, Jordan Zelvin.

PlayGround, a national leading playwright incubator, provides unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s, Los Angeles’, New York’s, and Chicago’s best new playwrights, including the monthly Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series, annual PlayGround Festival of New Works, full-length play commissions and support for the production of new plays by local playwrights through the New Play Production Fund. To date, PlayGround has supported over 350 early career playwrights, developing and staging more than 1,500 of their original short plays through the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned 100 new full-length plays by 60 of these writers through its Commissioning Initiative and, through the innovative New Play Production Fund, has directly facilitated the premiere of 36 plays at theatres of every size, including three that have gone on to NYC and other major theater communities. Most recently, PlayGround renovated and relaunched the former Thick House Theater in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill as Potrero Stage, a state-of-the-art center for new plays, home to PlayGround’s expanding artistic programs and some of the Bay Area’s most distinguished new play developers and producers. Over the past twenty-seven years, PlayGround has served to identify some of the most important new local voices for the theatre. PlayGround’s alumni have gone on to win local, national, and international honors for their short and full-length work, including recognition at the Steinberg Awards, Glickman Awards (including 6 of the last 10), O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and New York International Fringe Festival, among others. PlayGround received the 2009 Paine Knickerbocker Award for outstanding contributions to Bay Area theatre, 3 BATCC Awards for Best Original Script for PlayGround commissions, a 2014 National Theatre Company Grant from the American Theatre Wing (founder of the Tony Awards®), and a 2016 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award.