March 4th Monday Night PlayGround: “FLASHBACK: 1994″

“And I’ll remember/The strength that you gave me/Now that I’m standing on my own/I’ll remember/The way that you saved me/I’ll remember”- Madonna, “I’ll Remember” (1994)

Don your best denim tuxedo and join PlayGround in celebrating its 30th anniversary with a musical Monday Night inspired by the year of PlayGround’s founding, 1994! Join us on Monday, March 4th at 7PM CT live at Theater Wit and simulcast online to be transported back to when the sitcom Friends first aired, MTV still showed music videos, and groups like Boyz II Men, New Kids on the Block and TLC reigned supreme with original short musicals inspired by the prompt “Flashback: 1994” and featuring music debuted that year. PlayGround’s sister companies, PlayGround SF, PlayGround NY, and PlayGround LA will present their own interpretations of the theme on February 19th, February 26th, and February 12th respectively. As part of PlayGround’s commitment to radical accessibility, Monday Night PlayGround is admission-free (donations gratefully accepted). Advance reservations are required. For the complete schedule or to reserve tickets, visit https://playground-ch.org/monday.

The 2nd season of PlayGround-Chicago’s Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series begins on October 30th and then continues on first Mondays, Dec-Apr. The series will be held in-person this year, in partnership with Theater Wit and simulcast (October 30, 2023 – April 1, 2024). Each month, PlayGround-Chicago announces a topic and writers have just four-and-a-half days to generate their original ten-page script. Recent topics have included: “Origin Story”, “What the World Needs Now…”, “Grief and Hope for Planet Earth”, “Give and Take”, and “Keep Moving Forward.” 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. 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’s annual short play showcase, Best of PlayGround. Advance reservations are required. Admission is free and donations are welcome. 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?

PlayGround has made all programs admission-free in furtherance of our commitment to radical accessibility. If you are able, we hope that you’ll consider donating or purchasing a Monday Night Membership, 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. We thank you for your generous support!

PlayGround-Chicago Company

PlayGround-Chicago’s 2023-24 Writers Pool, the Chicago-based writers competitively selected to participate in the monthly series, are: Maria Arreola, Daniel Arzola, Kirsten Baity, Zach Barr, Melda Beaty, Gabriella Bonamici, McKennzie Boyd, Julie Campbell, Rachel DuBose, Niv Elbaz, Connor Ermir Bradshaw, Kym Fraher, Dana Hall, Toby Inoue, Tanuja Devi Jagernauth, Alfonzo Kahlil, Juliet Kang Huneke, Kerri Killeen, Gaby Labotka, Samuel Kelly Fair Levit, Juliana  Liscio , Adelina Marinello, Ian Minh, Shail Modi, Marnie Monogue, J.S. Puller, Mariana Reyes Daza, Emma Rund, Matt Schutz, Katherine Swan, and Dan Taube.

Supporting PlayGround-Chicago playwrights and the Monday Night series are the members of the PlayGround-Chicago Company, representing some of Chicago’s leading directors and actors. The 2023-24 PlayGround-Chicago Company includes: Brian Balcom, Devin Christor, Spencer Ryan Diedrick, Sheri Flanders, Ashley Graham, Scott Gryder, Charlotte Harris, Hannah Lynn Kato, Benjamin Kelly, Alka Nayyar, Leanna Oliveira, Dakota Pariset, Karla Rennhofer, Brooke-Erin Smith, Yiwen Wu, Braedyn Youngberg, and Jordan Zelvin.

PlayGround-Chicago is the third regional expansion of the celebrated Bay Area-based playwright incubator and theatre community hub, PlayGround. PlayGround was launched in San Francisco in 1994 by co-founders Jim Kleinmann, Brighde Mullins and Denise Shama. A leading national playwright incubator, PlayGround 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.

WHAT: PlayGround presents MONDAY NIGHT PLAYGROUND “FLASHBACK: 1994”, an evening of original short musicals set in and featuring music of 1994!

WHERE: Theater Wit, 1229 W Belmont Ave, Chicago, IL 60657 & Simulcast Online

WHEN: Monday,March 4th, 2024 at 7pm CT

Additional Season Dates:
April 1, 2024 7pm CT in-person at Theater Wit and simulcast via Vimeo Live

TICKETS: Admission is free (donations gratefully accepted) but advance reservations are required. To reserve tickets for in-person or online viewing, visit https://tickets.playground-sf.org.