The 32nd Annual Festival Kicks Off Friday, July 17
Festival passes are 20% off until Friday, July 10 only! Make a reservation, see the Festival event and reading schedule, and learn more about the plays at PlaywrightsFoundation.org
Interview with commissioned writer Lauren Yee
Lauren won the second of two Festival BASH! commissions (Bay Area SHorts!) this year. Joined by New York director Lila Neugebaur and dramaturg Jayne Wenger, she will develop her new one-act play Our Peculiar Institution
Lauren has taken her native San Francisco by storm since graduating from Yale, earning commissions, readings and productions at local theaters and across the country, including her acclaimed 2008 premiere of Ching Chong Chinaman at the Impact Theater in Berkeley. Known for smart and witty satire, Lauren’s work tends to present the absurdities of the world with an off-kilter tone that cloaks sharp social commentary in good old fashioned comedy. Her new play, written for the 2009 Bay Area Playwrights Festival departs from earlier Asian American themed works, to probe the institution of American slavery and its echoing impacts. The play transgresses accepted notions and ignores accepted boundaries of time and age. We caught up with Lauren to talk to her about the play and her future plans: “A sense of heightened realism runs throughout my work and often this translates into something lighter and comedic, as with Ching Chong Chinaman. While significantly more realistic and linear in its structure than some of my other work, Our Peculiar Institution also draws from this vein of lightness, which I like to think of it as “cheerfulness in the face of absurdity.”
Click here to read the entire interview with Lauren.
Festival Special Events
Playback Panel
Making A National Career As A Theater Artist (Or, Do I Have To Move To New York?)
Sunday, July 19th, 10 a.m.
Join us for bagels, coffee and discussion with Deborah Stein, Peter Nachtrieb and Steve Yockey about local and national playwriting careers. Free with Festival Pass! More information here.
2nd Annual New Play Champion Award Celebration
Join us Sunday, July 26th after the 12 p.m. BASH! performance for a reception honoring the 2009 Bay Area New Play Champion! The winner will be announced at 2pm, directly after the BASH! plays perform.
Theater Professionals Weekend: July 24-26
Join colleagues from around the country and locally in special networking events all weekend. Email sonia@playwrightsfoundation.org for details.
Bay Area Playwrights Showcase!
Tuesday, July 21, 7pm
Theatre Bay Area hosts an intriguing, innovative evening of mini-readings of new work by the best of the Bay Area’s outstanding playwrights.
New Fall Classes Announced!
Ten-Week Workshop with Eugenie Chan: Crack That Whip!
You know you want to. You know you can. With a little nudge, a gentle push, and a little trickery, inspiration, and elbow grease along the way, you can finish that first draft by the time the holiday season rears its mighty head. Click here for all the info!
Lee Blessing: Follow the Masters: Find a Play in Yourself
This four-day intensive workshop will start you on a journey into your very own heart of darkness–or light, or both. Click here for all the info!
Jack Goes Boating has extended through July 19!
Aurora Theatre Company Presents this Bay Area Premiere!
By Bob Glaudini
directed by Joy Carlin
Click here for more information, tickets and reviews.
PF Recommends…
Golden Thread Productions presents the World Premiere of…
Ecstasy | a waterfable
By Denmo Ibrahim
Adapted from a Sufi Fable
Jul. 23 – Aug. 16
An ambitious long-term commissioned project written by Denmo Ibrahim, adapted from a Sufi Fable called When the Waters Were Changed.
“Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not been specially hoarded would disappear. It would then be renewed with different water, which would drive men mad.
Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character…”
More info at Goldenthread.org.
San Francisco Mime Troup Summer Show in a park Near you!
Too Big To Fail
Opening July 4th in Dolores Park
1:30 p.m. Music / 2.00 p.m. Show
More info at SFMT.org
