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spring 2016 Reading Series This page contains events that are part of the later-development developmental and staged reading series, programs for plays that are closer to theater-ready, having progressed beyond scene nights.
All readings are free to PCSF members. Servants A comedy about two couples in the post historical present. Marian Berges started her theatrical career in costuming but always loved writing plays. she left costume design, but continued writing plays and short stories (several of which have been published, both on line and in print.) She raised two kids and continued writing. A few years ago she was part of the Central Works playwrights group, and Central Works produced her play, The Medea Hypothesis, to wonderful reviews. That play was also originally read at the Playwrights' Center of San Francisco, and Opportunity Costs was also chosen for their fall reading series. She also love writing novels—she stays busy. 7:30 p.m. Murder a la mode Learn the sordid details behind The Guillaume-Walter Art Collection at the Orangerie museum in Paris. How a scheming socialite fought all odds and incursions to keep the vaunted art collection intact, including eliminating her only son. Myles Garcia is a Bay Area resident, Olympic aficionado, and a regular contributor to Positively Filipino e-magazine; one article won a 2015 Plaridel Award for Best Sports Story. Myles is coming out with a book, Thirty Year Later...Catching Up with the Marcos-Era Misdeeds in early 2016. 7:30 p.m. Redraculous! Vampires are so misunderstood. And are not immune to economic realities and the seriously slow passage of time. Sometimes they fall in love. Charley Lerrigo is a Bay Area playwright, producer and director. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Play Café, Playground writer's pool, Playwright's Foundation reading committee, and a board member of the Playwrights Center of San Francisco. His most recent plays have been in the PCSF 24-Hour Playfest and the San Francisco Fringe Festival. He lives in Oakland with his wife Pat. 7:30 p.m. Two one-acts Clinic Interruptus What first appears to be a normal Saturday morning at a family planning clinic turns into a takeover, replete with hostages, by a woman with a gun who wants to "help women." In the course of a long day, debates ensue, tempers flare, and compassion emerges as each character's beliefs are tested. Lorraine Midanik's recently produced plays include: Sparse Pubic Hair (PCSF's Sheherezade's Last Tales); Branding (SF Theater Pub); Misunderstandings and Lack Thereof (Fringe of Marin); and, The Revolution (PianoFight's Shortlived Festival). She is a member of PCSF, Theatre Bay Area (2015 ATLAS Playwright's Program), Dramatists Guild, International Centre for Women Playwrights, and Stagebridge where she is a board member. together with: Fair Trade We all want to be conscientious about our purchases, but sometimes there's more to marketing than meets the eye. An encounter in the chocolate aisle at your favorite feel good grocery emporium. Erik Blachford is a San Francisco-based playwright and fiction writer. He wrote and directed plays for the 2014 and 2015 San Francisco Fringe Festivals, is a board member at Cutting Ball Theater, and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. Shelton Theater (downstairs) Hero Worship How does being a thermo-nuclear super hero complicate sexual congress? How does a Hollywood Boulevard Batman feel at the end of a long day? Why does a man hang onto a high school award for 25 years? Hero Worship explores these and other questions of strength, identity, and accomplishment among both Supers and Normals. Rod McFadden began writing plays in 2009. Since then, his plays have been well-received by audiences of theatres in San Francisco and throughout the country. He has received awards in national playwriting competitions for his plays, Love Birds, Getting the Message, and Counting on Love (which was also a Heideman award finalist). His work was chosen for the People's Choice award at the 2012 inspiraTO Festival in Toronto. One Monkey More or Less appears in the Smith and Kraus' anthology, Best 10-Minute Plays of 2015. Rod serves on the Board of Directors for the Playwrights Center of San Francisco 7:30 p.m. End Games Forgive Me, Brother; Shell Game; and Eagles in Heaven: Three one-act plays about three individuals, all facing a death sentence who flout the wishes of their priest, their wife and their grandson, and choose to end their life on their own terms. Barry Slater's vocation as a family physician has exposed him to human drama throughout his long career. His avocation, writing, has been mostly in the genre of fiction, novels and short stories. For the past four years he has been writing plays and has been fortunate enough to have them produced in San Francisco, San Jose, New York and Los Angeles. 7:30 p.m. Seven Days of Suicide Nathan Morten is lonely, depressed, and just received a fatal diagnosis. His solution? Put a suicide pill in a seven-day pill dispenser, and take his meds each day until the deed is done. Two strangers-- Ray, a sunny realtor, and Roselia, a prickly hospice nurse's assistant-- complicate his seemingly simple plan. Rita Long has taken to writing plays after a series of mental electrical storms. Her first short play, Dawn of the DeadZone, was produced this fall with Left Coast Theatre Company. Her second, Apples & Orgies, will be produced spring 2016. 7:30 p.m. Mascularity Buff is a hard-nosed cop, and pound-for-pound, one of the strongest men in the world, but all is not as it seems. He/she is secretly gender-fluid. Set in a blue-collar gritty gym and the world of power-lifting, this play follows him on his/her journey out of the closet toward self-acceptance. Richelle Lee Slota travels frequently from her home in San Francisco to visit her family in Nigeria and West Africa. She writes plays, novels, nonfiction and poetry. She and her co-author, Yaw Boateng, just published, on Amazon, a piece of investigative journalism: Captive Market: Commercial Kidnapping Stories from Nigeria. Her short play, We All Walk In Shoes Too Small was produced at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. Dream Big and Famous Michael were staged by Solano Repertory Company in Northern California. She is a Vietnam era vet. She earned BA's in Psychology and Theatre Arts and an MA in Creative Writing. She has 3 grown children and is a member of the Playwright's Center of San Francisco. 7:30 p.m. The Beast & Mr James A full-length play about Henry James and World War I, and the heavy spiritual price it exacted from him in his old age. We also meet several famous people from the era, including Edith Wharton, H.G. Wells, Rupert Brooke, and Winston Churchill, and see how they responded to a time very much like our own, when the world was poised between vast promise and enormous tragedy. Christopher Bernard's books include the novels A Spy in the Ruins and Voyage to a Phantom City; two books of stories, In the American Night and Dangerous Stories for Boys; and The Rose Shipwreck: Poems and Photographs. His work has appeared in many publications, including cultural and arts journalism in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer and elsewhere, and poetry and fiction in literary reviews in the U.S. and U.K. He has also written plays and an opera (libretto and score) that have been produced and radio broadcast, in part or complete, in the San Francisco Bay Area. His poetry films have been screened in San Francisco and his poetry and fiction have been nominated for the Puschcart Prize and Best of the Web. He is co-editor of Caveat Lector and a regular contributor to Synchronized Chaos Magazine. He has belonged to PlayGround and is a current member of the Playwrights Center of San Francisco. 7:30 p.m. The Possibility The Possibility is a full-length "modular play" depicting the internal struggles of a man and a woman who think about the possibility of adultery--and who might act upon that. Vonn Scott Bair is an award-winning playwright, actor, screenwriter, blogger, and chocolate chip cookie baker based in San Francisco. His one-act play The Land of Hope & Dreams, developed at the PCSF, won the Helen-Jean Playwriting Contest in 2015. Shelton Theater (downstairs) Too Good to be True It's 1928 and a Broadway Theater has put everything into a play that is "Based on a True Story." What happens, then, when they discover that the story never happened? In a panic, they decide they must recreate the events of the play exactly as they are written. Aren Haun is a playwright, director, and teacher. He received his MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University. His short plays have been twice published in Smith & Kraus's Best Ten-Minute Play anthologies and produced in cities around the world. He has produced work with his own theater company in New York City and San Francisco and currently teaches playwriting at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. 7:30 p.m. Cyclone Dancing Anybody can be a mother, right? Especially if your husband is a prominent pediatrician. Louise has just been accepted into the MFA program at SFSU and now she's a published poet. How hard could something as basic as new motherhood be? Madeline Puccioni has had a number of short plays produced recently in L.A., NYC, and the Bay Area -- for PCSF, PlayGround, SF Olympians, and Towne Street Theatre (L.A.) She was selected to be an ATLAS playwright, 2015. Her short play, The Saturday Nighters, will be remounted for Towne Street in their In Response show in April 2016. Her flash play, Playland Forever, will be staged 12/6 and 12/7/2015 at Brava Theatre for Playwrights Foundation. Cyclone Dancing is her first full-length in many years. She's having fun. 7:30 p.m. The Dutiful Wife It's the late 1700s, Warsaw, Poland, in a Steampunk world. Dr. Zabrynski has hired a new assistant to help him build clockwork prosthetics for the injured factory kids and war veterans. But when he decides that his wife, Tereska, and his assistant, Piotr Komonov, have begun an affair behind his back, he plans a revenge so devious, all of them are forever altered by his actions. Earl Roske is a Bay Area playwright whose short plays have appeared in productions and festivals from Racine, Wisconsin to Channai, India. He daily attempts the impossible: raising a toddler and writing. 7:30 p.m. Hemlock Frank, dying from a terminal illness, is committing suicide with his husband Ken's help. Frank's last request: that they retell the spicy stories that kept their relationship going. The stories come alive in the telling. But it's hard to stay on topic while La Muerte waits outside the door. Contains adult language and situations. Chas Belov's full-length plays Rice Kugel, Hemlock (earlier version), My Visit to America, and Evil Fan have had staged readings at PCSF. His short plays have been produced in SF, Boston, Houston, Ohio, North Carolina, and New York City. His short This is Not a Play and monologue "My Room" are being anthologized. Chas is a member of the Dramatists Guild and Theatre Bay Area. Visit his playwriting blog. 7:30 p.m.
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