Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2021

The 44th Bay Area Playwrights Festival continued online with two weekends of virtual readings, while also adding innovative in-person community building. Five playwrights who told stories of family, spirituality, self-discovery, healing, and legacy.

Playwrights Foundation supports and empowers playwrights’ artistic growth and careers while championing their voices on a national level. They imagine a future where playwrights are radically centered as visionary leaders who transform the world through storytelling. www.playwrightsfoundation.org. 

Playwrights Foundation’s Values

• Playwright Centered: We center our decisions around the specific needs of the playwrights we serve and empower them to have artistic agency. 
• Community: We strive to create a meaningful community amongst playwrights and cultivate a constellation of creative relationships between playwrights and artists, organizations, advocates, and audiences.
• Equity: We seek to build flexible and adaptable systems in order to create equitable opportunities for people across differences to participate, contribute and succeed.
• Inclusion:  We create a culture of access, well-being, and a sense of belonging across a diversity of intersectional identities and voices. 
• Innovation:   We value artistic experimentation, risk-taking, and innovative systems that support playwrights through a mindset of creativity and abundance.
• Transparency: We strive to practice clear, open, and honest communication at every level both internally and externally.
• Local Commitment:  We invest in relationships with Bay Area playwrights, artists, organizations, and communities.

BAPF 2021 Creative Team:

Kieran Beccia – Associate Literary Manager and Rough Readings Associate Producer

Jessica Bird Beza – Executive Artistic Director

Andrew Custer – Technical Director

Lauren English – Casting Director

Laura Espino – Casting Director

Nailah Harper-Malveaux – Community Relationships Manager

Heather Helinsky – Literary Manager

Tessa Saito King – Operations Manager

Den Legaspi – Graphic Designer

Jordan Ramirez Puckett – Festival Producer

Real Time Remix

Jaisey Bates – Playwright

Nailah Harper-Malveaux – Director

Jeanette Harrison – Director

David Geary – Dramaturg

Human Museum

Miyoko Conley – Playwright

Bob Shryock – Director

Divina Shorter – Dramaturg

Micah Carroll – Content Expert

Tiger Beat

Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin – Playwright

Jessica Holt – Director

Wei Ming Dariotis – Content Expert

Supposed Home

Sam Hamashima – Playwright

May Liang – Director

Clint Ramos – Content Expert

The Problem With Magic, Is:

Johnny G. Lloyd – Playwright

Leigh Rondon-Davis – Director

Adrena Williams – Dramaturg

BAPF 2021 featured performers include: 

Kaili Turner, Jenny Marlowe, Tierra Allen, AeJay Mitchell, Natalia Duong, Cassie Grilley, Indiia Willmot, Greg Ayers, Joyce Domanico-Huh, Cathleen Riddley, Sarah Traisman, Chris Stevens, Michael Ray Wisely, Kimberly Hollkamp-Dinon, Katie Lee Hill, Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, Lisa Hori-Garcia, Futaba Shioda, Emily Kuroda, Keiko Carreiro, Tasi Alabastro, Sango Tajima, Kenny Scott, Anna Marie Sharpe, Dorian Lockett, Summer Brown, Halili Knox.