Playwrights Foundation

Our Story

Founded in 1976, Playwrights Foundation is today widely recognized as one of the top organizations in the U.S. dedicated to the creative development and career acceleration of contemporary playwrights. Over 80% of the plays we develop have gone on to successful productions, winning awards and accolades.

Our Mission

Our mission is to support and champion diverse contemporary playwrights in the creation of new works to sustain theater as a vital, dynamic art form.

Our Values

Playwrights are the center of our universe. We value diverse, complex, and experimental new works. We position the playwright as the leading creative voice in a developing play, and Playwrights Foundation has earned a national reputation for introducing a variety of terrific new voices, and work that challenges assumptions about identity, form, and the viability of artistic complexity for the theater. In the past decade, nearly 40% of the playwrights have been from a diverse range of communities of color, and 50% have been women.

Our Alumni

Over the years, PF has amplified the voices of such distinguished artists as Katori Hall, Rajiv Joseph, George Brant, Marcus Gardley, Yusef El Guindi, Aaron Loeb, Liz Duffy Adams, Lauren Yee, Chris Chen, and over others who have gone on to transform the theater with their work. In the past two decades, 80% of the plays incubated through PF have gone on to productions in the Bay Area and across the U.S., in 99-seat theaters and Broadway houses, supplying a pipeline of relevant new work for local and national audiences. PF has won two Glickman Awards for incubating the best new plays to premiere in the Bay Area; between 2012-2016, six PF alumni have won Glickman Awards nearly each year for the past 8 years; furthermore, three alumni of PF’s Resident Playwright Initiative, Lauren Gunderson, Peter Nachtrieb, and Lauren Yee, have been named the most produced playwrights in the U.S., with Lauren Gunderson and Lauren Yee recently in 2019.