The Pear Avenue Playwright's Guild
Creating a working environment for playwrights is core to the mission
of the Pear Avenue Theatre. We offer excellent opportunities for playwrights
to participate in our theatre, and we are committed to including new work
by Bay Area playwrights each season.
We nurture an ongoing Playwrights Guild, which focuses on the writing process.
Meetings often include writing exercises examining writing techniques, analysis
of plays, and reading from members works-in-progress. Each season we produce
an evening of short plays, “Pear Slices,” written by members of the Guild.
Join the
Pear Avenue Theatre
playwrights e-mail list.
New Play Readings
Valerie Leghorn
"An Hour in Time"
Sunday June 29, 2008
7:00pm
Richard Medugno
"The Captive Flowers
or Still Life with Iris"
Monday July 7, 2008
8:00pm
Readings are open to the public, and admission is by voluntary donation.
Past Readings
2007
May 6
Whales in the Channel
by Richard MedugnoA group of strangers form a surprising connection with a whale that has mysteriously stranded itself.
May 20
Room 15
by Elyce MelmonA new teacher finds herself bucking the system in a prestigious and competition-driven private school.
May 27
Homeland Prayer
by Jeff CarterMembers of a family struggle to keep hope alive when a badly wounded soldier returns from war.
June 6
Campaign Strategy
by Lynn SnyderAll's fair in love and politics? In this play the twists and turns of a political campaign intersect with those of complicated love affairs and friendships.
Room 15
by Elyce Melmon
Sunday, Nov. 26, 2006
When Penny Greenberg enters Room Fifteen of Saint Matthews School for Boys, she has no idea that her lofty ambitions will be challenged by sophisticated students who are driven to eschew academic integrity as they face the pressures from parents and the educational society. Penny struggles to find reality in a world of conflicting images.
To See You Again
by Richard Medugno
Sunday, December 10, 2006
This is a romantic comedy – boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy shows up 20 years later with a video camera wanting to re-enact their romance. Joseph, the middle-aged man, married with children, shows up one Monday evening in a nearly empty French restaurant in Los Angeles. He is a man on a mission and has arranged to meet his college sweetheart Jennifer, a movie studio executive, here. They haven't seen each other in nearly 20 years. Dean, a younger, gayer man, is the bored waiter who will spend the evening serving the couple and eventually becoming involved in the reunion activities, acting as a cameraman who videotapes the highlights of their remembered young romance and, perhaps, the rekindling...
Nightscape with Figures
by Jeff Carter
Directed by Laura Long
Cast: Tom Ammon, Jane Geesman, Troy Johnson, and Avondina Willis
A taut drama exploring racial tensions and marital disconnects, against a background of urban violence.
What the Birds Carry
by Elizabeth Gjelten
Directed by Susannah Greenwood
A tender play about love lost and the intersection of present and past, of memory and need.
Veracruz
by John Levin
Directed by Sharmon Hilfinger
This startling timely play revisits a shameful incident in American history and presents compelling portraits of Jack London and Douglas MacArthur.It's Not a Comedy
by Frank WidmanDirected by Susannah Greenwood
This sparkling play imagines what went on behind the scenes as actors directed by Stanislavski rehearsed for the first production of Chekov's "The Cherry Orchard".A Beautiful Home for the Incurable
by Ian Walker
Directed by Ray Renati
In this fresh, funny play a band of slightly dysfunctional heroes fights back to reclaim a stolen identity.