Meet The Pear Playwrights’ Guild

The Pear Playwrights’ Guild is a long running writers’ group of Bay Area playwrights that meets primarily online every two weeks to discuss ongoing works of the member playwrights. We regularly share and discuss everything from historical epics to science fiction to light comedy. So long as it’s written for the stage.

For inquiries about The Pear Playwrights’ Guild, please contact Greg Lam at greg@thepear.org

ACTIVE MEMBERS

Barbara Anderson

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Robin Booth is a retired engineer and PPG member for over 10 years.

Likes to write: I like topics that deal with pre-death and post death. Sometimes I just get silly.

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Patrick Brennan has been a member of the Pear Playwrights Guild since 2009. He writes contemporary comedies with pop-culture and cyberpunk influences. Patrick is a member of the Dramatists’ Guild, Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco, Pulp Stage, PlayCafe, and Playwrights’ Platform.

Likes to write: Nerd-flavored dark comedy with a light sprinkling of politics and healthy helping of cyberpunk.

Patrick’s New Play Exchange Profile

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Arcadia Conrad

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Cherielyn Ferguson is an East Bay playwright whose plays have been produced and read at local, national, and international theatres. She’s a member of the Dramatists Guild, Theatre Bay Area, Berkeley’s Play Café, the Playwrights Center, PlayGround-SF’s 2023-24 writers pool, and is an alumna of the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive.

Likes to write: I often write about moments of decision that lead characters to say something that cannot be unsaid, sometimes to devastating effect. That sounds very serious, so I’ll add that I write funny stuff, too. See: Twinkle, twinkle and Fair Play. I’m also drawn to the stories of barrier-breaking women from the past. See: Into the Air.

Cherielyn’s New Play Exchange Profile

Key Works: Twinkle, twinkle | Into the Air | Fair Play

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Cassian Grove

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Christine C. Hsu is a playwright, poet, essayist, and flash fiction writer based in San Francisco. Her plays have been performed by the Negro Ensemble Company, Crafton Hills College, Houston Community College - Stafford, Pear Theatre, Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco, Enterwine, and Shiny Unicorns Productions.

Likes to write: I write authentic multicultural dramas that confront the complications of being human with tenderness, humor, and honesty. My work claws away at the complexities of the human experience, and I push my characters to confront their flaws and work through them. I want my work to give hope and compassion.

Christine’s Website
Key Works: I Love You But | Christmas Call | Ruby and Donny

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Bill Hyatt (he/him/his) is a playwright and director. Playwriting honors include: TBA Titan Award Finalist for Playwrights/Generative Artists (2017), TBA Award for “Outstanding Production of an Anthology”(2016), Backstage West Critic’s List for Playwriting (2003). Theatrical Memberships include: Dramatists Guild, Pear Playwright’s Guild, TBA, PCSF, ALAP.

Likes to write: My plays typically focus on the effects of governmental, economic, environmental, and social injustice; and the consequences we face when we take meaningful actions against the status quo. Whether writing comedy or drama, I promise that I will question, probe, and explore and communicate truths as best I can.

Bill’s Website
Bill’s New Play Exchange Profile
Key Works: Christmas in Chechnya | It Came From Fukushima | Babe Hunting Season

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Greg Lam is the co-founder of the Asian-American Playwright Collective and a member of The Pulp Stage Writer’s Room and the administrator of the Pear Theatre’s Playwright Guild as well as a board member. His play Chaplin and Keaton On the Set of Limelight premiered at The Pear in 2024.

Likes to write: Full-length sci-fi with nods to cultural and political impacts and grinding ethical debates. 10 minute plays which are typically comic romps which play with form. 1 minute plays which are the most depressing things I’ve written. I love a writing challenge, so if you have one send it my way!

Greg’s Website
Greg’s New Play Exchange Profile
Key Works: Last Ship to Proxima Centauri | Repossessed | Chaplin & Keaton on the Set of Limelight

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John Levine

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Enrique Munoz

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Sophia Naylor is a Bay Area playwright and improviser, whose works have been performed across the country. Sophia co-founded the murder mystery theater company The Clue Collective, serving as CEO for six year Swarthmore, as well as writing and customizing shows. She earned an Honors Theater degree from College.

Likes to write: I love infusing my work with humor, a hint of absurdity, and a sprinkling of outer space, religion, science, and magic. I like timeless works that grapple with the big questions and fears humans face: how to do what is right, the terror of death, is a hotdog a sandwich.

Sophia’s Website
Sophia’s New Play Exchange Profile
Key Works: For a Brighter Tomorrow | Blood and Dolly | Play-Bot

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Erin Marie Panttaja

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Bridgette Dutta Portman is a playwright and novelist. More than two dozen of her plays have been produced locally, nationally, and internationally. She is president of the Pear Theatre board of directors and a member of the Pear Playwrights’ Guild, the PlayGround writers pool, and the Dramatists’ Guild. She teaches composition and creative writing for UC Berkeley’s College Writing Programs.

Likes to write: I have a special interest in writing plays that pose existential questions: How do people create meaning and purpose in life? Does free will exist? How do we deal with grief, loss, and the knowledge that one day we will die? I also love writing plays inspired by mythology and classical Greek drama, sci-fi and speculative plays, and plays with mental health themes.

Bridgette’s Website
Bridgette’s New Play Exchange Profile

Keyworks: Ageless | Dead People | The Mourner

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Sanjit Sengupta’s work gets audiences to reflect on their attitudes and behaviors. He’s written a number of 10- minute scripts, thee one-acts, and one full-length . He’s a member of Play Café, Playwrights Center of San Francisco, Pear Playwrights Guild, the Dramatists Guild, and New Play Exchange.

Likes to write: I like to write about the South Asian experience in the USA as well as more universal themes.

Sanjit’s New Play Exchange Profile
Key Works: Turbulence | Global Alligator | Academic Advice

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Barry Slater

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JJ Sutton joined the Pear Playwrights Guild in 2023. In addition to writing, they have worked in directing, performance art, and more. An early-career playwright, their body of work is growing, starting with their capstone adaptation of the Sophoclean tragedy Antigone: A New Trans Play."

Likes to write: My work explores identity-centric and post-modernist themes, often focusing on queer or radical stories. When making experimental or performance art, I am often drawn to call attention to the effect of the form and/or medium on the work itself.

Key Works: Antigone: A New Trans Play

EMERITUS

Paul Braverman is a Bay Area playwright whose plays have received dozens of productions and readings locally, nationally and internationally. He and his wife Robyn co-produce Fresh Produce, the Pear’s annual new play reading program. Paul is a co- founder of the Pear Playwrights’ Guild, Playwrights Center of SF, and a member of the Dramatists’ Guild.

Likes to write: I like to use genre and irony. My favorite genres are science fiction and “hard boiled” detective. Many of my plays are comedic and written with a black box approach in mind.

Paul’s New Play Exchange Profile

Key Works: Stuck in the Middle | A Crack in the Past | No Good Deed

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Doug Brook has written 20+ plays performed nationwide, including two in NYC. Executive Director of Silicon Valley Shakespeare (2015-2021), co-founder/Artistic Director of Theatre Chevruta (2013-2018). Active Bay Area actor and director, past VP of Alliance for Jewish Theatre, Dramatists Guild member, Alabama native, studied writing and theatre at Carnegie Mellon University.

Likes to write: The trends seems to include wry satire, plays with context of historical events/figures, biblical satire, or relationships.

Doug’s Website
Doug’s New Play Exchange Profile
Key Works: The Hood of Sherwood | Original Synergy | Retrograde

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HG Clarkson has been a member since 2009. HG has been chosen for Pear Slices in 2010 with the short play As Is = No Warranty Available and in 2014 with the short play Start Happy Endings.

Likes to write: Dramadies.

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Leah Halper is an award-winning California playwright with global vision, quirky historical hindsight, and a sense of sweeping sea changes in our world. Her work has been performed throughout the US, and she has been a Heideman Award finalist. A Dramatist Guild member, she makes her theatrical home at the Pear Theatre’s Playwrights Guild.

Likes to write: Lots of women, lots of relationships, lots of history and irony, lots of Silicon Valley.

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Neva Hutchinson

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Ross Peter Nelson has worked with the Pear since 2004, and his work has appeared in numerous editions of Pear Slices. Ross left the bay area to study, receiving an MFA in Playwriting from the University of New Orleans. He currently lives in Montana, where he co-founded Raven’s Feathre Productions and helps produce the annual Last Chance New Play Fest. His one-act Simulacra was a finalist in the Tennessee Williams competition and his full-length Becoming Number Six took second place in the Las Vegas Little Theatre’s new works competition.

Likes to write: My work is typically informed by history and current events but with a twist: ghosts, talking animals, poets who turn into teddy bears, etc.

Ross’ Website
Ross’ New Play Exchange Profile
Key Works: Becoming Number Six | Tycho’s Fool | How to Poison the President

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Teresa Veramundi is a Basque-American multidisciplinary theatre artist, playwright, director, performer, and community facilitator who utilizes the arts as a tool to disrupt social injustices. She manifests her political interrogations of gender, ability, nationality, class, and climate change into visually poetic, documentary, and historical theatre projects that have been produced locally, nationally, and internationally. A recipient of the Norma Elia Cantú Creative Writing Award, Veramendi has lectured at St. Lawrence University and currently teaches at San Jose State University. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and their two cats.

Teresa’s Website
Teresa’s New Play Exchange Profile

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Naseem Badie

Matthew Fyffe

Meghan Maugeri

Kimberly Ridgeway

Ron Rosenfeld

Carol Wolf