BERKELEY, CALIF.: Bay Area playwright incubator PlayGround has announced the selection of 36 playwrights for its 2015–16 writers pool, a six-month program in which participants generate more than 180 short plays inspired by monthly prompts. Script-in-hand performances of the top plays will be led by local directors and actors as a part of the Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series. The theatre kicked off the season this week with six short plays written by PlayGround alumni on the topic “Race Matters.”

Ten members of the writers pool have been selected for participation in PlayGround’s Playwrights Residency Program. Each will be working on the development of an original full-length play over the next year.

This year’s resident playwrights are William Bivins, Erin Bregman, Rachel Bublitz, Victoria Der, Ruben Grijalva, Garret Groenveld, Evelyn Pine, Amy Sass, Steven Westdahl, and Davern Wright. The complete writers pool roster can be found here.

PlayGround’s new-play development programs have supported more than 200 playwrights to develop and stage 785 original works, some of which have gone on to premiere at Bay Area theatres and national theatre festivals.