SAN FRANCISCO: PlayGround Company has announced a newly-created producer fellowship program, which will add Chris Steele, Lana Richards, Donny Goglio, and Edna Mira Raia to the leadership team through part-time paid fellowships. Each fellowship will focus on a different aspect of the production process: communications, development, artistic, and theatre management.

The fellows will work part-time and develop their skill set under the guidance of PlayGround artistic director Jim Kleinmann, associate artistic director Annie Stuart, and production manager Jacque Bugler. The cohort was curated to reflect the Bay Area’s diverse artistic community, with a focus on parity and diversity of gender, ethnicity, and sexuality.

Chris Steele, communications fellow, began their fellowship in November 2019. They are a San Francisco based queer trans nonbinary performance artist and producer who began their career with PlayGround when they were the co-artistic director of Poltergeist Theatre Project in last year’s Innovator Incubator. Steele is also a drag producer and performer as both Polly Amber Ross and Peter Pansexual, running up to six monthly drag events in the area.

Lana Richards, development fellow, is a director whose work includes developing new plays, adaptation, and sit integrative work. A co-founder of the Wickies, a company dedicated to telling hyper-normal stories through a hyper-theatrical lens, Richards has trained with SITI Company, The Michael Chekhov Association, Complicite, and at the National Theater Institute for Advanced Directing. Richards was also the Parallel 45 Directing Fellow in 2019 and a 2019-20 artist-in-residence at Access Theater in New York.

Donny Goglio, artistic fellow, is a queer person from a multi-ethnic background who has a passion for writing and performance. He has a background as a theatre and musical theatre performer and has assisted with the execution and promotion of local drag events, including with the Ducal Court of San Francisco. Goglio’s writing focuses on poetic forms as a way to shine a light on the journeys of the queer community.

Edna Mira Raia, theatre management fellow, is a socio-political comedic artist with training in mime and clown, as well as experience in many areas, from production management to sound design. In 2018, she won Best of SF Fringe for her solo show Altars for my Alters, which then toured to the Orlando Fringe festival in 2019. Since starting Potatoes Mashed Comedy in 2015, Raia has been producing and writing 12 to 15 sketches, collaborative plays, and drag shows per year.