SAN FRANCISCO: PlayGround has announced the finalists for the annual Young Playwrights Project, with four new plays from Bay Area high school students. The plays will stream online May 28 as part of the PlayGround Zoom Fest. This year, the prompt for play submissions was “justice.”

The first reading will be Late by Sky Krueger. The play follows a teenage girl who confronts an irritable passenger on a train that shows no signs of stopping. Krueger studies musical theatre at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. Ely Sonny Orquiza will direct the reading.

The next reading will be Between Pigs and Sheeps by Yinhao Finn Liu, directed by Lana Richards. The play follows Willis, a 9-year-old Sheepsquatch, who learns about his family’s mortal enemy, the Pigmen—but his closest friend is one of them. Liu attends Galileo Academy of Science and Technology and will attend the University of California Los Angeles next year.

Following will be How an Ice Cream Truck Can Damn You to Hell by Jane Palladino. The play is about a pregnant woman who attends her late husband’s funeral along with his girlfriend. Palladino is a sophomore at Aragon High School. Frieda de Lackner will direct the reading.

The last reading will be Bread and Circuses by Anna Vanderford, directed by Markus Potter. The play follows Dorothie as she goes to visit her twin sister, Bessie, at her traveling circus company, only to discover that Bessie is missing. Vanderford attends Hillsdale High School and developed Bread and Circuses with Matthew Keuter as part of the TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Young Playwrights Project.

PlayGround is the Bay Area’s leading playwright incubator and provides unique development opportunities for emerging Bay Area playwrights. The Young Playwrights Project is a partnership between PlayGround and Bay Area high schools that enables young writers to find their expressive voice through the creation, development, and production of short plays.