GREENHOUSE NEW PLAY FESTIVAL 2026 - UNLEASHED

WHO WE ARE

Since 1999, Greenhouse has launched plays by emerging writers into the San Francisco Bay Area theater community and beyond. Works by previous Greenhouse playwrights have played on Broadway, megaplexes, and in major regional theaters across the United States. This year’s cadre of writers are: Brian James Byrne, Jennifer Castro, Evelyn Ch’ien, Fernando Mendoza, and Lou Wagoner. 

It’s the second year Greenhouse Festival is presented in partnership with Crowded Fire Theater (CFT), a company known for developing and producing poetic, bold, new work! CFT is also our fiscal sponsor for fundraising this year!

This year’s festival unleashes five eclectic new works. At this moment, we need community support for emerging artists and public education more than ever before.  Please show your support with a donation and by coming to see Greenhouse readings in the Lab Theater May 11 to May 15, 2026. 

WHAT WE HAVE

• Playwrights who break expectations - Five talented playwrights whose work has appeared at Z-Space, Greenhouse, UC Davis, Transfer and Zyzza.
• Characters unafraid to grow, change, bloom, break the fourth wall, contract yellow fever, drink too much, kiss their best friend’s girlfriend, graffiti streets, rekindle old flames, light fires, eat too much ice cream, become blobs, and fight in court.
• A Performance Space that Breaks the Proscenium - Our staged readings will take place at SFSU’s very own Lab Theater, a thriving core of the SF State arts community. Located at the Creative Arts Building CA 104, San Francisco State University, the Lab Theater has hosted generations of aspiring theater artists.  

WHAT WE NEED 

This year we want to raise a minimum of $2450 on top of the $2600 we have already secured in order to fund the festival. Here’s where the money goes:

• $2025 to cover the remaining balance of our artist fees for our 5 directors and 21 actors;
• $225 to pay for stage managers; and
• $200 for printing fees.

THE IMPACT

You will be helping emerging playwrights launch their careers, adding to the dynamic diversity of San Francisco's theater scene and beyond. 

Our University's Playwriting program is part of San Francisco’s tradition of artistic defiance. We strive to show our audience, foundations, and the city that the theater scene in San Francisco lives and creates art that responds to the times. We are outspoken, irrepressible, and unsuppressible. We refuse to be silenced. Now more than ever we need artists: playwrights, actors, directors, stage managers, all of us.

We invite you to be a part of our Festival. Come fight for the love of the arts and public education.

Other Ways You Can Help:

• Spread awareness about the campaign and festival;
• Tell a friend; 
• Post about us on Social Media; and 
• Come see a reading or two! 
   

GREENHOUSE SCHEDULE 2026
 

I don’t hate myself anymore by Lou Wagoner

Directed by Leigh Rondon-Davis
Date: Monday 5/11 at 7 p.m.

August doesn’t hate himself anymore, and he’s trying to write a play about his progress. While exploring themes of guilt, grief, God, and gender in his void adjacent writing space, his younger self shows up and inserts herself into the process.

Speak Easy by Fernando Mendoza

Directed by Adam L Sussman
Date: Tuesday 5/12 at 7 p.m.

The play is a love letter to The Mission District. The narrative follows several characters as they navigate an increase in sociopolitical tension for San Francisco residents, both housed and unhoused, while also trying to grasp some sort of meaning in their lives. Whether it’s the paranoia of ICE invading the city, or the hatred of animal killing robot cars, nothing is off limits. 

Proprioception by Jennifer Castro

Directed by Leigh Rondon-Davis
Date: Wednesday 5/13 at 7 p.m.

Lucille does details: fixes breakfast, chooses bathroom tiles, tightens cabinet door hinges. Meanwhile Mark lives carefree. When Mark has a mishap and lands in a wheelchair, Lucille regrets she’s not living a fantastic life; should she have gone to Thailand? After Mark commits a reckless act, Lucille gets unhinged herself - confronting her wedding vows and questioning her choice to get married at all. What does for better or worse mean and what will Lucille accept to stay married?

The Valiant by Brian James Byrne

Directed by Quinn Nohra Gilchrist
Date: Thursday 5/14 at 7 p.m.

It’s 1985 in Australia and four university students head out for a camping trip where everything goes disastrously wrong. They find themselves stranded in a conservative small town where they have to rely on the goodwill of a local mechanic to get them through. They find out what they are looking for is not what they need.

Lemon Fever by Evelyn Ch’ien

Directed by Ely Sonny Orquiza
Date: Friday 5/15 at 7 p.m.

In 1930, the twenty-year-old daughter of a Chinese diplomat in Havana is courted awkwardly by a yellow fever researcher, against a backdrop of a growing dictatorship, disease contagion, family crises, and Cuba’s booming sugar industry. Can their love survive in the midst of all the chaos, and should it?

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Admission to readings are free. As a thank you for sponsoring the festival we offer the following perks:

$10 - Seedling
Access to the Lounge - includes refreshments, drinks and all the schmoozing! 

$25 - Vine
Reserved Seating for two at one show - claim the best seats in the house. No need to arrive early! 

$40 - Orchid
Reserved Seating for two at two or more shows - claim the best seats in the house. No need to arrive early!

$100 - Honeysuckle
Name in Program - show everyone you’re supporting Bay Area Theater and get a playwright’s song list and their top five plays! 

$300 - Hibiscus
Sponsor a Reading - your name read at the beginning of the show. You choose the show. This is your dedication to the arts!

$500 - Birds of Paradise
Naming Rights to the Lounge - your chance to name our lounge. Could be your favorite playwright, your best loved theater house, or something else!