A quick update on the PlayGround Year-End Campaign. As of this morning, we've raised $7,686 or 31% of our $25,000 goal, and now have 112 members in the Cause! Thanks to all of you who have already committed your support and for joining the PlayGround Cause. Remember, there are just 18 days remaining. Please consider making your gift to the PlayGround Year-End Campaign today!

Not one to rest on our laurels, we're busy preparing for next week's Monday Night PlayGround "Holiday Extravaganza" at Berkeley Rep. The PlayGround Writers Pool received the topic ("The Holiday Party") last Friday and has until 2pm today to submit their original short plays. The top six works will be presented on Monday, December 19 at 8pm. And kicking off the evening is a Holiday Cookie Bake-Off (http://playground-sf.org/topic.shtml) and a short excerpt from Katie May's new full-length commission, Manic Pixie Dream Girl or The Lily Chronicles Issue #1. http://playground-sf.org/monday.shtml A few weeks ago, we had a chance to hear a reading of the first draft, with a stellar company of actors, including Joshua Roberts, Michael Barrett Austin, Lyndsy Kail, Beverly Sotelo and Patrick Russell. It's a graphic novel come to the stage with wonderfully-drawn characters and plot twists! Jon Tracy will direct the public staged reading as part of the Best of PlayGround Festival, taking place on Monday, May 14 at 7pm (mark your calendars! this is one reading not to miss).

If you attended the October 17 season opener, you heard a short excerpt from Jonathan Luskin's new full-length commission, Ecce Homo, adapted from his 2011 festival short of the same name. This past Saturday, actors Gabriel Marin, Michael Barrett Austin, Gwen Loeb and Lyndsy Kail joined the original festival cast of Brian Herndon and Holli Hornlien, along with director Meredith McDonough, Resident Director M. Graham Smith, and Associate Director Annie Stuart for a table reading of Jonathan's first draft. Though only actors reading the text, it was amazing how evocative Jonathan's play was (and very funny, to boot!) and how much we could visualize. And, of course, a pleasure to welcome "Gus" and "Fanny" back to the stage! Ecce Homo will receive a public staged reading as part of the Best of PlayGround Festival on Sunday, May 13 at 2pm (another not-to-be-missed reading!).

There are five other full-length plays in development at PlayGround right now (we'll share a short excerpt at the top of each Monday Night PlayGround) and three past commissions being readied for their world premiere this season at theatres throughout the Bay Area as part of the New Play Production Fund (NPPF). And we'll shortly announce the NPPF recipients for 2012-13.

Amazing, no? Yet, none of this would be possible without your participation. Invest in tomorrow's great playwrights today. Support the PlayGround Year-End Campaign!