Playwrights Foundation

September 18 – 27, 2026 (In Person)
7:00PM
1:00PM, 3:00PM Matinee
October 19 – 25, 2026 (On Demand)

The Rueff at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater,
1127 Market Street,
San Francisco, CA 94103

2026 Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF47): Revive. Resist. Renew.

The hybrid 47th Bay Area Playwrights Festival welcomes four playwrights who take audiences on a journey through inner and outer worlds, traversing time and space to revive long-silenced voices, resist the forces that seek to oppress, and renew strength, healing, connection, and the power to create change.

The 2026 lineup:

Howling: A Fairy Tale by Jordan Bird. Diagnosed autistic in her late 20s, Birdie fears sharing her disability and traumatic childhood with her new partner. With her therapist’s guidance, she travels through the forest of her subconscious, hounded by a growing howl as past and present blur with memory and dream.

THE NEGROES HAVE RISEN by Maxine Dillon. At the Edwards Estate, a group of Black twentysomethings work as plantation museum tour guides. When they find evidence of a failed slave uprising missing from the estate’s official history, they get a chance to make a different kind of living history.

Suicide Cowboys by Greg T. Nanni. Two cowboys are locked in a perpetual duel in a desert graveyard, while in a New York apartment a survivor of a suicide attempt helps a stranger and reckons with his own past. The desert and the apartment blur as high noon approaches.

By the Banks by christina michelle watkins. On one hot June evening, two semi-estranged sisters reunite on the banks of the Wabash River with their father’s ashes and a circle of salt. As night falls, old scars reopen and new truths surge out, conjuring Nature itself to intervene.

The festival also includes a Resident Playwrights Program showcase on Sunday, September 27 at 11:30AM, with a reception to follow. Individual tickets are sliding scale ($10-$45), and festival passes are available.

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