Las Vegas, 1990s. For Mary, an ambitious, Black college student, the city of fast thrills is a gritty, personal hellscape. Navigating her final year as a theatre major and desperate to leave the city’s constraints, Mary spends her evenings at a local dive bar where she meets Krissy, Deb, and Angel–three sex workers who offer her extra cash to drive them to their appointments. Through the numbing neon of the haunting Strip, Mary witnesses their pain and experiences some of her own, learns about their lives and the depth of their dreams, and ultimately, surrenders to a connection that changes them all. 

A semi-autobiographical play, Driving the Girls illuminates the humanity of these women—often left to be erased by society, unseen and unheard—and asks: Who is allowed to dream in this America? Who can we call family when biological family fails?

Cat Brooks (she/her) has been performing on stage & screen for over 30 years. After receiving her BA in theater, she trained briefly at the Royal National Theater Studio in London. Cat is an actress, director, playwright, dramaturg, resident artist with the Lower Bottom Playaz and 3 Girls Theater and a member of the 2024-2025 Resident Playwright cohort with Playwrights Foundation. Notable roles include Lady Macbeth at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and starring in her one-woman show ‘Tasha, about the in-custody murder of Natasha McKenna. Brooks has been nominated Best Featured Actress by the Bay Area Theater Circle Critics and ‘Tasha won the Best of the SF Fringe Festival in 2017, 3 Girls Theater Salon Series Playwright Festival in 2018 and was featured in the 2019 BAMBD Festival in Oakland. Her short film “Bottled Spirits ” is currently touring the global film festival circuit winning nominations and awards. She’s the co-founder and executive director of the Anti Police-Terror Project and hosts Law & Disorder on KPFA weekday mornings. Cat was also the runner-up in Oakland’s 2018 mayoral election, facing incumbent Libby Schaaf.

Lisa Marie Rollins, Director (she/they) is a director, playwright, and theater maker. Selected directing & dramaturg credits include Sundance Institute Theatre Lab (Directing), New York Stage and Film, Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Ground Floor, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Arizona Theater Company, Hedgebrook Women’s Play Festival, Crowded Fire Theater, American Conservatory Theatre SF, Magic Theatre, new work with Lauren Gunderson, Geetha Reddy, Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm (DEMASCUS, AMC), and creative collaborations with comedic artist W. Kamau Bell (CNN). She is a Member of Stage Directors and Choreographers (SDC) and Dramatist Guild. She has been a writing fellow with Hedgebrook, Djerassi, CALLALOO London, VONA and more. She was a Wallace Gerbode Playwright Fellow for a new commission with Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco with her new play KARA. She is a Core Writer in the 24-25 Susan Fairbrook Playwright Group at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. She and reads for juries & play selection panels around the country, has been a Community Arts Panelist for Zellerbach Family Foundation and a Resident Artist with Brava Theater and Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco. She leads the IRIS LAB, a residency and new work incubator for global majority theater makers located at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Tanika Baptiste (She/They, Krissy) is an award-winning director, actor, vocalist, producer, and costume designer based in the Bay Area.

She previously served as the Head of Entertainment for Enchant Christmas at PayPal Park Stadium in San Jose, CA.

A proud member of both the Actors’ Equity Association and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Tanika currently works as the Assistant Production Manager for The Freight in downtown Berkeley.

Camille Collaço (She/Her, Mary) first fell in love with performing at the age of seven when she was cast in a school play. Since then, Collaço (Co-la-so) has been in productions such as Aladdin (Jasmine), Hairspray (Lil’ Inez), stage readings of Sistahfriend and Every Saturday Night, and the first two productions of San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company’s I, Too, Sing America. Camille has trained at the American Conservatory Theatre (Summer Training Congress and Studio A.C.T.) and explored playwriting while earning her bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. Her San Francisco Bay Area performing credits include PCSF (24-Hour Fest), San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company (SFBATCO), Dragon Eggs, and 3Girls Theatre. This is Camille’s first time working with Playwrights Foundation. She is excited for the opportunity to play Mary and help bring Cat Brooks’ Driving the Girls to life.

Kennzeil Love (He/Him, Joel) is a Bay Area native, raised in San Jose and a new transport to Oakland. He claims to love the town almost as he loves acting and storytelling. Love’s taste for acting began at Piedmont Hills High School, where he performed in plays and musicals for all four years. His acting and performing then took a 12-year hiatus while he served in the military and pursued other careers. At 31 years of age, he is new to the arts once again but plans to stay actively pursuing a career in it because it’s what drives him more than anything else. Currently, he’s cast in an upcoming Oakland sitcom as well as a brand new play set to premiere in September. He’s excited for both and excited to see this play continue to grow and reach full production.

Jordan Maria Don (She/Her, Deb) is a California raised actor, director and producer who splits her time between Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Some of her favorite acting credits include Clara Couture in Edit Annie at Crowded Fire, Angel in Translating Selena with Campo Santo and Lucia in Fade at Capital Stage. Jordan is a co-founder of the Bay Area based theater collective, Latinx Mafia and the LA based actors collective, Double Take. She holds a B.A. in Theater and Sociology from UC Berkeley and has trained with A.C.T, Kimball NYC Studio and L.A. Acting Studio. All her work is dedicated to her first inspiration to pursue acting, her first inspiration to live fully, loudly and clumsily, her late brother, Christopher Paul Don, whose bold spirit continues to guide her every step of the way. www.jordanmariadon.com

Amanda Le Nguyen (She/Her, Stage Directions) is a multifaceted Vietnamese American artist based in the Bay Area. Last seen in the world premiere of Cuckoo Edible Magic (SFBATCO), she has performed as Tong in Vietgone (OKC Rep & CLTC), she was also seen in SFBATCO’s New Works Festival 2023, the world premiere of The Hippest Trip, Soul Train the Musical (A.C.T.), Poor Yella Rednecks (A.C.T.), A Christmas Carol (A.C.T.), Patty Di Marco in School of Rock (PAP), and Annelle in Steel Magnolias (LASC). Other past credits include the musical adaptation of Twelfth Night (SF Playhouse), Shout! The Mod Musical (South Bay Musical Theatre), and the local tour of Don’t Let Pigeon Drive the Bus (Bay Area Children’s Theatre). Love to her beautiful family and friends. Hey, Bub. @sillieamanda. Member of Actor’s Equity.

May Simon Ramos (They/Them, Angel) is a queer, Ilokano artist who has worked with various theatres throughout the Bay Area for the past seven years. They were previously seen as Kara in How to Defend Yourself (Shotgun Players’s Champagne Staged Reading Series) Ale in The Day the Sky Turned Orange (SFBATCO’s New Roots Festival), Mimi in RENT (Hillbarn Theatre), and Yitzhak u/s in Hedwig & The Angry Inch (Shotgun Players). You may have also seen them perform as the burlesque/drag artist Demi Inferno (@demi.inferno). They have always loved supporting the development of new works, as it is important to them to uplift their community’s voices and stories. They are grateful for the opportunity to be a part of Playwrights Foundation for the first time and contribute to this new work! Up Next: Jurassiq Parq at SF Oasis!

When Janelle envisioned herself clerking on the United States Supreme Court, this is exactly what she pictured: a caffeine-fueled all night effort to win a narrow majority that might just save democracy itself. What she didn’t picture was her Justice dropping dead in the hours between the conference vote and the public announcement in which that vote would acquire the force of law. With the fate of the American experiment hanging in the balance, Janelle and her fellow clerk grapple with a difficult question: where should they hide the body?

The Justice Is Just Asleep is a humorous and horrifying examination of the contingent nature of our institutions. With dark humor reflective of our fraught political moment, The Justice Is Just Asleep probes the terrifying reality that our system is only as solid as the flawed people trying to make it work.

Ruben Grijalva (he/him) is a San Francisco Bay Area-based playwright exploring moral questions to which he has no good answers. This approach leads to plays that you might describe as comedies about tragedies, featuring protagonists that you might describe as seemingly good people doing seemingly bad things. His short plays include “Anna Considers a Cocktail” and the PianoFight ShortLived winning “All The Worlds Are Stages.” His full-length plays include “Anna Considers Mars,” the Edgerton New Play Award winning “Value Over Replacement,” and “Shoot Me When…,” winner of the 2022 Will Glickman Award for Best New Play in the Bay Area. He lives in San Rafael, California with his wife and daughter.

Susi Damilano, Director (she/her) is co-founder and producing director of San Francisco Playhouse. She is a five-time recipient of the Excellence in Theatre Award for Principal Actress in a Play from the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle for the Playhouse productions of Abigail’s Party, Harper Regan, Bug, Six Degrees of Separation, and Reckless. Susi has also performed leading roles here in Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Yoga Play, The Effect, The Roommate, Red Velvet, Tree, Bauer, Abigail’s Party, Harper Regan, Coraline, Slasher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Landscape of the Body, First Person Shooter, Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, The Crucible, Kimberly Akimbo, Our Town, and The Smell of the Kill. Directing credits include Playhouse productions of The 39 Steps, Clue, Indecent, Twelfth Night, Groundhog Day The Musical, Cabaret, Mary Poppins, Noises Off, She Loves Me, Stage Kiss, Company, Stupid Fucking Bird, Into the Woods, A Behanding in Spokane, Den of Thieves, and Wirehead (SFBATCC nomination), the West Coast premieres of Honey Brown Eyes (SFBATCC nomination), Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Coronado, The Mystery Plays, and Roulette, and the world premieres of On Clover Road by Steven Dietz, From Red to Black by Rhett Rossi, and Seven Days by Daniel Heath in the Sandbox Series.

Jeffrey Gan, Dramaturg (he/him) is a dramaturg, performance maker, and arts researcher. He recently completed a PhD in the Performance as Public Practice program at the University of Texas at Austin; his dissertation compared performance practices among Dutch-Indonesian diaspora communities in the Netherlands and California. His research has been published in Situations, Hyperallergic Magazine, and Performance Research. As a dramaturg, Jeff specializes in new work and experimental performance, particularly with Black and Asian American artists tackling issues of identity and audience. He has collaborated with playwrights like travis l. tate and dance makers including Charles O. Anderson and Benjamin Akio Kimitch. He served as dramaturg for Kimitch’s project “Tiger Hands,” a commission by The Shed’s Open Call program which won a Bessie Award for Outstanding Choreographer/Creator. Jeff is an artist working in movement and performance installation, and his work have been presented by Center Space Project and the Cohen New Works festival in Austin, TX and W139 in Amsterdam. Currently, Jeff is a company dancer with Gamelan Sekar Jaya, a Balinese performance ensemble based in South Berkeley, where he is proud to train with master artists and culture bearers like Cok Istri Putri Rukmini and I Made Suteja.

Kaitlin Weinstein (She/Her, Stage Manager) is an East Bay-based stage manager and arts administrator passionate about new play development. With Playwrights Foundation, she previously served as the Production Assistant on Harlem Canary/Tokyo Crow, the Producing Intern for the 2021 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and a few years on the National Committee of Readers. Around the Bay Area, she’s worked with theater companies including American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Playhouse, California Shakespeare Theater, Shotgun Players, and Stanford TAPS, as well as Broadway at Music Circus and Capital Stage in Sacramento. She holds a B.A. in Theater & Performance Studies and English from UC Berkeley, where she received the Eisner Prize for Stage Management and Costume Design. She is currently the Producing Manager at The Marsh, a theater that specializes in developing one-person shows.

Gianna DiGregorio Rivera (She/They, Janelle) is a Bay Area-born actor and musician. Recent credits include Private Lives, A Whynot Christmas Carol (American Conservatory Theater), American Mariachi (Alley Theatre), Hurricane Diane, The Importance of Being Earnest (Aurora Theatre), Romeo y Juliet (California Shakespeare Theater), Quixote Nuevo (Hartford Stage/Huntington Theatre/Alley Theatre/California Shakespeare Theater), and Arcadia (Shotgun Players). They hold a BA in Theater Arts from UC Santa Cruz and an MA in Sexuality Studies from San Francisco State University.

Rolanda D. Bell (She/Her, Brianna) Born & raised Oakland Ca, Rolanda has had a career as a storyteller for the last 15 years, excited and honored to be back working with Playwright Foundation bringing new work to life. Some accomplishments include: Berkeley Rep Theater School as a director for 2024 High School Theater Festival,2023 RHE Artistic Fellow recipient and current BATCC nominee for both her role & cast in production A Thousand Ships. Recent Theater Credits include: World Premiere of A Thousand Ships with Oakland Theater Project, Shipping & Handling with Crowded Fire Theater, Midsummer Nights Dream with Shotgun Players, POTUS with Berkeley Rep, Is God Is with Oakland Theater Project and Paradise Blue with Aurora Theater. As her resume continues to grow you can see more of her work in original film Blindspotting, Netflix Original film All Day & A Night & voice actor in deleted scenes for PIXAR Animation films LIGHTYEAR & Inside Out 2. Rolanda is SAG-AFTRA & represented by JE Talent. @rolandadene

Jacob Henrie-Naffaa (He/Him, Clay, Marshall, Chief Justice, The Intruder) is a Bay Area actor, writer and director. He has been performing professionally since the age of seven and has been seen on Bay Area stages ever since. Recent theatre credits include Returning to Haifa (Golden Thread), Cabaret (CenterRep), and In the Heights (CenterRep, Berkeley Playhouse). When not acting he loves chilling out with his Legos.

Catherine Castellanos (She/Her, The Justice/Dolores) One of my most favorite things is to be included on the ground floor of a new play. Developing with the writer is heaven. In a nutshell-24 seasons, and counting, working on, acting in, sometimes directing premiers with Campo Santo, resident theatre of Magic Theatre/15 seasons as an Associate Artist with California Shakespeare Theatre/6 seasons with Oregon Shakespeare Festival/7 seasons, here and there, with A.C.T. Regional work: Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep, Arena Stage, La MaMa, Portland Center Stage, The Lensic. Restorative justice work with premiers both with the men in blue in  San Quentin, and with formerly incarcerated young women through Community Works Rising Voices.

Victor Talmadge (He/Him, The Other Justice/Office Douglas/The Candidate) In the Bay Area, Mr. Talmadge has worked at Marin Shakespeare,  the Aurora Theater, Cal Shakes, Berkely Rep, ACT, Theater Works, San Francisco Playhouse, Z Space, OTP, The Magic Theater and Santa Cruz Shakespeare. He has worked extensively in New York and regional theaters and was on Broadway in the world premiere of David Mamet’s, November.  He played “The King” in the Tony Award winning production of the Broadway National Tour of The King and I and was seen as Scar in the Los Angeles production of The Lion King. Mr. Talmadge boasts extensive film and television credits as well and he was a recurring character on the TV series, Manhattan and Vegas.  As a playwright, his play, The Gate Of Heaven, was awarded The Nakashima Peace Prize.  It was the first live theater to be produced at The U.S. Holocaust Memorial and has been subsequently performed at The Old Globe Theater, Fords Theater, and The Annenberg Center, and various venues around the country. 

Marie- Claire Erdynast (She/Her, Stage Directions) 

Untitled, or The Rosaline Play examines how the opioid deaths of 21-year-old trap stars are romanticized like something out of Romeo & Juliet – and then leveraged for success on the Billboard Hot 100.

Leigh M. Marshall (she/her) is a multidisciplinary writer/performer and the Theater & Film Editor online for BOMB Magazine. Her plays have been selected for the Ground Floor Residency at Berkeley Rep, the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival (FAME HEAUX), the Examined Life Conference (LATERALITY), the G&PS Government Research Award, the Prairie Lights/International Writing Program Reading Series (MARAT’S DEAD), the Jumpstarting Tomorrow Award, the Epic Mega Grant from Unreal Engine, Live Design International, and the Prague Quadrennial (MEDIA CLOWN). She trained in classical acting at American Conservatory Theater and has performed at Arena Stage in DC, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Public Theater of New York, New Dramatists, New Conservatory Theatre Center, and elsewhere. BA: Stanford University. MFA: Iowa Playwrights Workshop.

In Opinion Emporium, Amy begrudgingly accompanies her friend Ethel to the Opinion Emporium thinking it will be a quick stop—a couple of questions asked, a couple of thoughts formed on topics of minor consequence. But then Ethel disappears, and Amy is left to go on a journey of her own to find her, nudged into action by an enterprising shoplifter.

Sloka Krishnan (he/him) is a playwright-lyricist interested in magic, extravagance, ritual, camp, and the disavowal of moral purity and coherent identity. His writing has been described as subversive, multilayered, and eviscerating (by a boy he once slept with) and as darkly surreal comedy (by a legitimate online publication). Now based in San Francisco, he was previously a 2020 recipient of an Artist Project Grant from the City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, a 2017-2018 Horizon Theatre Playwright Apprentice (Atlanta, GA), and a 2017 Lambda Literary Fellow in Playwriting. His full-length plays (THE BUGS, MAYBE POLITICS ARE OVER, THE GRAND TRANSSEXUAL DRAWETH NIGH) and shorter work have been developed and performed by Cutting Ball Theatre (San Francisco); Happy Accident Theatre, Horizon Theatre Company, Out Front Theatre, and Working Title Playwrights (Atlanta); Forum Theatre and the Rainbow Theatre Project (DC).