The Playwrights' Lab is the new plays development arm of 142 Throckmorton and includes a dozen Bay Area playwrights who meet regularly to discuss and critique each other's work.  All readings are produced with professional actors and directors and observe the Actors Equity Staged Reading code.

For information or questions about the Playwrights' Lab please email playwrightslab@142throckmortontheatre.org

Current members of Playwrights' Lab are:

Charles Brousse: Former  theater critic for the Pacific Sun and Marin Independent Journal; artistic consultant to Mill Valley Live Arts; prize-winning playwright; founding producer/artistic director of Theater Artists of Marin, where he specialized in new-play development.

Brad Erickson: playwright and theatre administrator; Executive Director of Theatre Bay Area, the non-profit member organization serving Bay Area theatres, dance companies and individual artists.  His play, "The War at Home," seen as a reading of a short play in the Lab's first Writers with Attitude and developed into a full-length play, was produced at New Conservatory Theatre Center in October/November, 2006.  His play, "American Dream, el sueno del otro lado," was also developed through the WWA series and the Lab, with continuing development at New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco, where it will receive its world premier in 2012.  His newest work, "Milagro," also developed through the WWA series and the Lab, was recently supported by a writers residency at The Studios of Key West, where he finished the play's first draft.

Dyke Garrison: playwright, actor and director; former president of the Board of the Playwrights Foundation; author of short pieces as well as full length works including a show about Pearl Buck, for and with Valerie Harper on Broadway, and a play with music based on the life and music of Ella Fitzgerald at TheaterWorks in Hartford, Conn. summer, 2005.  This work is slated for productions at San Jose Rep and San Diego Rep.

Hal Gelb: A writer/director/dramaturg who's worked in theater, television, print media and film, and currently is The Lab's Producing Director. For the stage, he's directed plays by Pinter, Mamet, Churchill, Hare, Fugard, Guare, Horovitz, Bullins, Genet, Moliere and Shakespeare, as well as many new plays and works by members of the Playwrights' Lab. His theatre writing includes Walls of Time, & Pigs Can Fly, Love Missle, Jesse's Play, Executive Ardor: The True Story of Bill and Monica,and an adaptation of The Misanthrope. He also collaborated on the translation of Iranian exile Ghazi Rabahavi's Stoning and the Samuel French version of Dario Fo's We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!  Gelb's written for many of the Bay Area's magazines and newspapers, the New York Times and has been the West Coast theater critic for The Nation. His media work has been shown by PBS, KQED, KTVU, KOFY, New York's Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Film Festival, the Brussels Conference on the Environment and United Nations agencies.It was his idea and early work that transformed Theater Bay Area from a group serving individual artists into an organization that serves the needs of both those individuals and the Bay Area's theater companies. 

Lynne Kaufman: Twenty full length plays, which have won numerous awards and have been premiered at the Magic, TheatreWorks, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Fountain Theatre, Florida Studio, and the Abingdon Theatre; prizes and awards include the Will Glickman Award, NEA Fund for New American Plays, Dramalog, Best plays by Women Playwrights and the William Inge Festival Award. Her plays have been published by Smith and Krause, Dramatists Play Service and Dramatic Publishing.She also has three published novels to her credit. Lynne teaches writing at OLLI U.C. Berkeley and California Institute of Integral Studies.

John F. Levin: many plays and screenplays to his credit, including "Pacheco," the story of the Seminole Wars for Warner Brothers (Danny Glover, producer); "Dust in the Wind" (Wayne Wang, director; Oliver Stone, producer); "South of Market"  for American Zoetrope, (Francis Ford Coppola, producer); "Veracruz," premiered at Pear Theatre in Mountain View, 2004; "1741," the musical, with music and lyrics by Bruce Barthol, presented as a staged reading at the Throckmorton. His new play "Snowbirds" is scheduled for presentation this fall; his novel, "The Great Divide" (with co-author F.R. Robinson) was published in 2004.

Cary Pepper: has had work presented throughout the United States and in Europe. "Small Things" won the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival 2006 One Act Play Contest and has been published in Best American Short Plays 2005–2006. "House of the Holy Moment" was part of the 2008 Bay One-Acts Festival and has been published in Best American Short Plays 2007–2008. His work also appears in Audition Monologues for Student Actors II (Meriwether Publishing), and Scenes and Monologs from the Best New International Plays (Meriwether Publishing). Most recently, he was nominated for the 2010 David and Lynn Angell Humanitas Comedy Fellowship, and his full-length play "How It Works" received a staged reading as a Finalist (6 scripts chosen from 392) at Dayton Playhouse’s FutureFest 2010. In addition to the Playwrights’ Lab, Cary is a member of the Dramatists Guild, and a founding member of the San Francisco Bay Area playwrights group ThroughLine.

Martin Russell: theater and film critic for the San Francisco Examiner in a previous life, his plays have been performed in ACT's Plays in Progress, One Act Theater, Berkeley Stage, Theater Artists of Marin, the Marsh, Marin Theatre Company Short Plays Festival, Off Off Broadway, ReOrient Festival, and Squaw Valley Community of Writers. His one-act "Eros is Sore Spelled Backwards," seen in the Lab’s fourth Writers with Attitude, was performed by Miami’s City Theater, and in a mainstage production by Actors Theatre of Louisville, who also staged it at the Kennedy Center.

Marilyn Shaw: devoted to the cause of new plays; co-founder, PlayBrokers; board member of many non-profit arts groups; long career in arts administration and fundraising, currently sitting as a member of the Literary Committee at the Magic.

Bernard Weiner: After 16 years as theatre critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, returned to playwriting, directing and dramaturging. Co-Founder and Coordinator of The Playwrights' Lab. Author of numerous plays, among them "Playing for Peace," "Running in the Wake," and "The Big D."  Author of four published poetry chapbooks, and an award-winning photographer. In his spare time (ha!), co-founder and co-editor of the political-analysis website The Crisis Papers www.crisispapers.org