2021 LATINX NEW PLAY FESTIVAL .:. 9/3-9/5

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Catch Shaun Tuazon and the wonderful cast of (trans)formada as part of Amigos del Rep's 2021 LATINX NEW PLAY FESTIVAL!

(trans)formada will be presented as a virtual stream on Saturday, September 4, 2021 @ 12pm.

Theatre industry professionals are invited to join the festival with complimentary in-person or virtual passes. Request a complimentary virtual or in-person festival pass here.

Full details below:

2021 LATINX NEW PLAY FESTIVAL

September 3-5, 2021
Live In-Person AND Streamed Live Online!

San Diego Repertory Theatre and Amigos del REP are proud to announce the lineup for the Fifth Annual San Diego REP Latinx New Play Festival presented in-person and streamed live online, September 3-5, 2021. Below is the schedule of the 2021 Latinx New Play Festival including the four staged readings and the festival showcase production of Conjunto Blues.

Festival passes will be available soon. We highly value the work of our Latinx New Play Festival artists. So that we can continue to support the festival and its artists, we suggest that $50 is a fair value price for this year’s festival pass. However, it is equally important to us that anyone who wants to access the festival and the plays presented is able to do so. Feel free to select a price option, between $0 and $100, that best suits you and your current circumstances. Information on how to view the readings, spotlight performance and other events will be included in your purchase confirmation email.

Theatre industry professionals are invited to join the festival with complimentary in-person or virtual passes. Request a complimentary virtual or in-person festival pass here.


All times listed are PDT.

Friday, September 3rd 

4:00pm Directing Panel*

5:00pm Black Mexican by Rachel Lynett

7:00pm  Opening Reception*

 

Saturday, September 4th 

11:00am  Designer Showcase*

12:00pm (trans)formada by lily gonzales

2:00pm Dramaturgy Panel*

3:00pm Get Your Pink Hands Off Me Sucka and Give Me Back by Daniella De Jesús

6:00pm Conjunto Blues spotlight performance, by Nicolas R. Valdez
7:30pm Reception

 

Sunday, September 5th

11:00am Historical Context Panel*

12:00pm Local Project Panel*

1:00pm A Skeptic and a Bruja by Rosa Fernandez

3:00pm Closing Playwrights Panel*

*Panel descriptions provided below play summaries
 

Purchase festival passes for in-person and online events here.

Black Mexican

Who gets to be a part of Latinidad? While Valery fights to prove Ximena isn't Cuban, Alia has given up fighting that she is Latine. As the women in this play discover the truth about themselves and each other, they also have to face the internal bias that allowed a white woman to be Cuban but didn't allow a Belizean to call herself Latine.

 

Rachel Lynett (Playwright) is a queer Afro-Latinx playwright who writes dark comedies about complex, complicated women of color. Her recent playwriting credits include commissions with Barrington Stage Theatre Company (HOLY GROUND), Florida Studio Theatre (CARRY ME and AS YOU ARE), and Theatre Lab (LAST NIGHT). Other credits include LAST NIGHT presented as a reading with Theatre Lab (2020); HERE BE DRAGONS presented as a reading with Capital Rep (2019); YOU WERE MINE presented as a reading at the Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival presented by Theatre Prometheus (2019); HE DID IT presented as a reading with Equity Library Theatre, Chicago (2018) and presented as a workshop production with University of Central Florida's Pegasus PlayLab; REFUGE as part of Z Space's Problematic Play Festival (2018); GOOD BAD PEOPLE as part of Talk Back Theatre's Reading Series (2018), part of American Stage Theatre Company's 21st Century New Voices New Play Festival (2018), part of Jackalope Theatre's CIRCLE UP series (2017) and as a reading as part of Unicorn Theatre Plays In Progress (2018); WELL-INTENTIONED WHITE PEOPLE as the Michigan premiere with Matrix Theatre (2018), the world premiere with Barrington Stage Theatre Company (2018), the Downstage Left Residency with StageLeft (2017), part of Orlando Shakespeare New Play Festival (2017), and receiving honorable mention for the 2017 Kilroys for her play (2017). Her play, ABORTION ROAD TRIP received a workshop production produced by Theatre Prometheus as part of Capital Fringe where it won Best Comedy (2017) and then was later presented by Theatre Prometheus, as a part of the 2017 Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival. Rachel Lynett is also the 2018 Recipient of the Arkansas Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship and one of the 2020 recipients for the Artist 360 grant.

 

(trans)formada

 

Sam is gay, a little trans, and a child of Mexican immigrants living in the Texas Hill Country. They're trying to figure out how to express their gender -- to themselves and to the world. Just as Sam is building the courage to present their gender to their mother, they go to a high school party. Everyone is way too into each other and drinking way too much. Amidst the debauchery, a brave and strange set of rituals ensues.

 

lily gonzales (Playwright) (they/them) is a playwright from Texas who graduated from UT Austin with a Bachelor's in Theater & Dance / English. Their work has been developed or read at The John F. Kennedy Center, Teatro Vivo, Repertorio Español, Stages, San Diego Rep, AlterTheater Ensemble, and The Workshop Theater.

 

Get Your Pink Hands Off Me Sucka and Give Me Back

 

While studying abroad in Spain, Solandra, a young Dominican-American woman, finds herself alone in the throne room of Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand, whose portraits come alive, transporting her to 1492. Meanwhile, on the island of what we now refer to as “hispaniola,” Anacaona awakens, terrorized by a violent nightmare, which she soon learns is a prophetic dream. As Anacaona struggles to save her community from invasion, Solandra contends with her racial identity, attraction to older white men and their attraction to her.

 

Daniella De Jesús (Playwright) (she/her/hers) is an actor/writer from Bushwick, Brooklyn. As an actor, she is best known for her role as Zirconia on Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black.” A member of the Public Theater’s 2018-19 Emerging Writers Group, her plays include “Pa’ Ti Tengo De Todo” (The Public Theater’s Spotlight Series), "Get Your Pink Hands Off Me Sucka and Give Me Back (FKA Columbus Play)", "The Thief Cometh" (United SoloFestival), and "Mambo Sauce,” which was a semi-finalist for Clubbed Thumb’s 2018 commission. She’s also the creator of the new web series “Talk To Me” on IGTV. De Jesús is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Drama.

 

Conjunto Blues

 

Conjunto Blues, written and performed by Nicolás R. Valdez, is a play that explores the social and historical conditions that led to the development of Conjunto music as an expression of cultural resistance and liberation. This story centers on playwright, actor, and musician Nicolás Valdez’s personal experience growing up in the Conjunto music scene and is loosely based on the relationship with his grandfather, himself a Conjunto music aficionado. Audiences are taken through a shifting landscape of memory and reflection that is highlighted throughout with traditional music performed live by Valdez and accompanied by musicians on Bajo Sexto (12 string Mexican guitar), Tololoche (upright bass), and drums. Filled with a cast of colorfully poignant characters, Conjunto Blues is a deeply personal performance for audiences of all ages and backgrounds that is sure to entertain and educate.

 

Nicolás R Valdez (Playwright & Performer) is a San Antonio, Texas based interdiscplinary performance artist with over 20 years experience in cultural arts activism. His introduction to the stage came early when, at the age of 9, Nicolas was trained in traditional Conjunto music by master accordionist Valerio Longoria Sr. By the age of 15 he was an active member of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s youth theater company Grupo Animo, writing and performing in original staged works. His training continued at the University of Wisconsin Madison and later through the practical experience of working with other artists around the country. Over the years, Nicolas has developed his own unique style incorporating music, poetry and theater into culturally relevant performances that speak to the experiences of the communities along the US-Mexico border.

 

A Skeptic and a Bruja

 

Priscilla buys a home in the middle of nowhere after losing her life partner with the  hope of turning it into a lucrative Bnb. When she starts having paranormal experiences, she calls on paranormal investigators Sam and Jess from "A Skeptic and a Bruja" to help her. The women get more than any of them expected and more than they will ever be able to forget.

 

Rosa Fernandez (Playwright) lives in Buffalo, NY full time with her husband and two children. She is an associate member of the Dramatist Guild and a two time participant of the Emmanuel Fried New Play Workshop facilitated by Road Less Traveled Productions in Buffalo, NY. She attended Brooklyn College for a BFA in Theater. Her play, Curse of the Puerto Ricans was a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and runner up in the MetLife Nuestras Voces Playreading Series for Repertorio Español. It has also made the 2020 Kilroys list and will hopefully receive it's World Premiere in 2021 at Bishop Arts Theatre Center in Dallas, TX.
 

 

The San Diego REP Latinx New Play Festival, hosted by the Amigos del REP, is a celebration of engaging, dynamic and enlightening new plays by Latinx playwrights from across the United States. Submissions are accepted from Latinx playwrights representing an array of genres, styles and experiences highlighted by both emerging and veteran playwrights.

Questions? Please email [email protected] or call 619.544.1000. 


 

San Diego Rep Latinx New Play Festival reading of "Guadalupe in the Guestroom."



San Diego REP's Latinx New Play Festival is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.



San Diego REP's Latinx New Play Festival is supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov

San Diego REP's Latinx New Play Festival is supported in part by the Peggy and Robert Matthews Foundation.