Alexandria Sepulveda
Roxanne Schroeder-Arce
Oscar Franco
Bárbara Mojica
Juan Leyva
Festival Manager / Graphic Design
Board Member
Board Member
Board Member
Board Member
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April 27th
“Cocina Latina” by:
Joey Florez
Playwright: Joey Florez Jr. Is an Atlantabased actor and playwright. Having earned his BA in English where he studied systems of oppression and liberation through a linguistic lens, adding a minor in Religious Studies and a Certificate in Latin American Studies towards gaining a deep understanding of the stories we tell, and the ones we don’t. He is currently pursuing his MFA in Writing for the Stage and Screen at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. His writing aims to lift voices long-held in vacuums, combining his love for his home, culture, and Spanglish tongue.
Play Summary:
Laura’s overworked, overqualified, and underpaid; a single mom stuck working for her ex’s family, desperately longing for time with her daughter, and a menu she’s proud of. With her former brother-in-law running the restaurant into the ground, Laura leans on her team to make this Cinco de Mayo bigger than ever and finally get back to black. When the restaurant falls under investigation for improperly used pandemic loans, Laura must find out where the money’s gone or face losing everything she has left.
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Cocina Latina
By Joey Florez
Ana Laura Santiago
Michael Avila Bárbara Mojica
Director Dramaturg
Stage Manager
CAST ROLE
Idelisse Collazo
Cesar Díaz
Previ Aguirre
Néstor Daniel Almanza
Julián Gámez – Arizola
Verónica Pomata
Elda Acevedo Estefanía
Bárbara Mojica
Laura
Hugo
Ricardo
Oscar
Marcus
Morgan
Sally
Stage Directions
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April 28th
“Growing Up With Big Hair” by:
Diana Mucci
Playwright: Born and raised in Chicago's Southside, Diana is an Afro-Latina author, playwright, producer, performer and educator. She has written, published and/or produced short stories, children's books, plays and indie films. In 2005, Diana’s first play, I'm a Female. . . Seeking a Male, co-produced by PROP THTR and New Horizons Entertainment in Chicago, earned accolades from local press, including the Chicago Sun-Times. Diana revised the play, now entitled Come 'n Go, and co-produced a successful premiere in 2018 in conjunction with her production company, Back of the Yards Entertainment and Aleatoric Theatre. In 2020, New World Theatre selected Diana’s monologue, “SPIT”, for their production of 8:46 – A Time to Listen, featuring the work of Black playwrights. In 2021, Diana's 10 min play, “Breaking News” was produced along with the works of other Latinx playwrights by Back of the Yards Entertainment in their first Latinx Playwright’s Festival. Generation Women invited Diana to perform her “Breaking News” monologue in June 2021 at the Caveat Theater in New York City. Diana's credits also include co-producing the indie film, Bloom which premiered at the Chicago Latino Film Festival, won best drama at the Palm Springs Festival, and earned a Women in Film grant. She just completed her new play, Growing up with Big Hair based on the true story of her experience growing up in an all-White neighborhood. She is a member of The Dramatist Guild of America, the Amigos del Rep Council, Chicago Dramatists, and the Playwright’s Collective with A New World of Theater.
Play Summary: Growing up with Big Hair is a play based on the true story of a young girl’s journey growing up Latina in the middle of an absolute Black & White world. From the time she moves into an all-White Chicago neighborhood, Anna finds herself wrestling with her hair as she wrestles with her identity. With a little laughter and a lot of Dippity-Do, she struggles to find her place in-between. When she discovers her family’s secret on her 18th birthday, she is finally confronted with the truth of who she really is.
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Growing Up With Big Hair
By Diana Mucci
Oscar Franco
Director
Dramaturg
Jelisa Jay Robinson
Kenedi Delgado
CAST
Si Mon’ Emmett
Bárbara Mojica
Orlando Gonzalez
Adriana Adame
Jorge Galan
Terrell McAfee
Kenedi Delgado
Stage Manager
ROLE
Anna / Narrator
Mami Dad
Grandma / Lizette
Danny / Ken Clerk / Receptionist
Stage Directions
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April 29th
“el bailador”
by: Mateo Hernandez
Playwright: Mateo Hernandez (he/they) is a queer, Latinx theatre maker, applied theatre practitioner,pedagogue, and scholar currently residing on the ancestral lands of the Tonkawa, Lipan-Apache, Karankawa, Comanche, and Coahuiltecan people, also known as central Texas. They are an MFA candidate in Drama & Theatre for Youth & Communities at The University of Texas at Austin where their research interests include queering pedagogies and performance
through transgender epistemologies and queer feminist abolitionist practices in art making. As a playwright, his play “spayce boys” has been chosen for the 2020 Ingenio New Play Festival (Milagro Theatre, Teatro Vivo, Cara Mia Theatre) and the 2021 New Plays for Young Audiences: BIPOC Initiative (NYU Steinhardt). Their creative writing revolves around issues of gender and sexuality within Latinx/Chicanx culture. Mateo is also a company member with FYI (For Youth Inquiry) a performance company in Chicago, IL making participatory theatre around issues of reproductive justice.
Play Summary:
el bailador is a play for all audiences that centers a young Chicanx boy named Pablo who loves to dance but only does so in the privacy of his room. Afraid of what his family might think, Pablo forms a personal relationship with every physical space in his family’s apartment. When Pablo, his brother and his parents must move into his grandma’s house along with his uncle and cousin, his anxiety is exacerbated by his family being around every corner in the new house. Pablo has nowhere to explore his self-expression and grief of his recent grandpa’s passing but is finding new musical inspirations through the Tejano music that fills his grandma’s house. But he is quickly asked to confront his anxieties and trepidation when a family quince hosts the baile at his grandma’s house.
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Juan Leyva
Papakō: The Journey
by: Maria F. Rocha, Roxanne Schroeder-Arce and Genevieve Schroeder-Arce
Juan Leyva
Bella Varella
Astrid Rangel
Director
Dramaturg
Stage Manager
CAST ROLE
Gabriel Gomez Reyes
Juan Leyva
Bárbara Mojica
Davina Silva
Angela Toelle
Cherry T Mendoza
David Segura
Astrid Rangel
Joseph
Juan Ancestors
Gloria
Clarissa
Ana
Tio Beto
Stage Directions
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April 29th
“Diving Board” by: Malena Pennycook
Playwright: Malena Pennycook (she/they) is a Latine writer & performer currently pursuing an MFA in Playwriting at The University of Texas at Austin. Malena creates formally inventive theatre that explores violence, bodies and femininity in the American and Global South. Their plays include
Diving Board (O’Neill Finalist 2022; CRASHBOX Austin); Two Apprentices (Kennedy Center: Latinx Playwriting Award, Rosa Parks Playwriting Award 2022); and their solo show Am I Busy Yet? (Cosmic Cherry Arts NYC 2022; Oregon Fringe 2021). As a performer-deviser, Malena has developed new projects with The Public’s Under the Radar, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, The Flea Theatre, Fresh Ground Pepper, The Brick, Dixon Place and more. Malena was a 2022 New Harmony Project resident, 2019 Richie Jackson Artistic Fellow and a 2017 Santa Cruz Shakespeare Acting Fellow. BFA: NYU Tisch Experimental Theatre Wing.
Play Summary:
From the top of a ten meter diving board, 17 year old Annie sees the face of a man ripple across the water and, subsequently, in everything she does. Joanna thinks it’s God, Tiernan’s too focused on States to pay attention and Rico just wants to get laid. Diving Board is an athletic new play about the terror of young womanhood and the ways that we cope with the things in the shadows.
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Rolando Vela
Diving Board
by: Malena Pennycook
Patrick Shaw
Kayla Alonzo
CAST
Carolina Vela
Mia Martinez
Jorge Salinas
Lucia McMahon
Carlos Schroeder-Arce
Oscar Franco
Director
Dramaturg
Stage Manager
ROLE
Annie Tiernan Rico
Joanna
Coach Nate / Mr. Moreno / Announcer
Stage Directions
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Special Thanks
The Dougherty Arts Center
Graciela Reyna
Jelisa Jay Robinson
Michael Galvan
Eva McQuade
Heather Bishop
Jesus Valles
City of Austin Cultural Contracts
Texas Commission on the Arts
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