In recent years, I've been more involved in community-devised theater than seeing my original works in production. Please do feel free to contact me for information about my own scripts.
Here's a taste of the communty work:
In 2014 and 2015, the Pasadena Playhouse commissioned ImaginAction to create community-engagement theater. Latino community members, almost all without acting experience, joined us for workshops and discussions led by Hector Aristizabal and Sayda Trujillo. Community members performed the bilingual scripts I wrote based on their ideas and concerns. The first production, Estamos aqui...Where do we go? about immigration concerns toured local venues where audience members were invited to intervene and change the action. Click on the title to see a short video about the Theater of the Oppressed process and the production. The second production, Lottery/Loteria, brought together people living in Pasadena's District 5 and was a site-specific play using a house built in 1887 as our stage. (Photos at bottom of page)
In 2015, with the production of Second Chances, we explored the effect of torture and exile on the next generation.
February 26th and 27th, 2013, torture survivors from Cameroon, El Salvador, Guatemala, Russia, and Uganda told their stories of surviving ordeals and rebuilding their lives in Los Angeles. They aren't trained as actors, but they took the stage with confidence, speaking publicly for the first time thanks to the direction of Hector Aristizabal and Alessia Cartoni. It was an honor to meet these brave men and women and put the script together from their own words captured in extensive interviews. The project was supported with a grant from the LA Department of Cultural Affairs and with the cooperation of the Program for Torture Victims, providing healing and hope since 1980.
February 26th and 27th, 2013, torture survivors from Cameroon, El Salvador, Guatemala, Russia, and Uganda told their stories of surviving ordeals and rebuilding their lives in Los Angeles. They aren't trained as actors, but they took the stage with confidence, speaking publicly for the first time thanks to the direction of Hector Aristizabal and Alessia Cartoni. It was an honor to meet these brave men and women and put the script together from their own words captured in extensive interviews. The project was supported with a grant from the LA Department of Cultural Affairs and with the cooperation of the Program for Torture Victims, providing healing and hope since 1980.
Nightwind, created with Hector Aristizabal, has toured US cities and about 50 countries around the world as part of the global movement to end the practice of torture.
Here are a couple of scenes from Lottery/Loteria, a community-devised play about gentrication.
Header photo from ImaginAction's collaboration in Senegal with the company Kaddu Yaraax.