Cimientos 2023: IATI Theater's Staged Readings Series (June 8 to June 11)

Cimientos Play Development Program at IATI Theater in New York is a unique opportunity for global playwrights. Out of hundreds of submissions, only ten playwrights are selected to develop their plays with us. This program is dedicated to pushing the envelope of traditional playwriting and explore what IATI calls vanguardia. The program provides the selected playwrights with resources such as mentorship, workshop-panels, and a platform to present their work to audiences.

IATI's ultimate goal is to cultivate and support innovative and unconventional voices in the theater community. IATI believes in pushing boundaries and supporting artists who challenge the status quo.

Join IATI for the Cimientos 2023 Staged Readings Series between June 8-11, 2023. Spotlighting this exciting curation of national and cross-continental contemporary writers. For information about the plays including getting your tickets for any or all of the readings, visit here.

Location: IATI Theater Studio, 64 E. 4th St 2 Floor, New York, NY, 10003.

I am delighted that my play, Waiting for Godínez, is a featured play in Cimientos 2023 with a live reading scheduled for June 9, 8:00 p.m. (Eastern). If you are in New York, pick up a ticket and enjoy an evening of theatre.

***

May 22 was the book birthday of the Spanish translation of my short-story collection, How to Date a Flying Mexican under the title of Cómo Salir con un Mexicano Volador (University of Nevada Press). The Spanish edition was translated by Cinta García de la Rosa. Having my work available in Spanish means a lot to this old pocho. Perfect for the classroom and libraries! Get your copy now from your favorite bookstore or online seller.

No more WAITING

By Daniel A. Olivas

“What harm have you done to them? You are as much of this country as you are of México. But you are not home in either place. Ni de aquí, ni de allá.” 

                                                                                            –Isabel, in WAITING

***

On Saturday, I sat in the courtyard of the Atwater Village Theatre to watch the world premiere of WAITING, the one-act pandemic version of my play, WAITING FOR GODÍNEZ. All pandemic protocols were followed (i.e., masking was strongly recommended, ticketholders sat in “pod” seating with their respective groups, no reception afterwards, etc.). The production, which runs each weekend through August 15, stars Shanelle Darlene, Carolina J. Flores, Valentina Guerra, Amir Levi, and Raul Vega Martinez. Produced by Playwrights’ Arena and directed by Daphnie Sicre, I sat in awe as five talented, hardworking actors brought my play to life. I will never forget the experience.

Jon Lawrence Rivera is the founder and artistic director of Playwrights’ Arena which is dedicated to discovering, nurturing and producing bold new works for the stage written exclusively by Los Angeles playwrights. Daphnie Sicre is an assistant professor at Loyola Marymount University in the Theatre Arts Program where she teaches directing, and theatre for social justice.

Many wonderful theatermakers have a hand in bringing my play to the stage. The associate producer is Natasha Kaiserman. Costumes are by Mylette Nora, and the sound and set design is by Matt Richter. Letitia Chang serves as the production’s stage manager.

Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s iconic Godot play and our country’s anti-immigrant policies, this play explores the meaning—and absurdities—of identity and belonging.

Here are a few photos from our dress rehearsal and also a small, informal celebration after the world premiere where most of the actors, the director, and some loved ones joined in. The first weekend sold out, so if you wish to see this production, visit this link for ticket information.

 

WAITING FOR GODÍNEZ is featured in The Road Theatre’s 12th Annual Summer Playwrights Festival

The Road Theatre Company is thrilled to announce the 12th annual Summer Playwrights Festival streaming live starting on Thursday, July 15 through Sunday, August 1.

Did you know that The Road Theatre Company’s Summer Playwrights Festival is:

•    26 plays in 12 days!

•    The largest playwright’s festival in the U.S.

•    Featuring plays by Oscar, Tony, and Pulitzer Prize Winner JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY (“Moonstruck,” “Doubt: A Parable”), KERMIT FRAZIER (“Kernel of Sanity,” (Ghostwriter”), 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award Winner NATHAN ALAN DAVIS and many more!

•    Followed by a moderated discussion with the playwright, director and cast.

•    Continuing online as theatres anticipate reopening this fall.

•    Streaming live on The Road Theatre’s website and YouTube channel

The Twelfth Annual Summer Playwrights Festival (SPF12) STREAMING SCHEDULE can be found at this link.

I am honored that my play, WAITING FOR GODÍNEZ, is featured in this year’s festival. It will stream on Sunday, July 25, at 6:00 p.m. (Pacific). It is directed by Sara Guerrero. For more information on my play and the wonderful cast, go here. At the end of the play, there will be a talk back with me as well as the director and cast who are pictured below after one of our Zoom rehearsals (top row: Christine Joëlle, Richard Soto, Presciliana Esparolini; middle row: Frank Collison, Citlalli “Lalli” Sanchez, Sara Guerrero; bottom: Rebecca Bermudez).

CLOSED CAPTIONING: Closed captioning will be provided for both the readings and talkbacks.

STREAMING PLATFORMS:

www.roadtheatre.org | www.youtube.com/roadtheatrecompany

THE ROAD THEATRE COMPANY: Located in the heart of the North Hollywood Arts District, L.A. County’s fastest growing arts community, The Road is an ensemble of 150+ theatre artists fiercely committed to the creation and development of new plays. To further that mission, The Road has launched Under Construction, a diverse collaborative group of new and established playwrights dedicated to socially and politically relevant storytelling for the American stage. Celebrating 30 years of groundbreaking work and led by Founding Artistic Director Taylor Gilbert along with Artistic Director Sam Anderson, The Road is a multi-award-winning theatre named as one of the top ten intimate theatre companies in Los Angeles (LA Weekly). Visit www.roadtheatre.org for more info.

Playwrights' Arena presents the world premiere of my play, WAITING

By Daniel A. Olivas

In the summer of 2018, I wrote a New York Times opinion piece about my fictional response to Donald Trump’s election in the form of my 2017 dystopian short story “The Great Wall” where the President has finally constructed his long-promised southern border wall, and used the adjoining detention center to separate undocumented parents from their children. I argued that a year after creating this fictional, horrific world, my dystopian tale had essentially become a reality. In other words, for many immigrants and their children, the dystopia was here.

But it got worse. Trump flailed and sputtered—usually in late-night or early-morning Tweets—attacking anyone who opposed his policies and laying blame on others for failing to fulfill his promise to build the wall. He eventually unilaterally highjacked billions of dollars of the military budget to fund his wall. Even some Republicans were aghast at such self-help from an increasingly volatile president.

A year later, I believed that “dystopia” no longer fully described what we were witnessing. In my mind, the irrational hatred aimed at immigrants by Trump and his followers amounted to absurdity in its purest form. Merriam-Webster defines “absurd” as “having no rational or orderly relationship to human life: MEANINGLESS.” Under the Trump administration, we were certainly living in absurd times.

For over two decades, I had used fiction and poetry to depict and honor my Mexican American culture and experience all the while taking aim at the systematic bigotry my community has suffered for over two centuries in this country. But Trump took it to a new level. Don’t get me wrong: his thuggish, ignorant bigotry was nothing new. But to witness such unabashed hatred of immigrants—and anyone who looked like an immigrant—proclaimed and implemented as policy at the highest levels of our government in this day and age was flabbergasting.

So, in the summer of 2019, I was inspired to write my first play, Waiting for Godínez. Looking to Samuel Beckett’s iconic Godot play as the framing of my tale, Estragon, Vladimir, Pozzo, and Lucky were now embodied in my characters Jesús, Isabel, Piso, and Afortunada. In my play, Jesús is kidnapped each night by ICE and put into a cage. But the immigration agents forget to lock the cage, so Jesús escapes and makes his way back to Isabel as they wait for Godínez in a city park. It is a wholly different play, of course, but Mr. Beckett’s absurdist spirit runs through my work.

I wrote it almost in a fever—it was the literary equivalent of a primal scream. I immersed myself in Beckett’s text and watched many filmed versions of the Godot play available online. According to my journal, I started writing my play on July 23, 2019, with a working title of Waiting for Gómez. On August 3, I changed the title to Waiting for Godínez because, as I explained in my journal, it “fits better than ‘Gómez.’” The next day, I proclaimed in my notes: “Finished Waiting for Godínez!” In other words, I wrote the play in 13 days.

I then went about the business of submitting it to theatres and play competitions. I had never written a play before, and I do not have an MFA. So, I had to teach myself how to write a play and then figure out how to get someone to read it. In my research, Playwrights’ Arena looked like a potential home for what I was trying to do, so I submitted my play on August 7, 2019. The odds were stacked against me. But then remarkably, ten months later, I received an email invitation for my play to be included in Playwrights’ Arena 2020 Summer Series. I was suddenly a playwright.

That acceptance resulted in Waiting for Godínez being read on July 5, 2020, via Zoom, by professional actors and directed by Dr. Daphnie Sicre, a drama professor at Loyola Marymount University. I was bitten by the playwriting bug, and there was no turning back. I was invited the next month to submit a new draft of my play that addressed several notes made by Playwrights’ Arena’s artistic director, Jon Lawrence Rivera, and literary managers, Jaisey Bates and Zharia O’Neal. I quickly turned around a new draft and submitted it. But as I had learned from my research, there was no assurance that Playwrights’ Arena would make the commitment to fully stage my play. I was fine with that. My experience was already beyond anything I could have imagined, and I felt deeply gratified that my artistic challenge to our country’s anti-immigrant policies reached an audience, albeit a small one.

I started on a second play as part of a playwriting group sponsored by another local theatre. Then in November 2020, I received an email from Playwrights’ Arena asking for a Zoom meeting to discuss Waiting for Godínez. We were, at that point, well into the pandemic without widely available vaccines. In-person theatre was almost non-existent except for a few pandemic-friendly productions such as Playwrights’ Arena’s Garage Theatre where a small audience could watch a live play from the safety of their cars.

At the meeting, Jon gave me the wonderful news that Playwrights’ Arena wanted to produce Waiting for Godínez but I might have to wait a year or two for that to happen. Alternatively, I could rewrite it into a shorter, pandemic version—essentially trimming it by half—for a Garage Theatre-style production for the summer of 2021. After consulting with my director, Dr. Sicre, and my wife (not in that order), I decided to take on the challenge and rewrite my play for an earlier production.

The result is Waiting, which I like to call my pandemic remix of Waiting for Godínez. It is about half as long as the original, and the pandemic is now part of the storyline. In fact, the pandemic theme served an important role in helping me to trim and rewrite it into a shorter play that maintained the spirit of the original but that stood on its own as a separate and new theatrical work.

And as Playwrights’ Arena’s production of Waiting moves forward, we are still witnessing the residual violence done to immigrant families by the Trump administration. And the current administration—though eons better than the last—is still grappling with the harsh realities of a broken immigration system and the cruel politicization of the border.

Through absurdist humor, I hope that my play shines a bright light on the human rights tragedy suffered by immigrants while also humanizing that suffering. My goal is to give a voice and face to those members of our community who deserve to be respected and appreciated for their humanity. In other words, though I looked to Beckett’s absurdist theatre for inspiration, I actually do believe that there is something to be done. The alternative is too much for me to accept.

***

Waiting will have its world premiere on Saturday, July 24, and will run through August 15, 2021, at the Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90039. For show times and ticket information, visit Playwrights’ Arena’s page for this play. Tickets are now available.

Chuy’s Speech: “I want it to stop. No more cages, no more escaping, no more swollen feet.”

By Daniel A. Olivas

In my play, Waiting for Godínez, each night, immigration officials kidnap Jesús (aka Chuy) and throw him in a cage with the intent of deporting him. But each time, Jesús escapes and makes it back to the city park to be with Isabel (aka Chavalita) to wait for the mysterious Godínez. Inspired by Beckett’s iconic Godot play but with humor deeply steeped in Latinx culture, Waiting for Godínez explores the meaning—and absurdities—of identity and belonging.

My play previously went through development after its first reading with Playwrights’ Arena last year (directed by Dr. Daphnie Sicre). The current version of the play was chosen to be in The Road Theatre’s Summer Playwrights Festival and will stream via Zoom in a reading on Sunday, July 25 at 6:00 PM PST. This version is directed by Sara Guerrero. For more information on how you may watch it, please visit the Festival’s page.

One of the ways the play developed after that first 2020 reading with Playwrights’ Arena resulted in my writing of a new speech for Jesús/Chuy where he goes into the horrendous details of his capture by immigration agents. After sitting through rehearsals and watching the actors perform this portion of the play, I was in tears. The actors brought to life the anguish and absurdity of one person’s existence as he is hunted and hounded because of his immigration status. I want to share that speech with you now, and I hope you will make time to watch the entire play on July 25: 

JESÚS

(Sighs, resigned to ISABEL’s desire to hear all the details. Stands, limps to center stage, looks up at the tree, thinking, turns to audience, envisions the events he is about to recount, starting slowly, assuredly, but as his tale continues, he grows more agitated, frightened.)

Last night, you sat under that tree promising to keep watch over me as I sleep on this bench. You said, “Chuy, my dear friend, you have nothing to worry about. Te prometo. A promise from me is as good as gold.” That is what you say every night: Good as gold. So, I believed you. Why not? We have been friends since we were little children, and you have never lied to me. Pues, I closed my eyes, I was safe, and sleep came to me. And then it happened: I felt strong hands grab my arms, my legs, my head! These strong men and women –- agents -- in green uniforms lifted me from the bench. I struggled! I tried to call your name, but nothing came from my mouth. I hoped that you would see what was happening to me! I twisted my head even as one of the agents squeezed it with strong hands. And then I saw you! Asleep, snoring under that pinche tree! A carefree baby! I tried to scream, but my tongue was dead within my mouth. The agents tightened their grip, and carried me away. And you snored! They took me to a big, black van, threw me in the back with all of these men, women, and children. Los niños estaban llorando. And the agents piled into the front seat, and laughed at us. The driver said: “You are going home now.” Home! But I was already home, here in this park with you. ¡Contigo! And they drove throughout the night until suddenly we stopped, and an agent opened the back of the van. The other agents pulled us out, one by one, and herded us to a row of small cages. And one by one, they put us each into our own cage, so small, I could not stand, I had to crouch. The children kept crying, then their parents started to cry, too. And one by one, the agents closed the cages with a loud clang and they laughed at us. ¿Entiendes? The more we cried, the louder the agents laughed. And as we whimpered, the agents congratulated each other on a good job. Some lit cigarettes. Then slowly, they wandered off, laughing, joking, proud of themselves. ¡Qué valientes! Finally, we could hear them no longer. And after an hour or so, in those cold, dark cages, the others quieted down, and eventually the crying was replaced with soft, sad snoring. The children and their parents, all in their own cages, were tired, and all they could do was sleep. ¡Pero no dormí! I refused to sleep. I needed to come back here, to you, Chavalita. I needed to stay awake and come up with a plan. And then it happened. As I tried to get comfortable, crouching in that cage, to plot my escape, I leaned against the cage door, and it fell open! I could not believe my luck! Those babosos forgot to lock my cage! I crept out, on my hands and knees like a baby, and then stood, like a man. I looked at the pobrecitos in their cages, snoring softly, and my heart broke. But what could I do? I have no doubt the agents did not forget to lock all of the cages. That would make no sense. So, I was the lucky one. I looked around and could not see any of the agents -- they were probably drunk someplace, laughing at us, celebrating their great conquest. I crept away, silently into the night, to come back to this park, to this place, my home, to be with you, my friend.

(Sits again, exhausted.)

Esa es toda la historia. And do you know what I thought about as I walked those many miles back to this park? I thought of you, Chavalita. I thought of your face, your voice, your embrace. That is what kept me walking, step by step, mile after mile. The thought of you. But I also had other thoughts. Tenía preguntas. Such as: Why do you lie to me? You make promises to protect me, but you do not. And that means you lie to me, each day, every day. ¿Me estás escuchando?

ISABEL

Oh, Chuy, that story is unbelievable! How can any of this be true? You know I would always protect you, even from a horde of agents with strong hands. You must be dreaming. My word is as good as gold, I have told you. I would never lie to you. ¿Entiendes? If agents ever tried to touch you, I would fight them off!

JESÚS

¡Cada noche!

ISABEL

Oh, Chuy, lo siento. I know you would not lie to me. If you say it happens every night, it happens every night.

JESÚS

(calmer, sighing)

Cada noche.

ISABEL

(soothingly)

Sí, Chuy. Cada noche.

JESÚS

(resigned, calm, the storm is over)

Chavalita, I want it to stop. No more cages, no more escaping, no more swollen feet.

(Holds up right palm for emphasis.)

Ya basta.