INGENIO MILAGRO is a play and playwright development program for Latina/o playwrights. It serves as an intrinsic step in the development of new full-length theatrical works through concert and table readings, guiding playwrights and their works from concept to production. Directors, dramaturgs, and actors bring the plays to life for one performance for an audience of theatre professionals and members of the public, which are followed by a moderated feedback session.
All INGENIO readings are general admission, presented free to the public. Space is limited, reservations encouraged.
NEXT
1000 MILES by Vanessa García
Monday, May 14, 2018 at 7:00 PM
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Solis just arrived in The City from 1000 Miles Across the Sea. She’s searching for family, for a way to carve out a new life. But The City is changing, and the very skills Solis brings with her can either save or destroy this new place she’s beginning to call home. 1000 Miles is a play about what it means to migrate to a new place. About survival, surveillance, nationalism, and the nature of opportunity.
Directed by Lindsey Bruno
Featuring Sierra Brambila, Justin Charles, Laura Di Mare, Soren Gillaspy, and Eva Rotter-Johnson
About Vanessa Garcia
Vanessa Garcia is a playwright, novelist, and journalist. Her debut novel, White Light, was one of NPRs Best Books of 2015. It also won an International Latino Book Award. Her plays have been produced in Edinburgh, Miami, Los Angeles, New York, and other cities around the world. These include The Cuban Spring (a full-length Carbonell Award nominee for Best New Play, 2015) and The Crocodile’s Bite (a short included in numerous anthologies such as Smith & Kraus’ Best Ten Minute Plays of 2016; the City Theatre Anthology 2015; and the Writer’s Digest Annual Award Anthology, 2015). As a journalist, feature writer, and essayist, her pieces have appeared in The LA Times, The Miami Herald, The Guardian, and The Washington Post, among numerous other publications. www.vanessagarcia.org
BLUE BULLETS by Alvaro Saar Ríos
Monday, May 21, 2018 at 7:00 PM
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Blue Bullets is set in Houston, Texas in 1977. As protesters organize in the wake of rampant police brutality, the owner of a Mexican bakery discovers her oven is unrepairable. The owner’s attempts to raise money are slowed when the bakery’s sole employee becomes involved in the protests. As more police brutality occurs and the owner continues her focus on saving her livelihood, she soon discovers the dangers of ignoring the needs of the community.
Directed by Tamara Carroll
Featuring Alec Lugo, Rega Lupo, Garland Lyons, Veronika Nuñez, Gustavo Ramirez, Jaime Villeda, and Justin Charles
About Alvaro Saar Rios
Alvaro Saar Rios’ plays have been performed in New York City, Hawaii, Milwaukee and all over Texas. His play Luchadora! was awarded AATE’s Distinguished Play Award and is published by Dramatic Publishing Inc. Other plays include One Hot Texican Summer (or the summer I found out I was Mexican), The Crazy Mexican Show, and The Mole Hill Stories, a bilingual adaptation of Lois Ehlert’s children’s books. Mr. Rios lives in Chicago and teaches playwriting at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Alvaro is currently developing a play about Día de los Muertos for Milwaukee’s First Stage. He is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists.
Ingenio /ēn ‘he nē oh/: Spanish for wit, ingenuity; the inventive and creative capacity to create; a sugar cane refinery.
POLICARPA by Diana Burbano
Monday, January 15, 2018 at 7:30 PM
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In a future Colombia controlled by the very wealthy, the brilliant, mad Ingrid Bolivar collects young women and turns them into weapons. Policarpa, a girl with magical gifts, must resist the allure of becoming a creature of destruction. Can she instead become a savior?
Directed by Jessie Hirschhorn
Dramaturgy by Olga Sanchez
Featuring Adriana Bordea, Laura Di Mare, Michelle Escobar, Yesenia Lopez, Sofia May-Cuxim, Feliciano Tencos-García, and Hector Zaragoza Valentin
About Diana Burbano
Diana Burbano is a Colombian immigrant, an Equity actor, a playwright, and a teaching artist at South Coast Repertory and Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble. Her written work includes: Policarpa, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Brown Swan lab 2017, Drama League Rough Draft series May 2017, Honorable Mention, Jane Chambers Award 2017, Parsnip Ship 2017; Fabulous Monsters, Latinx Play Festival, San Diego Rep 2017, Festival51 2016 winner, about women in Punk Rock, Picture me Rollin’ featured at the 35th annual William Inge Festival and Inkfest, Silueta, and the TYA Shakespeare mash-up; Caliban’s Island, winner 2017 Headwaters New Play Festival at Creede Repertory. Libertadoras, Vamping, and Linda were written for the 365 Women a Year Project and have been performed around the world, with Linda featured in more than 20 festivals over the last year, including Center Theatre Group’s community library series.
ROSES FROM CASTILE by Robert Paul Moreira
Monday, February 19, 2018 at 7:00 PM
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New Spain, 1548. On his deathbed, holding fast to an old, withered rose, tormented by past and future demons, Archbishop Juan de Zumarraga prepares to divulge the secrets behind the greatest miracle New Spain has ever known—the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe to the Indian Juan Diego in 1531. What will Zumarraga reveal?
Directed by Yasmín Ruvalcaba
About Robert Paul Moreira
Robert Paul Moreira is an award-winning fiction writer and playwright. His fiction can be found or is forthcoming in Southwest American Literature, Aethlon, Azahares, and the anthologies SOL: English Writing From Mexico and New Border Voices, among other venues. His honors include two awards from the Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers, the Wendy Barker Creative Writing Award, and the 2016 NACCS Tejas FOCO Fiction Award for his short story collection, Scores. As a playwright, Robert is currently developing the book, music, and lyrics for Malinalli, an upcoming musical drama set during the Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs, 1519-1521. Robert lives in Edinburg, Texas and is a Lecturer at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
STROKE OF MADNESS by Juan Ramirez, Jr.
Monday, February 26, 2018 at 7:00 PM
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An emerging painter, Manuel Marquez, known for his red color variation works, is searching for his inspiration for the color crimson. While placing the blame on his muse, Isabel, she suddenly vanishes and yet the trauma inspires his work. What is the fine line between reaching greatness and losing your sanity before life truly imitates art?
Directed by Mariel Sierra
About Juan Ramirez, Jr.
Juan Ramirez, Jr. is an internationally produced writer. Previous plays are The American Dream with the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival, Truck Stop Queen with the LIC One-Act Festival and published in the anthology with the Secret Theatre, and Honor Among Thieves, presented for the 2017 Downtown Urban Arts Festival at The Cherry Lane Theatre. Love Diplomats was produced at the Raíces Theatre Company, selected for 2016 Short + Sweet International Festival Top 80 in Sydney, Australia and performed at the Top 10 NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center. Dad & Son was produced in Halifax, UK and published in “One Minute Plays: A Practical Guide To Tiny Theatre”. Stroke Of Madness is part of the 2016 and Wall with 2017 Cimientos Play Program with IATI Theater. He received his MFA from NYU Tisch.
THE LITTLE EDELWEISS by Josh Inocéncio
Monday, April 2, 2018 at 7:00 PM
Draft Dodger. Movie star romancer. Hilton bartender.
The Little Edelweiss; or, An Immigrant’s Fairytale chronicles Manfred, playwright Josh Inocéncio’s bisexual Great-Uncle, from his upbringing in war-torn Austria to his mercurial life in the United States, and the imprint he left on the gay nephew he never met. True to the fairy tale form, this Eugene O’Neill semi-finalist captures both men in their pursuits of unapologetic pleasure, punctuated by a pantheon of ancestors as Fairies, immigration officials as Trolls, and FBI agents as Giants.
The play, which takes place inside a cuckoo clock over the course of thirteen strikes, confronts what we choose to remember and how secret memories no one ever shared with us continue to survive in our bodies.
Directed by RJ Hodde
About Josh Inocéncio
Josh Inocéncio is a Houston-based playwright and performer. After finishing his Master’s in Theatre Studies from Florida State, he returned to Houston to tour his solo play, Purple Eyes, across Texas. He has since performed at ProyectoTeatro, the University of Houston, and South Texas College in partnership with UT-RGV. His next appearance will be the world premiere of Purple Eyes at Stages Repertory Theatre in February 2018. In addition, Theatre Nuevo produced his short play, Ofélio, in St. Louis. Currently, Josh is working on a trilogy project entitled Splintered in Three, which includes three plays that confront collisions between ethnicity and sexuality. The second play, The Little Edelweiss; or, An Immigrant’s Fairytale finished as a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference.
QUERENCIA: AN IMAGINED AUTOBIOGRAPHY ABOUT FORBIDDEN FRUITS
by Benjamin Benne
Monday, April 9, 2018 at 7:00 PM
A memory play that centers on 23-year-old Milo, who has a chance encounter at a carousel in his old neighborhood that launches him back 10 years. 13-year-old Milo is immersed in a machismo culture with rigid definitions of gender and sexuality. In this coming-of-age drama, Milo’s aunt has just returned after 3 years of being in jail and his best friend, 14-year-old Zoe, acts as his sex coach and support system while he struggles with the fact that his favorite fruit is banana in a world that says he’s gotta love mangoes.
q u e r e n c i a: an imagined autobiography about forbidden fruits was developed with the support of The Playwrights Realm’s 2017-18 Scratchpad Series, The Joust Theatre Company, and Theatre Battery. Spanish language consultation and translations by Ana Maria Campoy and Maydé Alpi.
Directed by Roy Antonio Arauz
Featuring Justin Charles, Pilar O’Connell, Adriana Bordea, Laura Di Mare, Yolanda Porter, and Catherine Miller
About Benjamin Benne
Benjamin Benne is a 2017–18 McKnight Fellow in Playwriting at The Playwrights’ Center and was previously a 2016–17 Many Voices Fellow. He is a Robert Chesley/Victor Bumbalo Playwriting Award winner, National Latino Playwriting Award runner-up, Princess Grace Award finalist, Ingram New Works Lab finalist, Blue Ink Playwriting Award semifinalist, and a P73 Playwriting Fellowship semifinalist. Additionally, his plays have been finalists for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Headwaters New Play Festival, and Austin Playhouse’s Festival of New American Plays. His work has been produced by Annex Theatre (Terra Incognita, 2016), Forward Flux (las mariposas Y los muertos, 2017), and Pillsbury House Theatre (The Great Divide: Plays for a Broken Nation, 2017), as well as developed by The Playwrights Realm’s Scratchpad Series, The Lark’s Playwrights’ Week, Two River Theater’s Crossing Borders Festival, Seattle Repertory Theatre’s The Other Season, A Contemporary Theatre’s Construction Zone, Umbrella Project, Parley, and The Playwrights’ Center, among others.www.benjaminbenne.com