IMMIGRATION CYCLE – series of one acts on the Latino immigration crisis, works in progress.
La Migra Taco Truck production still from New Theatre: Photo credit of performers- Freddy Valle, Clint Archambault and Rafael Rincones
LA MIGRA TACO TRUCK (one act- off broadway) Theatre Row NYC, New Theatre Miami One-Acts Festival and Aspen, Colorado w/Theatre Masters. Participated in a reading hosted by League of Professional Theatre Women’s event “A Seat at the Table” to honor women of color dramatists.
When two border patrol officers suspect that their local taco truck is delivering more than their lunch, a dangerous collision of cultures and politics ensue.
TACO VENDOR All the other food stops closed down. The pork sandwich shop.
OFFICER #1 They’ll be heavy to drag. In this heat, It’ll almost kill us to do it. But we must.
INS OFFICER #2 We must?
TACO VENDOR The fruit stand.
(Officer 2 wipes the sweat from his face and neck. A sun delusion.)
OFFICER #1- What’s a matter, you sweating already?
OFFICER #2- It’s almost 100 degrees out here…
TACO VENDOR- Even the restaurant off the highway…
OFFICER #1- That’s what I’ll do. Leave them for the sun to burn.
—–
TACO VENDOR- But that won’t stop all the other ones like me from coming. I won’t disappear into the sand. I’ll come back up. Like the spirits from underneath this desert that rise round me now.
4 characters
Dar a Luz – Jacqueline Quillupangui and Naomi Haven
DAR A LUZ (TO GIVE LIGHT, TO GIVE BIRTH) (one act- off broadway) American Theatre of Actors NYC, New Theatre Miami One-Acts Festival and Aspen, Colorado w/Theatre Masters.
The wall that is built to keep out immigrants comes crashing down when a border patrol’s wife finds her past on the desert road side.
(Not Just A Wife retrieves water from the car. She brings water to Alba’s lips.)
ALBA- You too have a baby bump.
NJAW- Twenty six weeks.
ALBA – Que dios te bendiga.
(Border Patrol light shines on the area, then darkness.)
NJAW I told my mother I didn’t want a baby.
(Alba holds her stomach, another contraction begins. Border Patrol lights shine, then darkness.)
BP OFFICER- We wear bullet proof vests not for the crossing immigrants;
but for the drug cartel fuckers who take bets on where he’s gonna pin me. Arms. Leg. Brain. Heart.
ALBA- My heart beats with the rhythm of the vultures circling round my head above me in the sky. The sky that watched my husband Fernando disappear into the sand. How I would pull up his bones from underneath the sand?
3 characters
DOES THAT FEEL GOOD TO YOU, MY LARK?: A Doll’s House Adaptation (Full length in progress)
A woman attempts to piece her life together after a scandal with forgery, being institutionalized, possible divorce and estrangement from her children.
Laura Keiler the “skylark”, wrote a sequel Brand’s Daughter to Henrik Iben’s verse tragedy Brand. When Laura’s husband Victor is diagnosed with tuberculosis, she calls on Henrik’s help to get her new book published in hopes to save her husband’s life. Ibsen responds by not aiding Laura but penning the infamous play, A Doll’s House. We travel through the inner workings of Keiler’s mind during her forced institutionalization in an asylum as she reshapes the narrative of the play that contributed towards the woman’s revolution. The worlds between parallel fact vs fiction diverge, as multiple endings collide in search of who really built A Doll’s House.
LAURA- 5,000.
IBSEN’S GHOST- 5,000?
LAURA- Copies.
IBSEN’S GHOST- Of?
LAURA – My manuscript. —– The first batch.
IBSEN’S GHOST- That ribbon in your hair.
LAURA- Leaves are falling this autumn so quickly.
IBSEN’S GHOST – How the year has passed since I’ve seen you.
LAURA- Your wife…
IBSEN’S GHOST Asked about your husband…
—
LAURA – Sit on this. Nice. Feel soft. See the embroidery there. I can’t do that. I can’t fuckin’ do that. Stitch for hours like that. Haven’t got the patience. Ahh, still has some flavor to it. Want a drag? You sure. Okay. Ahh, that’s nice. Now your wife, she can stitch my kids’ name on sweaters. B-O-B-B-Y. That’s an entire afternoon. That’s half a chapter Henni. S-A- D-I-E. That’s a contemplative walk in the garden, when I think about shit. J-O-N-A-H. That’s my research day. Or make sure my husband isn’t dead in the next room day.
IBSEN’S GHOST- Lark—
LAURA- Am I still?
IBSEN’S GHOST- Always.
15 characters played by 10 actors
DICTATOR: I AM MY FATHER, FRANCO (full length in progress)
A Daughter can finally be married. An exiled Spanish Father returns to America to give away his estranged daughter at her wedding. Once he lands he is arrested for past crimes that he once fled from. His Spanish- American Daughter fights to release him from Prison and to make amends with her father. Being born on the day Francisco Franco died, she takes a dreamscape journey, connecting her life through Franco the dictator. Her startling discoveries force her to decide to forgive the crimes her father committed against her family and ultimately the truth behind the origins of violence committed against us all.
FATHER (aside) I can die right here. Fuck lawyers and visits and the money. Why can’t my heart stop right here? It stopped three years ago, and the Devil para joder me kept me living…(to daughter) Not dead. Bueno. I’m not dead yet. They could try to keep me here the rest of my life…
DAUGHTER You have to be at my wedding…
—
DAUGHTER- (aside) But he doesn’t miss my mother. The crime you got locked up for is really a misdemeanor. The Felony. The five to ninety nine years you’re facing is the crimes you got away with mother fucker. For the choking. The gun in my face.
FATHER- (aside) It’s Franco. Franco’s ghost did this to me. I was in THIS country too long. Twenty five fuckin’ years! To this country, for what? My daughter was born the day Franco died.
2 characters
