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Name: Marisela
Metro: San Francisco
Interests: Poetry, theatre, film, tango
Expertise:
Poetry
Published in Traverse, 26 (issue D), Pomona Valley Review, BorderSenses and Double Room.
Playwriting
American Triage :
Play commissioned by Marin Theatre Company 2006. 2007 MTC Nu Werkz series; 2008 MTC workshop production.
Braided Sorrow :
2005 Bay Area Playwrights Festival; 2006 Ford Amphitheatre Latina/o Summer Play Reading Series; 2006 Chicano/Latino Literary Prize 1st Place winner, University of California Irvine; September 2008, 1st production, El Centro Su Teatro, Denver, CO; 2009 Pen Center USA Literary Award for Drama.
Ghost Limb :
(Work in Progress)
Just Theatre 2007 Play Lab.
Heart Shaped Nebula:
(Work in Progress)
Woman on Fire :
2006 Primer Pasos: A Festival de Latino Plays, Latino Playwrights Initiative; 2007 Bay Area Playwrights Festival BASH (Bay Area SHorts); 2008 In The Rough reading series, Playwrights Foundation.
Occupation: Playwright, Poet
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
6/9/2005
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| Postmark Deadline
I've said before and I'll say it again: my two favorite words in the English language are "postmark deadline."
As I've mentioned earlier this month, I'm submitting Heart Shaped Nebula to be considered for the 2010 Bay Area Playwrights Festival and thankfully, I can mail it out Monday. Whoo!
I was set to send it out today. But it's a crazy work day and I forgot that this festival requires a submission fee, so I need my checkbook back home.
No worries. Like I said, postmark deadline saves the day.
Bravo.
Bravo.
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| Speech! Speech! Speech!
I have to write 5 minute speech for the Pen Award ceremony that's coming up. Yes, an acceptance speech. And suddenly 5 minutes doesn't seem like a lot of time. It isn't.
I have an idea of what I'd like to say, but I really need to spend this week finalizing my speech and practicing.
I'm going to email my contact at the Pen Center to ask what other speeches have been like. I think knowing what past recipients have said, or what the center expects would be helpful.
More later,
M
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| The Bald Soprano At Cutting Ball--You're in Luck, It's Extended
This weekend I finally saw The Bald Soprano, The Cutting Ball Theater's season opener. Written by Eugène Ionesco, it is considered one of the quintessential absurdist masterpieces.
(On couch): Derek Fischer and Paige Rogers. (In front): Caitlyn Louchard.
There's been tons of buzz about this play. Not only has it gotten some great reviews, and had sold-out houses, but recently someone who directed the play in the 60s told a Cutting Ball staffer that after seeing this production he finally "gets the play."
I went both Friday and Saturday night. You might think that's "absurd," but it was for the benefit of the guests I took along and their calendars. I didn't mind at all, I still laughed out loud during the second performance. Perhaps the fact that there is no traditional story line helped to that end.
Ionesco wrote the play inspired by his attempt to learn the English language. The dialog in his language text books was nonsensical: "You are my husband. I am your wife. It is now 3 o'clock."
And so the play goes, characters talking, often stating the obvious, sometimes contradicting themselves, or making no sense whatsoever at times. It's wonderfully funny and the cast plays it with such commitment.
The good news is that the play has been extended! After a Thanksgiving hiatus, the play will run December 3 - 12. Get your tickets now!
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| Go See Drip at Crowded Fire
This is the closing weekend for Drip, a Crowded Fire world premiere by Christina Anderson. So get your tickets ASAP, because they're going fast, really fast.
Drip unfolds in two worlds, in the dreamscape of Mae who's just suffered a stroke as she re-lives and reinvents moments in her past in an effort to come to terms with old emotional scars and in the hard reality of her grandson Brughjefferson's house arrest as he struggles with his inability to be by her deathbed and come to terms with his own childhood scars. Our guides through and between these two worlds are a chorus who shapeshift into major characters in lives of Mae and Brughjefferson.
 
(Black and white photo): Mollena Williams as Mae Roslyn. David Skillman as Jerome Roslyn. (Color photo): Dacid Skillman, Melvina Jones, and Kele Nitoto as Krew. (top); Shoresh Alaudini as Brughjefferson and Skyler Cooper as Rai. Photos by Dave Nowakowski.
I was very touched by the play. As someone who has a family member who's suffered a stroke, seeing the moments when Mae is being treated in the hospital in the real world interpreted as a nightmare in her dreamscape really resonated with me.
Bravo to the entire cast and Crowded Fire for bringing this new play to life.
-M
p.s. check out the SF Chronicle's review of Drip.
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| And Away It Goes
I just emailed Heart Shaped Nebula to the good folks at Marin Theatre Company. Yes, last night I finished my edits. Well, I still have a few edits I'd like to make, but they would require more time. Ah yes, time. Of which, there is little. Especially since tomorrow is November 20th and I have to get my Lark submission postmarked and on its way.
Thankfully the script is ready, now I just need to fill out the form and mail it.
And, I have to say, it feels good to get back into that play. Really good. There's just so much that I really love about it (and I know it might sound a little arrogant to say you love your play, but I do and I think playwrights should love what they're working on, because...why else do it?).
 
I love the Greek mythology, the astronomy, the bits of myself that are in it, the bits of other people, the Texas references.
So cross your fingers.
-M
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