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Name: Marisela
Location: San Francisco
Interests: Poetry, theatre, film, yoga
Expertise: Playwriting
American Triage :
Play commissioned by Marin Theatre Company 2006; 2007 MTC Nu Werkz series; 2008 MTC workshop production; 2011 East L.A. Rep staged reading.
Braided Sorrow :
2005 Bay Area Playwrights Festival; 2006 Ford Amphitheatre Latina/o Summer Play Reading Series; 2006 Chicano/Latino Literary Prize in Drama; September 2008, world premiere, El Centro Su Teatro, Denver, CO; 2009 Pen Center USA Literary Award for Drama.
Heart Shaped Nebula:
2011 Playwrights Foundation Resident Playwrights Showcase staged reading; 2011 Impact Theatre staged reading; 2012 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference Semi-Finalist.
Woman on Fire
2006 Primer Pasos; 2007 full-length commission by the Latino Playwrights Initiative; 2007 Bay Area Playwrights Festival BASH; 2008 Playwrights Foundation’s Rough reading series; 2012 Teatro Luna’s Lunadas reading series.
Occupation: Playwright, Poet
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
6/9/2005
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| La Muerte de Carlos Fuentes
I.
Half a lifetime ago
I met you.
A brief
elegant encounter
with a man
who could have been my grandfather.
II.
The news
settles into my skin
my bones.
I find it a challenge to focus.
My thoughts
scatter
like birds
taking flight.
III.
I search for a reason
a reason why
the death of a man
I met only once
could affect me so.
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| Conference Prep: Theatre Bay Area's Annual Conference
I'm am psyched. Psyched about this Monday. First, I got the day off from work. Second, I'll be attending the day-long Theatre Bay Area conference. And third, I'm on the playwrights panel in the evening.
The conference's theme is "Activate Your World." The playwrights panel will focus on proactive approaches playwrights are taking to address the specific challenges they face. The other playwrights on the panel include Michelle Carter, Phillip Kan Gotanda, Mark Jackson and Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. I'm excited to meet Michelle, Phillip and Mark. And I look forward to seeing Peter again. (side note: Peter and I are both alumna of the Playwrights Foundation's Resident Playwright Initiative.)
I was invited to participate to talk about how I've been developing a web presence as a way to build relationships nationally and foster/move forward my career. Now I've been blogging for seven years now (seven years this June), but it's really been the past year on Twitter and blogging for 2amTheatre that has raised my profile and helped me establish relationships with artists in other cities.
Oh, and I can help but be amused about the fact that I don't own a smart phone. So sorry, no conference tweets. (Irony much?).
Here's the full list of breakout sessions and speakers. And thankfully for each breakout there is one session that I am most definitely drawn to (I hate when I have to choose between two sessions going on at the same time). It looks like it's going to a great day of reconnecting with peers, meeting artists and conversation.
-M
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| Luminous Orb
Photo by Hugo Carbajal. Taken last night on his rooftop where it was oh so cold.
That's the thought that would come to my mind every time I took a moment to gaze up at the super moon this past weekend. And not super as in awesome, but that's what astronomers were calling it since it was the biggest and brightest full moon of the year.
Saturday was the brightest of the two moons this weekend. I stepped out onto the sidewalk outside my place to get a look at it. But I didn't spend lots of time in my pajamas staring up at the moon. But I did go out there twice to admire it.
It's easy to see why it inspires poetry.
I made a point Sunday to see the moon again. This time I went over to someone's house who had a rooftop. Though, Sunday it was terribly cold up on that rooftop and we were only up there for couple of minutes taking pictures.
I remember standing in my backyard as a girl watching a lunar eclipse with my dad. Bare feet? I think so, because I always remember the feel of the blades of St. Augustine grass wet with moisture.
On my way home, on the street I looked up again. And a final time when I got to my block.
Luminous orb.
-M
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| The River Bride's First Dramaturgical Meeting
Photo by Toni Frissell. Was actually taken in a dolphin tank.
Last night I met with my dramaturg for our first conversation (first, because their will be more) on my new play The River Bride.
I met my dramaturg Nakissa in 2007 when I was working on turning my one act play Woman on Fire into a full length play. I asked Nakissa to work with me and it was the beginning of an amazing friendship and artistic collaboration.
I don't have an MFA in playwriting. And I've only taken one playwriting class, so I learned how to do rewrites while working with Nakissa on Woman on Fire. Our dramaturgical sessions often go several hours as we talk about the play's big picture concepts and then focus our way down to specific moments in the play.
I feel truly fortunate to have this relationship. It's hard to describe. But when two artists find each other like this, it's a great thing. She makes me a better playwright. And our conversations drive me to new drafts that make the plays better than the previous one.
Nakissa and I also worked on Heart Shaped Nebula and she's familiar with my other plays which comes in handy as she can see The River Bride in the context of my body of work so far. And we've built a level of trust that allows us to really dig deep into a play to explore it together--it's not always easy to let someone into a work in progress. I myself am very selective about who can hear/read an early draft because I'm still figuring out what the play wants to become and I need that space.
But back to last night.
Last night I curled up in a chair opposite Nakissa and started taking notes. My biggest concern was the shape the play was in. Did she think it would be ready for a fall production? Since I juggle playwriting with a full time job it can be challenging to find free time to write and the end result is I tend to write more slowly than I'd like. Turning around a production-ready script in one year was quite a challenge for me.
The good news is she thinks it's in good shape, really good shape. In fact there were just a couple of key issues to address and then some minor tweaking.
She also loves the play. And while Woman on Fire will always have a special place in her heart because we worked so closely on it for a good while, she thinks The River Bride is her favorite.
And now I have notes, notes and a renewed vigor to work on the next draft.
Happy writing,
M
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| A Play Opening, A Play Closing
This weekend I saw two plays.
Saturday I managed to get to San Rafael despite the public transit snafu I ran into when trying to get to the Golden Gate Bridge. That is, Muni wasn't running to the Golden Gate Bridge. There was massive construction near the bridge and long story short, I got there and got onto a Golden Gate Transit bus (many thanks for the shuttle to the bridge by the way) and made my way to AlterTheater's opening of References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot by Jose Rivera.
I was there to help with box office. Volunteer that is with my fellow AlterLab playwright Ignacio. I handed out press packets and chatted with patrons, some of whom were at the AlterLab salon.
The performance was followed by a opening night party with food courtesy of Sol Food and I made Calimochos to drink. And after it was all said and done I got a ride back to SF with Marilet where we caught up over at The Bitter End and found ourselves in an unexpected conversation with a few other patrons.
Marilet Martinez (Martin) and Carla Pauli (Gabriela)
I know I'm somewhat biased since a) I love Jose Rivera's plays and b) I'm in residency at AlterLab, but I thought they did a great job with the play. It's just started its run, so you have plenty of time to catch this play.
Sunday I caught the final performance of Shotgun Players' The Coast of Utopia: Voyage by Tom Stoppard. I'm a big fan of Tolstoy, so I sort of have a thing for Russian stories set during the time period of Stoppard's play. There were tons of characters, which felt typical of Russian literature. Though I have expected to hear more nicknames, it seemed like everyone in Anna Karenina had a nickname they went by instead of their actual formal name.
Anyhoo, the play is the first in a trilogy and Voyage divided its two acts between country life and city life (which also felt "right" to me considering what I know of Russian life at that time). Country life seemed to revolve around the women and their brother. The second act which focused on events in Moscow focused more on the men whose lives were entwined with philosophical debates.
I got back to the city around 5 something and headed to Russian Hill via the cable car (which always makes me feel lucky to live here) and had a some amazing sushi with a good friend. So it was a full weekend of great theatre and yummy eats.
What more can you ask for?
Well...maybe more sleep. Marilet knows what I'm talking about.
-M
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