The Chicago Latino Theater Alliance (CLATA) is proud to announce the three new plays selected for the first-ever, Inicios: Chicago Latine Playwright Festival, to be held June 2-4 at UrbanTheater Company, Aguijón Theater and Teatro Tariakuri:
New Personalidad, by Chicago actor and playwright Nelson A. Rodriguez, a play in Spanglish about a family of devout Jehovah’s Witnesses accepting the loss of their youngest son, exploring how religious devotion can bind people together or rip them apart. Xavier Custodio, Artistic Director, Visión Latino Theatre Company, directs. New Personalidad will be presented Friday, June 2, 7:30 p.m. at UrbanTheater Company, 2620 W Division St., in Humboldt Park.
Three new works by (from left) Nelson A. Rodriguez (New Personalidad), Raul Dorantes and Emily Masó (Dulcci), and Claribel Gross (Gasping: A Nicaraguan Fever Dream) will debut with free staged readings at CLATA’s first-ever Inicios: Chicago Latine Playwright Festival, June 2-4.
Dulcci, by Raul Dorantes and Emily Masó, about a young high school student from Chicago, who encounters Don Quixote, then decides to give her legal identity to her best friend, who is undocumented and has no possibility of continuing her studies. Dorantes and Masó are both members of Chicago’s Colectivo el Pozo. Marcela Muñoz, Executive Director and Co-Artistic Director, Aguijón Theater, directs. Dulcci will be read Saturday, June 3 at 3 p.m. at Aguijón Theater, 2707 N Laramie Ave. in Hermosa/Belmont-Cragin.
Gasping: A Nicaraguan Fever Dream by Claribel Gross, a young Chicago-based theater maker, director and teaching artist, is a surreal, imagined retelling of a journey about a brazen, barefooted little girl in Nicaragua who is searching for the future only to encounter a wild haired, old woman reminiscing on love, country and her desire for a perpetual Christmas. Karla Lopez-Galvan, Artistic Director, Teatro Tariakuri, directs. Gasping will be performed Sunday, June 4 at 3 p.m. at Teatro Tariakuri, 3117 W. 63rd St. in Marquette Park.
So take a three-day tour of Chicago’s most beloved Latino neighborhood storefront theaters to celebrate the vibrant Latino experience. Be the first to witness the extraordinary talent of Latino playwrights that will make Chicago proud. Tickets are free, but reservations are recommended. Reserve online at clata.org/en/programs/inicios.
Each of the three winning playwrights receives a $1,000 stipend, plus the experience of being paired with an artistic director at a Chicago Latine theater company, participating in a robust, one-week workshop process, seeing their work read aloud by top professional Latine actors in front of a live audience, and gathering feedback during the post-show Q&A.
CLATA’s panelists, who read more than a dozen submissions before selecting the three works to be read at Inicios, are Rey Andujar, a novelist, playwright, performer an artistic associate at Aguijón Theater, and a professor at Governors State University; Sandra Delgado, playwright, actor, director, creator of La Havana Madrid, and a Teatro Vista ensemble member; and Isaac Gomez, the award-winning Chicago and L.A.-based playwright and screenwriter.
For more information, visit clata.org. To receive the latest updates, sign up for CLATA’s weekly e-news, and follow CLATA on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The first Inicios: Chicago Latine Playwright Festival:
More about the plays
Friday, June 2, 7:30 p.m.
New Personalidad by Nelson A. Rodriguez
Directed by Xavier Custudio, Artistic Director, Visión Latino Theatre Company
Presented at UrbanTheater Company, 2620 W Division St., in Humboldt Park
A household of devout Jehovah's Witnesses, the Alvarez family, struggles to financially prosper, remain true to their faith, and accept the loss of their youngest member, Vladimir. As time becomes fluid, father, mother, and daughter slide into a past haunted by secrets - and Vladimir - with unprecedented consequences in the present. Can the family come to terms with their past and move forward with their new personality?
This new Spanglish work by Chicago actor and playwright Nelson A. Rodriguez mines how religious devotion can bind people together or rip them apart.
Xavier Custudio, director of New Personalidad, most recently staged Visión Latino Theatre’s world premiere, Sancocho, a break-out hit at last year’s 2022 Destinos Festival.
Saturday, June 3 at 3 p.m.
Dulcci
By Raul Dorantes and Emily Masó
Directed by Marcela Muñoz, Co-Artistic Director, Aguijón Theater
Presented at Aguijón Theater, 2707 N Laramie Ave, in Hermosa/Belmont-Cragin
A young high school student from Chicago, after an encounter with Don Quixote, makes the decision to give her legal identity to her best friend, Dulce, who is undocumented and has no possibility of continuing her studies. This decision impacts the lives of her family and friends. Throughout the play, the main character will try to explain the reasons behind her decision. This play explores the encounters and disconnections between the individual and the community.
Director Marcela Muñoz is the Executive Director and Co-Artistic Director of Aguijón Theater, where her directing credits include Yerma, The House of Bernarda Alba and Blood Wedding.
Sunday, June 4 at 3 p.m.
Gasping: A Nicaraguan Fever Dream
By Claribel Gross
Directed by Karla Lopez-Galvan, Artistic Director, Teatro Tariakuri
Presented at Teatro Tariakuri, 3117 W. 63rd St. in Marquette Park
Gasping: A Nicaraguan Fever Dream is an imagined and surrealist retelling of the history of a powerful and eccentric woman in Nicaragua who is at the end of her life. Infused with rum, limes and sunsets, this new work follows the journey of a brazen, barefooted little girl who is searching for the future only to encounter a wild haired, old woman reminiscing on love, country and her desire for a perpetual Christmas.
Director Karla Lopez-Galvan is the Artistic Director of Teatro Tariakuri in Chicago’s Marquette Park community, where she starred in the U.S. premiere of Bruna la Bruja Bruta as part of the 2022 Destinos Festival.
About Inicios: Chicago Latine Playwright Festival
Inicios is a new initiative from CLATA, best known for producing Destinos, the Chicago International Latino Theater Festival, and builds on the organization’s mission to increase the visibility of Latine voices on stages in Chicago, the U.S. and Latin America, year round.
“Our annual fall Destinos Festival is well known for showcasing fully-realized, ‘finished’ productions created by our Chicago Latine companies, most of them world premieres,” said Jorge Valdivia, Executive Director, CLATA.
“With Inicios, CLATA is offering Chicago’s Latine theater artists a new platform to write a play, workshop it with a director and cast, present it as a staged reading, and gain invaluable artist and audience feedback to take it to full production. Inicios, literally, is a new beginning for nurturing new plays by Chicago’s Latine writers who have been relegated to the shadows of theatrical storytelling for too long.”
The first Inicios: Chicago Latine Playwright Festival is supported by Driehaus Foundation.
Inicios playwright bios
Nelson A. Rodriguez is a Chicago-based actor and playwright. His first full-length play, Snapshots, was presented as staged readings at Victory Gardens and the Chicago Cultural Center. His short play, Ropa Vieja, was included in Broken Nose Theatre's 2017 Bechdel Fest. His second full-length play, New Personalidad, was presented as a staged reading at Victory Gardens in 2018. As an actor his credits include Men on the Verge of a His-Panic Breakdown for which he received a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination in Solo Performance. He has worked at Lookinglass Theatre Company, Steppenwolf for Young Audiences, 16th Street Theatre, Oak Park Festival Theatre, Raven Theatre, Adventure Stage Chicago where he was an Associate Artist, and more. On-camera work includes the feature films A Place To Be - En Algún Lugar (TLA Releasing) and Soul Sessions (Gravitas Ventures). He was a member of The Alliance of Latinx Theatre Artists’ playwrights circle, El Semillero, and is the recipient of Windy City Times’ 30 Under 30 Award.
Raul Dorantes was born in Queretaro, Mexico, in 1968. He immigrated to Chicago in 1986. As a playwright, Dorantes has created numerous works including Hasta los gorriones dejan su nido and El lunes de Leon Rodriguez, produced by Aguijón Theater Company in 2008 and 2009. In 2010, his play De camino al ahorita was awarded second prize in the national competition Nuestras Voces organized by New York based theater company Repertorio Español. He was also an active editorial board member of several literary magazines: Fe de Erratas, zorros y erizos, Tropel, and Contratiempo and a member of the editorial board of the digital magazine El Beisman. In 2007, with Febronio Zatarain, he published a collection of essays titled “Y nos vinimos de mojados” with a prologue written by the well-known Mexican author Carlos Monsiváis. Currently, Dorantes is a professor of Latin American literature at Northeastern Illinois University.
Emily Masó (Dulcci) was born in Chicago of Cuban immigrants and grew up in a bilingual environment on Chicago’s north side. In 2004 she received her Masters in Latin American Literature from Roosevelt University and shortly after began teaching Spanish as a new language and Latin American Literature at Northeastern Illinois University. In 2016 she joined Colectivo El Pozo as a translator of scripts (for subtitles) and as part of the technical team. Since 2018 she has been writing scripts collaboratively with Raúl Dorantes. Most recently she has begun producing films with Colectivo El Pozo.
Claribel Gross (Gasping: A Nicaraguan Fever Dream) is a theater maker, director and teaching artist who has lived, worked and made art in the United States, Germany, Nicaragua and Ecuador. Gross currently lives in Chicago where she is teaching and making theater with young artists. As a teaching artist, Gross works with Steppenwolf Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre and Mudlark Theater. Her artistic work is inspired by her own multi-ethnic and multilingual upbringing. Themes of revolution, searching for home and how we understand when we don't understand language often come up in her work. She is also an adjunct professor at Aurora University and a founding member of THE MIDWIVES ARTISTIC COLLECTIVE, whose mission is to nurture the public creative spirit. Gross earned an MFA in Theater Arts from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA in Theater from the University of Minnesota.
About the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance (CLATA)
The Chicago Latino Theater Alliance (CLATA) is a transformative cultural engine helping drive the city’s local Latine theater community to a more prominent level.
CLATA's signature program is Destinos, the Chicago International Latino Theater Festival, an annual, citywide festival showcasing Chicago’s Latine theater artists and companies alongside top Latine artists from the U.S. and Latin America. For six weeks each fall, Destinos presents a rich, diverse array of bilingual, Latine-themed shows, panels and student performances at marquee venues downtown, as well as storefront theaters and cultural institutions in predominantly Latine neighborhoods throughout the city.
Additionally, CLATA provides local Latine theater groups ongoing organizational and financial support, and is working to create a permanent home for Chicago’s Latine theater artists. Ultimately, CLATA works year round to enhance Chicago’s reputation as one of the most exciting and culturally diverse theater cities in the world.
CLATA was co-founded in 2016 as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization by the late Myrna Salazar and Chicago’s three most prominent Latine arts organizations: the National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA), the International Latino Cultural Center (ILCC), and the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance (PRAA). Jorge Valdivia, formerly Director of Performing Arts at the National Museum of Mexican Art, was appointed CLATA’s Executive Director in November 2022.
CLATA gratefully acknowledges foundation support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Joyce Foundation, Ford Foundation, Walder Foundation, Driehaus Foundation, Bezos Family Foundation, Creative Reaction Lab, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelly Foundation, Shubert Foundation, Chicago Community Trust, a CityArts grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Illinois Arts Council Agency and National Endowment for the Arts. Supporting partners are Allstate, Choose Chicago, Xfinity, 3Arts, ComEd and Wintrust.