Cast, Creatives Set for DEFERRED ACTION World Premiere at DTC

Dallas Theater Center announced today complete details for the world-premiere of DEFERRED ACTION. A co-production with Cara Mía Theatre Co. and directed by Cara Mía's Artistic Director David Lozano, DEFERRED ACTION features company members from both DTC and Cara Mía. DEFERRED ACTION will begin previews with a Pay-What-You-Can performance on Wednesday, April 20 and will run through Saturday, May 14. Press Opening will be Friday, April 29 at 8 p.m. Tickets to DEFERRED ACTION are on sale now at www.DallasTheaterCenter.org and by phone at (214) 880-0202.

"It is a joy for all of us at DTC to collaborate with artists from the dynamic and inspiring Cara Mía Theatre Co.," said DTC Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty. "David Lozano is as smart and passionate about politics as he is about making theater. DEFERRED ACTION speaks to our current world of electoral politics in ways that are more powerful and surprising than we could have imagined several years ago when we first started creating this play. David and Lee have created an original story that reflects the choices facing us in this election cycle: to seek immediate change whatever the cost, or to compromise and delay while working within the system. When the stakes are literally life and death - as they are for many undocumented people living in the United States - American politics isn't just a game or a reality TV show, but rather either a hopeful path forward or a heartbreaking setback for their families and our own understanding of 'liberty and justice for all.'"

Written by Lozano and DTC's Director of New Play Development Lee Trull, DEFERRED ACTION is a new play introducing audiences to Javier Mejía, one of the immigrants known as "Dreamers" who arrived in the U.S. as an undocumented minor. Now, after years in the States, he finds himself caught in the tangle of existing immigration laws, new presidential policies, and the harsh reality of living in the shadows. With hopes that temporary administrative mechanisms like DEFERRED ACTION will be the answer to their dilemma, DEFERRED ACTION follows the lives, loopholes, and dangers of those who dare to dream. Democrats. Republicans. Activism. Politics. It's all just another border to cross.

"It's a great honor to be a part of developing DEFERRED ACTION," said Lozano. "Cara Mía's productions stir dialogue within our community and I am excited to partner with Dallas Theater Center to bring a play that speaks to the heart of issues that directly impacts our Latino community. This play gives both of our theatres and our audiences the opportunity to talk about what I think is the civil rights issue of our times - immigration reform for undocumented immigrants who need basic human rights while living in this country."

Cara Mía's Artistic Ensemble member Ivan Jasso will play the role of Javier Mejía, alongside fellow ensemble members Frida Espinosa Müller as Abue, Stephanie Cleghorn Jasso as Ximena, and Rodney Garza as Carrasquillo.

Brierley Resident Acting Company members Chamblee Ferguson (All the Way, Medea, The Rocky Horror Show) will play the role of Jim, Brandon Potter (All the Way, A Christmas Carol, King Lear ) as Jerry, Christie Vela (Romeo and Juliet, LES MISERABLES, King Lear) as Nancy Rodriguez, and Steven Michael Walters (All the Way, LES MISERABLES, Clybourne Park) as Dale Jenkins.

Additional cast members are Elizabeth Ramos as Lisa and Arturo Soria as Robby.

Helping to captivate the audience in this new work is set designer Timothy R. Mackabee, costume designer Niki Hernandez-Adams, sound designer Broken Chord, lighting designer Clifton Taylor (All the Way, The Tempest), projection designer Caite Hevner Kemp (All the Way), and wig designer Valerie Gladstone.

DTC's Come Early sponsored by Wells Fargo will take place one hour before every performance and DTC's Stay Late presented by Dr Pepper Snapple will take place after each performance.

DEFERRED ACTION is a recipient of a grant from the TACA Donna Wilhelm Family New Works Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, and Communities Foundation of Texas.

One of the leading regional theaters in the country, Dallas Theater Center (DTC) performs to an audience of more than 100,000 North Texas residents annually. Founded in 1959, DTC is now a resident company of the AT&T Performing Arts Center and presents its Mainstage season at the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, designed by REX/OMA, Joshua Prince-Ramus and Rem Koolhaas and at its original home, the Kalita Humphreys Theater, the only freestanding theater designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright. DTC is one of only two theaters in Texas that is a member of the League of Resident Theatres, the largest and most prestigious non-profit professional theater association in the country. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty and Managing Director Jeffrey Woodward, DTC produces a seven-play subscription series of classics, musicals and new plays and an annual production of A Christmas Carol; extensive education programs, including the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award-winning Project Discovery, SummerStage and partnerships with Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and South Oak Cliff High School; and community collaboration efforts with the Sixth Floor Museum, the City of Dallas, North Texas Food Bank, the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Public Library, Dallas Holocaust Museum, Dallas Opera, Dallas Black Dance Theater, and leading the DFW Foote Festival. Throughout its history, DTC has produced many new works, including The Texas Trilogy by Preston Jones in 1978, Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, adapted by Adrian Hall, in 1986, and recent premieres of Clarkston by Samuel D. Hunter; Moonshine: That Hee Haw Musical by Robert Horn, Brandy Clark, and Shane McAnally; FLY by Rajiv Joseph, Bill Sherman and Kirsten Childs; Fly by Night by Kim Rosenstock, Michael Mitnick and Will Connolly; Giant by Michael John LaChiusa and Sybille Pearson; The Trinity River Plays by Regina Taylor; the revised It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Charles Strouse and Lee Adams; Give It Up! (now titled Lysistrata Jones and recently on Broadway) by Douglas Carter Beane and Lewis Flinn; Sarah, Plain and Tall by Julia Jordan, Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin; and The Good Negro by Tracey Scott Wilson.

Cara Mía Theatre Co. is a non-profit theatre company that presents live accessible theatre by producing critically acclaimed published plays and creating new and experimental works while developing innovative and educational youth arts programming reflective of the Latino experience in the U.S.

In 1996, Cara Mía Theatre Co. filled a void in the Dallas arts community by becoming the first Dallas theater to focus on the Mexican-American experience. Cara Mía assured Mexican-American audiences that their bilingual and bicultural experiences were represented regularly on Dallas stages. Co-Founder, Eliberto Gonzales sites the San Antonio book fair as a catalyst for founding Cara Mía Theatre Co. Feeling that Latino literature and its writers ought to be more accessible to the public, he began a theatre company. Along with Adelina Anthony, Eliberto founded the company as a vehicle to bring the Chicano/ Latino US experience expressed in literature to the public. Since that time, the cultural breadth of CMTC's plays expanded over the years, and the company's artistic approach has simultaneously matured, especially since the arrival of current Executive Artistic Director David Lozano in 2002. To expand the company's reach to non-theatre going Latinos, Lozano chose to focus on creating new bilingual plays that were both topical and theatrically unique. Trained in physical theatre, Lozano formed a resident artistic ensemble that began to devise new works inspired by international forms of physical theatre such as clown and mask performance, poetic movement and collectively created plays that speak to the experiences of the local Latino community in Dallas. Today, CMTC boasts of a 19-member resident artistic ensemble that creates new works and also produces classic plays by the most acclaimed Latino playwrights in the nation. Cara Mía Theatre Co. celebrates its 20th anniversary during the 2015-2016 season.

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