LA LAVADORA by Ryan M. Luevano Announced as Winner of 2021 FULL CIRCLE PLAYERS NEW WORKS PLAY FESTIVAL

LA LAVADORA by RYAN M. LUEVANO has won the first annual Full Circle Players' New Works Play Festival. As the winner he will receive a cash prize and his play will receive a fully staged production as part of the theatre company's 2022 fall season.

Artistic director Wendi Johnson said, "It was a unanimous decision from the judges to offer [...] La Lavadora first place . . . it is a lovely, and gorgeous play about family and love. I personally adore it."

Mr. Luevano's new play explores what happens when la lavadora (the washing-machine) breaks down for Mexican couple Rafael Sr. and Esperanza Mendez. The estranged couple, who share a property but not a roof, must find a way to work together and their adult son Rafael Jr. is enlisted as their facilitator. In this memory play the Mendez family's journey from Juarez, Mexico; to El Paso, Texas; to Los Angeles, California is explored tracing the breakdown of a marriage in the name of pride, tradition and putting family above all else. Meanwhile back in the present, dirty laundry begins to pile up and clean clothes run short. Can they find a way to work together to fix the washing-machine and perhaps what's left of their marriage in the process?

Ryan Luevano said, "This play was inspired by two of my favorite plays, Our Town and The Glass Menagerie. Here are two wonderful plays about family and community that are narrated by a main character. My new play La Lavadora follows in that tradition but puts people that look like me on stage-that is Hispanic people. It's a memory play infused with traditions, culture and even stories from my upbringing. At the heart of the play is a story about family and the sacrifices we make for the people we love."

Full Circle Players has a vision centered on inspiration, collaboration and creation from artist to audience. We are committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion in our work as we strive to create world class theatre in Riverside, California, and the world. We bring the best possible version of ourselves to our work onstage and to the organization, holding ourselves to high artistic, professional, and personal standards. Anchored by an inspired company creating exceptional art, we will be guided by thoughtful resource stewardship and a deep commitment to education and audience engagement.

RYAN LUEVANO

Ryan M. Luévano (he/him) is a composer, conductor, playwright, professor of music and theatre critic in the greater Los Angeles area. He's worked as a professor of music at Woodbury University, Santa Ana College and Rio Hondo College. He is also a board member of the Foundation for New American Musicals, a regular teaching artist at A Noise Within Theatre Company and a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

MUSICALS: Shoot Ma! (Colony Theater in Burbank 2010) and Experience Magic! (Sierra Madre Playhouse 2011) and 57 Bus.

PLAYS: Passing Time, Love is Dead, La Lavadora and Dance Plague.

Most recently he was accepted as Artists-in-Residence at Chateau d'Orquevaux in France for summer 2021 and was awarded the Denis Diderot Grant for his work on the musical 57 Bus. When he's not creating theatre, he pens as a theater critic for his blog Tin Pan L.A. (www.tinpanla.com).

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