Latinx Playwrights Circle Announces 2023 Intensive Mentorship Recipients

Oscar A. L. Cabrera, Alisha Espinosa, and Latinx Playwrights Circle have announced that the playwrights selected for this year's Intensive Mentorship are: Iraisa Ann Reilly for Miss American Pretty; and Justin Santory for Time, Don't Take It Away.

Previous years' finalists include Andrew Rincón, Noelle Viñas, Nilsa Reyna, Andres Osorio, Julissa Contreras, Phanesia Pharel, Daniela Gonzalez y Perez, and Luis Herrera. Migdalia Cruz returns this year to mentor Iraisa Ann Reilly and Georgina Escobar joins this year to mentor Justin Santory. Georgina Escobar expands the ranks of established playwrights in our community that have mentored in past years. We have the honor of their commitment to our program alongside C. Julian Jiménez, Cándido Tirado, and Carmen Rivera and look forward to the continued support of these Mentors, in and out of the program, as we grow through the years.

The Intensive Mentorship this year gives two playwrights the space and support to develop a full-length play and are partnered with mentors to help guide the process. In addition to mentorship and a stipend, the playwrights will be able to take Tools of Dialogue at the Primary Stages Einhorn School of Performing Arts, as well as inquire about any other classes that may benefit their process. Over the course of the intensive, playwrights will each have two private table reads as well as a public industry reading at participating theaters. The public staged readings will occur in Fall 2023.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS

Iraisa Ann Reilly (She/Ella) is a writer and performer who is half Cuban, half Irish, and whole New Jersey. Iraisa Ann's work is bilingual and often examines the "American experience" because she still isn't sure what that phrase means. Select full-length plays include Good Cuban Girls (Teatro del Sol, at The Arden Theatre), The Jersey Devil is a Papi Chulo (Sol Fest 2022, Yale Drama Series Shortlist 2022, Finalist Leah Ryan Prize, KCACTF) Saturday Mourning Cartoons (Winner, Bay Area Playwright's Festival 2022, Finalist Goldberg Playwriting Prize, 2022). Her work has been developed with Theatre Exile, The New Harmony Project, The Chain Theatre, The Workshop Theatre, NYU Production Lab's Development Studio and the Latinx Playwright's Circle. Her play "House Bill 3979: Amendment #10: The Life and Works of Dr. Hector P. Garcia" was commissioned and produced by Texas A&M-University-Corpus Christi in 2022. She is currently under commission with the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia and Michigan State University, and is a member of the Art House INKubator for 2022-23 in Jersey City. As a screenwriter, her screenplay La Reina del Bronx won best screenplay at Fusion Film Festival, and was a semifinalist for the Vail Screenwriting Competition. She holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU, B.A. in Theatre and English from the University of Notre Dame. iraisaannreilly.com

Justin Santory is a gay native Nuyorican playwright and performer. He is a graduate of AMDA New York and later received his B.A. in Media Studies from Queens College. In July 2021, his first play Three's a Party had its world premiere as part of the Juntos Project with Teatro Bravo and Mesa Community College in Arizona. He is one of the inaugural recipients of the Creative Access Grant from Primary Stages. His second play, On a Higher Vibration, had a reading at 59E59 Theaters in New York. He contributed to DIQUE, a commissioned piece for the Arte Pa Mi Gente Festival. Justin's goal is to write plays that add a pinch of adobo to the American theatrical canon.

ABOUT THE MENTORS

Georgina Escobar is a queer Mexican writer & maker of sci-femme narratives, musical femmetasias, and frontera-futurity stories. She is a MacDowell, Djerassi Artist, Fornes Writing Group, Clubbed Thumb Writing Group & La Mama Umbria artist, and recipient of the National Kennedy Center's Darrell Ayers Award and Outstanding Service to Women on the Border Award. Her work has been published in The Texas Review, Los Bárbaros, Routledge, McSweeney's "I Know What's Best For You", Climate Change Theatre Action's "Lighting The Way", New Passport Press, and IntiPress (UK). Her plays have been produced across the USA and internationally in Mexico, UK, Italy, Denmark, and Sweden. She is an O'Neill NMTC Writer (Little Duende) NPC Finalist (Stoneheart), National Puppetry Conference Mentor, and Playwright Observer. Her work has been performed Off Broadway at INTAR, New York Children's Theatre, and Project Y, Clubbed Thumb, Lincoln Center, Bushwick Starr, and regionally at Two Rivers, Milagro, Aurora Theatre, Duke City Repertory, Greenhouse Theatre, and the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center. She is the recipient of the inaugural Gotahm and Variety Audio Honors award for groundbreaking audio storytelling (Musings) and the creator/writer of Sonoro's Epic Sci-Femme upcoming series "Hidden Element." Her short film MONAH is set to have its World Premiere at the Austin Film Festival 2022.

Migdalia Cruz is a Bronx-born, award-winning, multi-platform, playwright, lyricist, translator, and librettist of more than 60 works for stage, radio, film, TV, and podcast, performed in 150 venues in 40 cities in 12 countries. An alumna of New Dramatists, her awards include: NEA, McKnight, NYSCA, TCG/Pew, and she was named the 2013 Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwright. María Irene Fornés nurtured her at INTAR and Latino Chicago gave her a home as their playwright-in residence. She is a master teacher of playwriting with the Fornés Institute, various universities, and professional theater schools. She was co-chair of the DGF Playwriting Fellows 2020-21; mentors the NYC Latinx Playwrights Circle; and was recently commissioned by Clubbed Thumb, The Flea, INTAR, and Kitchen Dog (Dallas). 2021-23 productions: Macbeth translation @Shakespeare In Detroit, August 2023; Macbeth translation & Fishtank, in a workshop-collaboration with Blueprint/ PlayOnShakespeare/Magic Theatre (San Francisco) in April, 2023; Selections from TELLING TALES (Ratones, Arena, Jesús & Fuego) in Spanish, with performer/director, Elisa Bocanegra in Medellín, Colombia; Dinner With Dee @Kitchen Dog (Dallas), June 2022; a PlayOnShakespeare translation of Macbeth (Sunderland, England) @TheatreSpaceNorthEast, Aug 2021, and in 2022@USD/Old Globe (San Diego), and is now a podcast @Next Chapter Podcasts; YORICK'S LAST LAUGH @Shakespeare Dallas, 2021. Her translations of Macbeth & Richard III were published by ACMRS Press. Migdalia was featured in "SHAKESPEARE AND LATINIDAD," Edinburgh University Press, 2021, and in "Fifty Key Figures in LatinX and Latin American Theatre," published by Routledge, February 2022.

www.migdaliacruz.com

ABOUT THE PRODUCERS

The Latinx Playwrights Circle (LPC) is an artist-led development and production organization for Latinx(é) playwrights. Founded in 2017 by playwrights Guadalís Del Carmen and Oscar Cabrera with the mission to build a network of Latinx(é) playwrights nationwide in order to promote, develop and elevate their work while making their plays accessible to theater makers looking to find the next generation of American Storytellers. Its programs include Sunday Service, Fresh Draft Series, Greater Good Commision and Festival, Intensive Mentorship Program, LPC Community Nights and Page-to-Stage, whose inaugural production is Sancocho by Christin Eve Cato. In 2020 LPC received a residency at Kabayitos Theater, located in the Clemente Soto Velez Center where it produces a portion of their programming. In 2022 LPC was awarded a Creatives Rebuild New York Grant (CRNY) as well as the HOLA Award for Excellence in Theater.

For more information on Latinx Playwright Circle and its many programs please visit http://www.latinxplaywrights.com

LPC embraces the ever evolving landscape of Latinidad and the names used to describe this community, including Latiné, Latinx, Hispanic, and the next generation of names to come. Like language itself, this is an ever-evolving name.

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