Phoenix Theatre & the Indy Convergence Present BROKEN PROMISES

Amidst the backdrop of urban Latin hip hop music, rhyme, and choreography, Broken Promises reveals the shocking truth of how quickly and easily teens are ensnared in the world of sex trafficking. Desperate for money, four teens living on The Edge gamble their lives on internet porn and prostitution. Before they know it, they are trapped in a life from which they cannot escape, or can they?

This original work, created through collaboration with local health agencies, is based on the true life stories of teen girls who are lured into prostitution. The play will provide an opportunity to discuss sexual health in underserved communities and will be paired with our Healthy Relationships workshops that are scheduled for college and high school campuses across the country. Production performers are Emile Dultra, hailing from Brazil, Danielle Pecoff from Idaho, Marlon Jimenez Oviedo from Costa Rica and long-time Milagro touring artist Ajai Terrazas Tripathi from Corvallis, Oregon.

If one life is affected or saved because of this work, it will be worth it. Thanks for caring!

• Javier Sanchez, ELL Instructor, South Medford High School

This is an awesome play, especially if you are teachers and have any way to get students to this show or have the show come to your school, it's so worth it.

• Mary Ellen Morrison, Aurora Village, Jan. 21, 2016

Since 1989, Teatro Milagro's bilingual, arts education touring ensemble has provided culturally appropriate arts education & enrichment programs that build cultural appreciation and further Latino participation in the arts. In 1995 Teatro Milagro produced En Este Valle de Lágrimas, a Spanish language AIDS education play for Washington County Health Department. Since that time Teatro Milagro has produced over a dozen public health plays related to breast cancer, smoking and LGBTQQIA health and wellness in partnership with various health and social service agencies. In 2009, Teatro Milagro formed OYE, opciones y educación, a Latino sexual health coalition with Cascade AIDS Project and Multnomah County Health Department. Teatro Milagro teaching artists have worked collaboratively with Multnomah County Health Department since that time to receive training in popular education methodology and health promotion.

The 2016 tour of Broken Promises is made possible in part by the Juan Young Trust, Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Community Foundation, EC Brown Foundation, Bloomfield Family Foundation, Hoover Family Foundation, Ford Family Foundation, Templeton Foundation, Cow Creek Umpqua Indian Foundation and Carpenter Foundation.

Olga Sanchez, Playwright, is currently working on her PhD at University of Oregon. Prior to her new endeavor, she was the Artistic Director of Milagro for over twelve years. Olga is a founding member of Los Porteños writers group. Her original work includes five bilingual Día de Muertos shows, such as the recent ¡O Romeo! in which William Shakespeare encounters the Day of the Dead. Her commissions include two bilingual works for Metro;Super Ana, about conscious consumerism, and El Tesoro, about reusing and recycling. Her fiction has been published by Electrik Milkbath Press and Rio Grande Press; her short plays published by Rain City Projects. Sanchez holds a BA, Theatre, from Hunter College, C.U.N.Y.; MA, Human Development, Pacific Oaks College NW, specialization in Bicultural Development.

Francisco Garcia, Director, has worked extensively with elementary, high school and college students adapting literature, classical theater and developing and directing original works for student performances. He served as the 2012-2013 guest playwright for CalArts' Community Arts Partnership Program where his adaptation of Fuente Ovejuna was performed at REDCAT Theatre located at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and is currently writing Odessa, an adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey for Profile Theatre's Educational Outreach Program. He received his Bachelor's degree from Portland State University and his Master's degree from Cal State University, Los Angeles.

Ajai Terrazas Tripathi, Tour Manager & lead teaching artist, playwright and teaching artist, is originally from Corvallis, Oregon, where he graduated from Oregon State University with a BA in Theatre. Ajai has directed, and produced Stories of Discrimination, two original plays The Death Rattle, and The Anti-Bullying Project, both based on real life stories in Corvallis. This is his sixth year in the Milagro touring company as a performer and teaching artist. He is a resident playwright, having recently written the touring show Sueños de Fútbol. At Milagro he has performed in many different programs such as FRIDA, un retablo, B'aktun 13, Duende de Lorca, Cuéntame Coyote,and Searching for Aztlán. Ajai is also the Tour Manager, and a grant writer for Milagro touring and educational programs.

Emile Dultra, Adriana and teaching artist, was born in Salvador, Brazil - a city known as the "Rome of the African Diaspora", Emile joined her first amateur theatre group at age 9, after encountering a poster in the local library. Most recently, Emile played Lady in Red in a production of Ntozake Shange's 1975 choreopoem/play for colored girls who considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf at Lewis & Clark College, where she studiEd English Literature. Emile has practiced improv, and appeared in a series of community based productions throughout her childhood and adolescence with local Brazilian theatre groups and in Costa Rica.

Marlón Jiménez Oviedo, Esteban & teaching artist, is a student at Lewis & Clark College where he will graduate in June with a double major in Theatre and Environmental Studies. Marlón is also a graduate of the United World College of South East Asia with a degree in bilingual education. He is currently an intern at Boom Arts and serves on the Renewable Energy Fee Fund Committee of Lewis & Clark College. He also devised his own theatre production about food and civilization, which debuted at Lewis & Clark in the spring.

Danielle Pecoff, performer and teaching artist was raised in Lewiston, Idaho before moving to Oregon to pursue her BA in Theatre Arts at Southern Oregon University. She has worked as an actor, singer, dancer and director. Her credits include Lisa Morrison in Collected Stories, Andromache in Women of Troy, Percy Talbott in The Spitfire Grill, and JoAnne Galloway ?in A Few Good Men. She holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from SOU and loves sharing theatre with students of all ages. She recently returned from teaching English as a Second Language in Dalian, China.

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