Honor-Winning SOU Graduate's Powerful New Play OUR UTOPIA, To Be Staged At Ashland New Plays Festival

On April 29 and 30, Ashland New Plays Festival continues its spring offerings with public readings of ANPF New Voices Playwright Carlos-Zenen Trujillo's powerful new work, Our Utopia, commissioned by Bag&Baggage Productions.

This thought-provoking new play examines the ways Oregonian dreams can become nightmares. The story delves into the darker side of an idealistic community. Drawing inspiration from Our Town, the play asks big questions about belonging, community, and one's place in the world. At its core, Our Utopia is a call for empathy.

The readings will be followed by talkbacks about the play and the development process, which includes a week of workshopping the piece with playwright Trujillo, director Jackie Apodaca, dramaturg Lue Morgan Douthit, and the cast, including Wyatt Fisher, August Gabriel, Lauren Bone Noble, Isabel Pask, Emily Serdahl, and Vilma Silva, with stage directions read by Asa Warnock.

Trujillo (they/them) is a much-honored playwright whose achievements include selection as one of ANPF's New Voices in 2021, recipient of the Certificate of Merit in Dramaturgy, an Irene Ryan Award nomination for A Man of No Importance and Elektra, and a 2019 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) ASPIRE Leadership Fellow. Trujillo earned a BFA in Theatre Arts from Southern Oregon University, and their play Christmas, Contigo premiered in 2021 at the Oregon Cabaret Theatre. Currently, Trujillo is a cohort member of Artists Repertory Theatre's PATHWAYS Mentorship Program, in Portland, Oregon.

"Oregon is a land of lost dreams. Lotus Eater Country," Trujillo says. "It is the place where utopian daydreams become real. And where they more often than not become nightmares.

"This state is defined by independence, the idea that here, you'll be left alone to create your little slice of heaven. And it has broadcast that image to the world. From the Oregon Trail to Portlandia, we love to let the world know that in Oregon, you can just be. You can be yourself, and so long as you work hard enough, you too can create paradise. And yet. That isn't the whole truth, is it?"

ANPF Artistic Director Jackie Apodaca, who is the director of Our Utopia for both this workshop and the play's world premiere at Bag&Baggage in the fall of 2023, had the chance to work on this story in a virtual workshop in 2022. About this immersive new play, she says, "Oregon is home to its share of idealistic dreamers, communes, and, well, cults. Our Utopia asks what we are willing to give up so that we can belong."

The ANPF readings of Our Utopia will be held on Saturday, April 29, at 7:30 pm and Sunday, April 30, at 1:30 pm in the Main Stage Theatre at Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University, 491 South Mountain Avenue, in Ashland. Tickets are $25 and available online. There are also $15 tickets, for those who need access to lower pricing. Admission is free for SOU students with a student ID.

For more information, visit ashlandnewplays.org.

A note about Covid precautions: We do not currently require proof of vaccination, nor do we currently require masks at our events. If the risk level rises, we may change these requirements. Updates will be reflected on the ANPF website. Thank you for your understanding.

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