What's Up?
What's Up?
A quick update on what's happened from the past year.
Wahoo! You’ve opened this email and read this far. Thank you for that!
It goes without saying how absolute shit the past year has been. Hell, even this week. Writing about what’s going on at large seems disingenuous to me, but know that I’m angry, and I’m here to do the work. Here’s to change and better days. Clawing our way out.
Despite everything, I’ve been incredibly lucky to have worked on some super cool stuff. Here’s some of them:
In September, I got the nicest rejection on Earth. Although it was accepted as part of their podcast season, Theatre Viscera featured my play Flood and me as one of their “Artists to Watch.” Watch me! Perceive me!
Last fall, I was part of the inaugural AlterLab First Acts cohort with AlterTheater Ensemble. Working with AlterTheater Ensemble as the first step in my ~professional~ playwriting journey was the best thing that could’ve happened to me! With them, I was commissioned to write a brand new one-act play, Count Yourself Among the Lucky, while in virtual residency with them.
In December, my work-in-progress play congratulations got a virtual reading as part of The Inkwell Theater’s Playwrights’ Night series. It was super chill, and it was a great incentive to start working on this play. More on congratulations below!
In January, Telatúlsa Theater Company, an incredible Native & Latinx-focused theater did a virtual reading of CYATL as part of their #telatuesdays reading series. You can watch it here on Facebook.
In February, I was accepted to Company One Theater’s C1 PlayLab Circuit Volt Lab as a writer! I’m a big fan of C1, and I’m excited to have this opportunity. With them, I’ll be developing congratulations from a ten-minute scene into a full-length play. Allegedly. Let’s see what happens!
Most recently, Flood has found a temporary home at Teatro Chelsea, a Latinx-centered theater, for A-Típico: A New Latinx Play Festival! The reading will be THIS SATURDAY, APRIL 17TH!!!! at 7 pm EDT. If you wanna tune in, you can RSVP here.
As always, I don’t care much for barriers, so if you ever want to read one of my scripts, or if you can’t make it to Saturday’s reading, just shoot me an email or text and I’ll send it to you.
That was a lot. Thank you for reading that. Or skimming. I don’t judge.
Here is a picture of my dog, Laika.
Also, here’s some media/books I’m currently consuming:
Reading: The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas by Monica Muñoz Martinez. This history is unsurprising but still horrifying, of course. I’m about a quarter of the way through, and I might’ve figured out why part of my family on my mom’s side moved from Texas to Mexico back in the day (the 1910s). Spoiler alert: it was state-sanctioned genocide. 🥴🥴🥴
Watching: Letterkenny. It’s pretty funny, but I usually just watch it to keep it in the background while I do work on my computer. The wordplay is absolutely god-tier. The spelling bee episode is highly recommended.
In the future, for this column, I’m hoping to write more in-depth stuff about what I’m working on. I’m working on some stuff I’m pretty excited about recently, and I’m looking forward to sharing how they’re coming about and what they’ve been inspired by. This all sounds awfully vague, but hopefully, things will be clearer as I keep writing.
Until then, take care, and stay safe.
– AM