2023 in Playwrighting

A writer prepares, despairs and repairs.

I try to keep records of all the submissions I make in a year. I think it can be interesting to go back and note what I got or didn’t get, who responded, who didn’t, and the sheer volume. I don’t count all the no’s as a fail. You have to put yourself out there consistently so people will get to know your work. That being said I didn’t have what I consider a “good” year. Many theatres and playwrights labs have shut down, and the places left are less interested in doing new work. It’s been a challenging year personally as well, so that has to factor into how I felt about my writing. I am starting to dip my toe into film and television, but theatre is my passion and what I think I know how to do. What follows is my year in Submissions and opportunities. The green mark is a yes, the red a no.

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2023

January:

LOFT submission: Policarpa❌

Orchard Project submission: Linda the Musical❌

Jan 5: Off to Amazon with a commission. This has been an excellent opportunity to learn more about climate change and my birth country, Colombia, and I am fortunate to have been chosen to participate. Luzmi: Colombia Nuestro Planeta is the full-length piece that came from that trip

Dramatist Guild Virtual Fellows submission❌

Jan 18 Meeting w/ Artists Rep Sapience ✅ This is a protracted story of development, an almost production, and ultimately a loss of the production to restructuring the theatre. This is a company I love and have worked with in the past, and who have been so supportive of my work. It’s all in the bad timing.

Latino Theatre Co readings. Less successful than I hoped. As Girls Go came from this commission opportunity. It feels like a failed experiment.

Scratchpad series submission Playwrights Realm

Stood for Dramatists Guild council✅ and was elected. Proud to serve my community.

Teaching my playwrighting class at South Coast Rep on Zoom throughout the year. Lots of lovely returning students, some wonderful new ones. I may change up the format this year. So many of my newbies are asking for more basic playwriting. I need to serve them. I might set up a drop-in class for more mid-career playwrights. I also have to challenge myself in this class to keep things alive.

February:

Fabulous Monsters with the music of Fea opens in San Antonio.✅ A beautiful, gritty production, shepherded by Claudia De Vasco and expertly directed by Jerry Ruiz. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. The music and performers were punk and badass, making the script come to life. The best example of collaboration with a creative team.

Orlando Playfest 2023 - They asked for script Beheading Columbus ✅ Semi-finalist FINALIST! OCTOBER✅ Found out June 23. I had a wonderful and productive week in Orlando, further developing the play and mining the comedy. A great opportunity

Latine Awards. No idea what this was

South Texas New Play Fest submission❌

Vibrant Cities Grant✅ So needed!

March:

Somehow I became Literary Manager at AlterTheatre. A position that I’m not sure I’m the guy for. The theatre is in the Bay Area. I also have this job at Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble in Santa Ana, where I am a local artist.

At Alter I lead the AlterLab. It’s a powerful new play program, and many amazing writers have come through it, but this iteration is a little big and hard to wrangle. I could’ve done a better job this year, but I couldn’t let the Lab die because it had been so good to me. And I am loyal as hell to the theatre and the artistic personnel, past and present. I couldn’t devote the time needed. I will do better this year.

4C LAB Guest Artist Workshops, where I led a writing class for youth. Excellent.

Picture Me: New Works Festival Script Submission

Brisk Fest submission- Sylvia Rivera: A Drag Queen Scorned

Platform Presents submission: Nope, don’t know, don’t remember

South Dakota State University is now accepting submissions for The Festival of New Plays! submission Oy. As Girls Go, I think

Valley Players submission:?

"Closets are for Clothes" submission for reading with Left Coast Theatre Company ❌

Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival at Pablo Center - Improbable Fiction Play Festival submission Tamora❌

@neurodivergentplays submission Sapience

ABC Disney Showcase

Alabama Museum submission-  Silueta. I think this was specific to plays about artists.

Manhattan Theatre Club query/submission- Beheading Columbus

April:

Page 73

Stages submission❌ Advanced for a few rounds

Vanderbilt eco-grief submission

Trip with family to New York to see theatre! Leopoldstadt, New York, New York, The Thanksgiving Play, Kimberly Akimbo, Champion at the Met. A trip to the Drama Bookstore to sign my play Ghosts of Bogota only to find out it’s out of print (!) Mark, who works there had his own copy and had me sign it. Took away a bit of the sting, but led me to find out Broadway Licensing wont publish the play in hardcopy.

May:

Pacific Playwrights Festival at South Coast Rep. I wasn’t in it but I was happy to support my fellow writers: Aavaz by Michael Shayan, and Coleman 72 by Charlie Oh. Particulary loved Coleman. I could relate to that immigrant experience, having done the same thing from Buffalo to San Jose.

City Theatre submission Perfect Numbers

California Art Council's Individual Artist Fellowships  ❌

Finalist for the Eugene O’Neill with Beheading Columbus ✅ A thrilling development! I’ve been a Semi three times, so it was fantastic to advance.

Bottle Alley Theater Co submission - Fabulous Monsters

Production of Sapience at Artists Rep announced ✅ and “postponed”: Cue the Wah Wah’s. Woulda been my first LORT

June

Artists Rep’s Sapience workshop with PHAME performers directed by Melory Mirashrafi. I had the opportunity to workshop my play with actors from PHAME, a fine and performing arts academy serving adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It was enlightening, an exercise in creative abundance, and a commitment to the tenet “Nothing about us, without us.” Which makes the cancellation all the more disappointing, as this would’ve been a groundbreaking event for me, and for Portland.

Professional artists workshops at Center Theatre Group. I did a voice concentration. Always good to be back in the classroom as a student.

Cimientos submission - Lluvia❌ Brand new play. An adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s Rain. Not sure how I feel about this play? It was written for the Odyssey Writers group, an invited writers circle of LA playwrights.

California Arts Council Grant  ❌

Fault Line Theatre Irons in the Fire submission- Lluvia❌

CCInovations Grant ❌

Constellation Stage & Screen: Woodward/Newman Submission- Lluvia (I sure submitted it a lot for a play I’m not sure I even like)

Pen America Immigrant Grant

Otherworld Theatre submission

Illinois State Diverse Voices submission- As Girls Go. Oy.

Asked to write for Golden Tongues Diversifying the Classics ✅ A commission to adapt a Spanish Golden Age play into modern language and set in Los Angeles. I chose La Cueva de Salamanca, which I translated into English. I think it’s the first time it’s been translated. Of course I already did that and OY. We’ll see.

July:

Surprise trip to Costa Rica!

August:

Yale submission (Always dependent on the person who makes the choices. It’s Jeremy O’Harris who I admire) Beheading Columbus

American Blues Theatre submission(Every year!)

New Dramatists submission

Mach 33 submission❌ Finalist. - Immunity commissioned by SPARC in Livermore. About the lead-up to the creation of the first COVID-19 vaccine. Definitely a “Too soon” play. I kinda really wanted this one.

Lanford Wilson Full-Length Play Submission

Actor’s workshop for my beloved mentor José Cruz Gonzales

September:

Pegasus Play Lab 2024 submission

GPTC submission

Actors Theatre Workshop  Fall Play Reading and Discussion Series submission

A-typico- Beheading Columbus submission ✅ Finalist, ✅ Picked!! Lovely company, great discussion. I wish I could’ve been more involved, but I was performing in CHRISTMAS CAROL at the time of the reading.

3rd Annual STX Latinx New Play Festival - 2024 submission

Ghosts of Bogota perusals to Portland Center Stage, Gulfport, Seattle Public- connected with Alley Theatre. This is so frustrating. “Ghosts” did so well in production. I think it’s a good play, but the original publisher got swallowed by Broadway Licensing, and the play disappeared from bookshelves and isn’t getting pushed or sold. LIMBO!! This one makes me sad.

October:

Bay Street Tidal Wave submission

NEXT ACT! New Play Summit submission

Origins CV Rep submission

Cleveland (What????)

My movie Final Vow premiered at the Newport Film Festival. I play an Obi-Wan Kenobi ex-nun. Ridiculously fun.

The COVID Monolouges won the Latino Book Awards best theatrical book award for Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble. We got a ceremony and a medal. Pretty frikkin’ cool.

November:

I was chosen as one of the Center Theatre Group artists-in-residence. Excited to see what that means.

Magnolia Theatre Company reading of Beheading Columbus with a talkback. Always weird to be the only one on Zoom, but they were in Ohio. Great reading, good talkback. It’s always interesting to see who gets what from that show. And how much the Dr. Dover either hates the character or dives right in.

Peforming in South Coast Rep’s A Christmas Carol. Criminally fun and a needed Equity production for my pension

Leah Ryan submission Beheading Columbus

FMM Fellowship for Works in Heightened Language Submission 2023-2024 Ugh. As Girls Go. Can you tell I’m bruised?

Smith and Kraus Best of Anthologies submission

OOB Concord Theatricals submission

December:

Ojai- where they were nice enough to let me submit Beheading Columbus, a play I had already submitted.

Closed Christmas Carol. So grateful to have something to do during the holidays. Thank you Mr Fezziwig! (Bo Foxworth)

Plays I saw not listed above:

Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

La Egoista by Erlina Ortiz

Twilight by Anna Deavere Smith

Love and Information by Caryl Churchill

BLUE by June Caryll (I was there for the creation of this masterpiece!)

Shanghai's World Emporium by Nathan Wang

The Bottoming Process by Nicholas Pilapil

The Mountaintop by Katori Hall

Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

Fetch Clay Make Man by Will Power

Peter Pan Goes Wrong by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of the Mischief Theatre company

The Travelers by Luis Alfaro

Tacos Las Brooklyn by Joél Ulloa

Seamless by Dorinne Kondo

Paradise de Tere Martinez

I am missing so many!

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As you can see, I’m still waiting on notifications. Or not. So many opps don’t tell you if you haven’t been chosen. Send it out into the ether and it’s a pleasant surprise if you get a win.

Hoping for a solid year. Some tentative feelers out for possible productions. Some talks with NNPN. Lit. Managers sending out and discussing my work. Some changes on the representation front. Could be exciting, could be— who knows.

At any rate, it’s another year to keep pounding the laptop keys. I’m working on a new play for myself and on the Golden Age commission. And trying to decide what to do about that disastrous reading for my LTCo commission that on second and third glance, I’m not sure I can fix. They can’t all be gems; sometimes, you have to cut your losses and move on. Yes, even with full-lengths.

I feel the failures and the occasional triumph. The losses and the gains, even when the gains feel incremental.

I hope this has been helpful as you submit your own work and keep moving. Mid-career playwrights, especially outside of New York, have a more challenging time of it, but we’re a tough bunch, and I know 2024 will be— successful. Who knows? I am hard on myself. But the point is to stay with my passion, even when the outcome is unknown.