A DouglasPlus Event at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, March 1 at 1 p.m.
Center Theatre Group will present a special reading of Evelina Fernandez’s Hope: Part II of A Mexican Trilogy as part of the DoulasPlus at the Kirk Douglas Theater on Saturday, March 1st at 1pm. The reading is a completion commission of Center Theatre Group’s New Play Production given to collective creators who have developed the piece elsewhere but desire further support to complete the work.
Hope: Part II of A Mexican Trilogy is the second of three related plays produced by Latino Theater Company – Faith: Part I and Charity: Part III complete the trilogy, all directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela, artistic director of the Latino Theater Company. Hope originally premiered at the Los Angeles Theatre Center to critical acclaim in October 2011 (Fernández received a Best Play Ovation Award nomination). The DouglasPlus reading reflects a continuation of work by Fernández on the piece.
Set in a suburban Arizona community at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, a multi-generational Mexican American family circumvents the realities of a country facing political, social and cultural upheaval in 1960s America. Fernández’s drama is infused with sounds of the era and challenges historic notions of what the American family looks like.
Fernández, a playwright and actor, is a TCG Fox Actor Fellow. She received the 2012 LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Writing of a World Premiere Play for “A Mexican Trilogy,” which is now being published by Samuel French. “Charity: Part III of A Mexican Trilogy” premiered in May 2012 and was a Back Stage Critic’s Choice, and “Faith: Part I of A Mexican Trilogy” premiered in October 2012 to critical acclaim. Her stage plays “Solitude” (2009) and a revival of her critically acclaimed play “Dementia” (2010) both made the Los Angeles Times Critic’s Choice list. In 2003 “Dementia” won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Theater Production in Los Angeles and received four L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Award nominations, including Best World Premiere. She was nominated for the Humanitas Prize in 2005 for the “Give Me A Little Sign” episode of PBS’s “Maya and Miguel,” and recently completed “Macario,” an adaptation of B. Traven’s short story for Teatro Vision. She is currently a staff writer for East Los High an original television series for Hulu. Fernández is an award-winning actor and can be seen in John Sayle’s Go For Sisters, nominated for the Independent Spirit Award.
Valenzuela, is an award- winning theatre and film director and head of the MFA Directing program at the UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television. For over 30 years he has directed critically acclaimed productions at major regional theatres including the Los Angeles Theatre Center where he created the Latino Theatre Lab in 1985 and the Mark Taper Forum where he established the Latino Theatre Initiative. He most recently directed an outdoor production of Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt for the Ibsen Theater of Norway. At LATC: Melancholia by The Latino Theater Lab, A Mexican Trilogy by Fernández , La Victima by El Teatro de La Esperanza, and La Virgen de Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin, an annual holiday pageant at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral. Other international directing credits include Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman at the National Theatre of Norway. In 2002 he directed the award-winning world premiere of Dementia by Fernández. Valenzuela is the recipient of the Ann C. Rosenfield Distinguished Community Partnership Prize and the Hispanic Heritage Month Local Hero of the Year Award.
Completion commissions funding this presentation are supported by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Tickets for Hope: Part II of a Mexican Trilogy are $10 for all seats and are available by calling (213) 628-2772, online at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org or in person at the Center Theatre Group box office at the Ahmanson Theatre. The Kirk Douglas Theatre is located at 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232.
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