PILAR AND PALOMA 

By Milta Ortiz of Borderlands Theatre 
Directed by Tania Benites 

Performed in English on 7pm on Thurs., Nov. 30 and Sat., Dec. 2, 2023 

After the newly built wall, Desert mourns her fallen Saguaros as Lupe rushes to get across the border. One mother’s grieving ripens another’s pregnancy and Zuri steps in to help Lupe’s twins. In a hurry, Zuri breaks desert convention and years later they must face the consequences. 

Después del muro recién construido, Desert llora a sus Saguaros caídos mientras Lupe se apresura a cruzar la frontera. El duelo de una madre hace madurar el embarazo de otra y Zuri interviene para ayudar a los gemelos de Lupe. A toda prisa, Zuri rompe las convenciones del desierto y años más tarde deben enfrentarse a las consecuencias. 

About Playwright Milta Ortiz 

MILTA ORTIZ, an award-winning playwright was born in El Salvador and raised in the Bay Area, she now calls Tucson home. She’s devising Antigona 3.0 with Borderlands Theater ensemble set to premiere in Spring 2024. She’ll direct The Candy Craze: A Sticky Situation at Pima Community College in October 2024, a play she facilitated Pima students in writing, the second installment of a TYA ongoing project. She’s developing Anita, a musical in collaboration with composer Quetzal Guerrero at Borderlands Theater and Childsplay. An excerpt of Anita was showcased at 4xLatine by the Latine Musical Theatre Lab. Milta was a 2020-21 Projecting All Voices Mellon fellow at Arizona State University, where she incubated Anita and solo play What Are You? In October 2022, she directed Ballet & Bagels, a TYA play she facilitated her students in writing at Pima Community College. Her play, Pilar and Paloma was part of Launchpad’s 2021 Bipoc Reading Series Festival. Judge Torres, commissioned and produced by Milagro Theatre Group, toured nationally to universities (2019-2020). Milta is Associate Artistic Director at Borderlands Theater, where a few of her plays, including Sanctuary (2018) and Más (2015) have world premiered. Borderlands’ production of Más toured Arizona universities in the 2016-17 season. Más was produced at Ubuntu Theatre Project/Laney College (2016), Su Teatro (2017), and San Diego State University (2018). She devised, wrote and directed Solving for X for the Working Classroom in the 2016/2017 season. Other produced plays include the 21st, 20th, 19th, and 18th Annual A Tucson Pastorela, Sonoran Shadows, Disengaged, Fleeing Blue and solo play Scatter My Red Underwear. She earned an MFA from Northwestern University, and a BA from San Francisco State University. She is proud to serve on the National New Play Network board of directors and as commissioner for the Tucson Convention Center. 

About Director Tania Benites 

TANIA BENITES is a Peruvian-born and Cleveland-raised theatre artist. She received her BA in Theatre from Cleveland State University in 2012 with a focus in performance. As an actress, Tania has worked at many theatres in Northeast Ohio including Cleveland Public Theatre, Teatro Público de Cleveland, Talespinner Children’s Theatre, Ensemble Theatre, LatinUs Theater Company, Clague Playhouse, and Rubber City Theatre. As a playwright Tania’s work has been featured in ¡Obras en Evolución! A festival of new play readings by Teatro Público de Cleveland in 2017 and 2018 where the beginnings of her upcoming TPC/CPT play Alter were formed. She is also a proud member of the Young Playwrights Collective. When she is not creating theatre, Tania serves as the Adult Programming Assistant for the Cuyahoga County Public Library. 

Click here to read our interview with Tania!

GRANDEZA 

By Ernesto Luna Camargo 
Directed by Obed Medina 

Performed in Spanish, with English supertitles at 7pm on Fri., Dec. 1, and 3pm Sun., Dec. 3, 2023. 

A teenager decides to come out of the closet and realizes that the entire world lives inside a closet, clinging to cultural traditions that have been wrong all their lives. In this black comedy the fight for acceptance will become a journey with no return towards an awakening in consciousness and for that we will need more than courage, we will need to shed ourselves as people. 

Un adolescente decide salir del clóset y se da cuenta que el mundo entero vive dentro de un clóset, aferrándose a tradiciones culturales que han estado equivocadas durante toda la vida. 

En esta comedia negra la lucha por la aceptación se convertirá en un viaje sin regreso hacia un despertar en la conciencia y para eso necesitaremos más que valor, necesitaremos despojarnos de nosotros mismos como personas. 

About Playwright Ernesto Luna Camargo 

ERNESTO LUNA CAMARGO is a founding member of Teatro Público de Cleveland and a lead artist. TPC stage credits: Cuando Cierras Your Eyes (2013); Estrella del Norte (Station Hope 2014); Vuelo del Ocean (Pandemonium 2014); A Recipe para la Vida (2014); Doña Carmella (Station Hope 2015); Mi Nombre Es (Pan @ TCG 2015); Yo Sueño of Home (Pandemonium 2015); ¿Dónde Está My Home? (2015); Uz, El Pueblo (2016); Mariel’s List (Pandemonium 2016); ¡CELEBRANDO 3 YEARS! (2016); Labio de Liebre (The Lip of the Hare) (2017); ¡OBRAS EN EVOLUCIÓN! A Festival of New Play Readings (2017); and En el Tiempo de las Mariposas / In the Time of the Butterflies (2018). Other credits include Sexual Fantasy, a short play written by Ernesto and performed with Dante Fernando Larzabal at CPT’s Pandemonium 2013. Ernesto also participated in the award-winning film, 50 Fathers, which was presented in the Cleveland International Film Festival (2015). He performed in Whisper’s Thread (Pandemonium 2018), directed by Raymond Bobgan and Faye Hargate. He lives in Cleveland Heights. He is a baker, writer, actor, costumer, and make-up artist, specializing in horror costumes. He is from a family of artists and has two sisters. He studied theatre and film in Uruguay and participated as an extra in multiple film productions and studied at Ohio University. He is from Montevideo, Uruguay and has lived in the US since 2002. 

About Director Obed Medina 

OBED MEDINA is the Associate General Manager and Artistic Coordinator at CPT. He is originally from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, raised in Southern California. He has worked at Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon and has served on multicultural boards serving the arts. Writing credits include collaboration with Finnish artist Tellervo Kalleinen on her project In the Middle of a Movie (2004) and Kingdom of Rain, a full-length play he wrote, produced, and directed for his undergraduate thesis. 

Click here to read our interview with Obed!

ABOUT TEATRO PÚBLICO DE CLEVELAND / ACERCA DE TEATRO PÚBLICO DE CLEVELAND

In 2013, Cleveland Public Theatre launched Teatro Público de Cleveland (TPC), a local Latinx theatre company, whose work reflects the artistic goals, interests, and ideals of its members. The purpose of this theatre ensemble is to share the rich diversity and perspectives of the Latinx-Cleveland culture, and to fulfill CPT’s core mission. 

En el 2013, Cleveland Public Theatre fundó Teatro Público de Cleveland (TPC), una compañía local de teatro Latino, cuyo trabajo refleja los objetivos, intereses e ideales artísticos de sus miembros. El propósito de esta compañía teatral es compartir la rica diversidad y perspectivas de la cultura Latina en Cleveland y cumplir con la misión central de CPT.