Plays Written by Georgina Escobar:
A DOG LOVES MANGO (UN CANE AMA II MANGO)
ALEBRIJES (OR RIDICULOUS BEAUTIFUL BEASTS)
ALL STRINGS CONSIDERED
ASH TREE
BI
DESAPARECIDAS
LITTLE DUENDE
MIGRANT X
MONSTERS WE CREATE
SCREWGAR
SPECIES: HUMAN
STONEHEART
SWEEP
THE RUIN
THEN THEY FORGOT ABOUT THE REST
THE UNBEARABLE LIKENESS OF JO, SEMITY, AND JONES
Synopses:
A Dog Loves Mango (Un Cane Ama II Mango) – A woman is stopped by an airport security K-9 because of her leather shoes…her mango leather shoes…A short play written for the 2019 CCTA commission.
Alebrijes (Or Ridiculous Beautiful Beasts) – When a young bride and groom-to-be discover the largest Dia de Muertos altar they’ve ever seen, they suddenly notice something’s run amuck, literally. A little creature, known as an alebrije, sweeps into the room and takes the bride’s imagination, forcing past and present to meld together in this playful homage to Pedro Linares, the creator of the alebrije. Set in present day San Luis Potosí, in Xochimilco in 1936, and in an afterlife that looks too much like a psychedelic Oaxacan jungle, young Pedro realizes his artistic potential through his relationship to his pets as totems, his love for painting, and a close encounter with death.
All Strings Considered – A young Mexican girl in Queens wants to try out for the school’s talent show featuring her recently deceased father’s music— Son Jarocho—the typical music of Veracruz, Mexico. After a series of encounters with the school bullies, she decides to immerse herself in her father’s story (based on musical composer’s book “Zoongoro Bailongo”) and remind the people of her school, that music is indeed, the universal language.
Ash Tree – Three sisters face the challenge of coping with their Mother’s death. Unable and unwilling to give up hope, Tristen leads her two sisters into a journey of imagination, self-discovery and acceptance. Opening a portal described in their Mother’s stories, Tristen, Gaela and Selene lead us through their inner psyche as it is manifested through lessons learned from encounters with a Gnome, A Nelrim and an Echo known as Gandria. Secret drawers pop open unannounced, gnomes come in and out from under the bed— letting loose confusion, riddles, journeys, and blurring boundaries between tale and fact, between memoir and fiction, and ultimately unleashing a truth and acceptance that inspires their own new story.
Bi – A bilingual play inspired by the book “Flatland” by Edwin Abbot. The year is 2089 in Tierra Plana, a new nation of squares, walls, and all sorts of boxes; a place where individual categories are pre-determined. Four friends: Fig, Noir, Isa, and Hex, are preparing for the day they receive their identity bracelets. Nervous about not fitting in, they escape to the desert and discover the mystery of the past hidden in boxes from the U.S. Census Bureau. Bi– will break open the boxes of selective classification and raise the question: What is your bi-dentity? Using mathematical and geometrical metaphor as well as inspiration from interviews from people in the community to tug at the heartstring that often make us feel a little too much like ‘the other,’ this piece is about expansive thinking and the challenges, of those with dual identities in navigating within a homogenous society…times one ten.
Desaparecidas – (Book by Georgina Escobar, Music by Jaime Lozano, Lyrics by Jaime Lozano and Florencia Cuenca) A musical inspired by the stories of women from the borderlands, specifically, those who have disappeared. From the missing, to the socially invisible, to the forgotten, and the ones lost in their past, Desaparecidas takes place in a classic and timeless Mexican state fair (a Palenque) where the audience experiences the “appearance” of the stories and women as summoned by our narrator: the famous (and deceased) Mexican singer Jenni Rivera.
Little Duende – (Books and Lyrics by Georgina Escobar, Music and Lyrics by Robi Hagar) Adelita, a curious and clumsy young elf eager to find what lies beyond the horizon, is an outsider in her mythological land of Elflán. When the evil spirit of La Mancha kidnaps her mother and destroys her home, Adelita is forced to travel north in the company of a God of the Yesteryear toward the land of the Hadaseñas. But when she crosses a wall made of human remains, she realizes that the North, and her entire existence, is not at all what she’d imagined. A dark adult musical fairytale about the myths we create around grief and the terrible things that hide behind the illusion of dreams, Little Duende explores the border crisis, dual citizenship, and the responsibility of all of us who have the gift of “freedom.”
Migrant X – A Mito-American Journey Play and political fantasy about the migrant experience.
Monsters We Create – The year is 2030 and the world has been turned upside down. Along the border, in a place called “Sun Town” a series of ominous threats have surfaced, threatening the livelihood of six friends. After a young writer escapes from the Stamp (Sterilization Camp), she sets into motion a story and a call to action which promises to save her friends and, hopefully, civilization as they know it. That is, if they can get past their own monsters…A frontera funk tale co-created with UTEP writing students, Monsters We Create is a surprisingly sweet story of loss, friendship, and hope.
Screwgar – An Ocean Beach inspired piece about a theatre inherited by two estranged siblings and ran by a Lesbian Shakespearean troupe. A story about bisexuality, coming out, and the many toxic stereotypes among lesbian and bisexual groups.
Species: Human – Three roommates set out to create and submit their graphic novel idea for a famous competition, if they can only land on the right idea. Charles Darwin embarks on his journey across the Atlantic and makes observations about the state of the mind from the ship’s poop cabin. Abe Lincoln asks JWB to kill him and make him a martyr. A sad dog contemplates drowning himself and Anthony Bourdain’s bathrobe is running amuck. Meanwhile, the graphic novel’s writer has developed strange seizures, the penciller cannot stop researching Anthony Bourdain, and the colorist is obsessed with her phone. Love. Entropy. Beauty. Suicide. A not-at-all relaxing meditation on the cacophony that makes the human orchestra viewed as glimpses of present shock after present shock after present shock (scroll, refresh) and back again.
StoneHeart – A deconstructed Western that explores the societal constructs of femininity and class through the lens and experience of Birdie Zermani. As her mind deteriorates and the webs of abandonment trap her in her past, our aging matriarch is launched into a fabula that mixes the western genre with Latin American history and myth as we watch the deterioration of a family in Ciudad Juarez in the 1980, told through her eyes. Forbidden love, mental illness and suicide come together in a visceral family drama where the Zermanis are forced to cope with the death of their hearts, their loved ones, and their legacy amidst the rise of a new generation of ‘society’s finest.’
Sweep – Sweep is a sci-femme story that follows two sisters and hit women of the splintered worlds whose initial snafu with Adam & Eve catches up with them lifetimes later. Fighting for a last chance to reset humanity’s imperfect patterns, the women of Sweep hunt their targets from biblical times to modern-day in order to accelerate humanity’s evolution.
The Ruin – Using the inspiration from the melancholic playfulness of the Spanish literati: Cervantes, Garcia Marquez, Allende, Borges and Coelho, this play follows a young archeologist as he goes in search of a legend, and the woman who might still hold a key to his father’s heart. The witches he encounters talk to waterfalls, read snails, pray to salt and compose music alongside the oil painting of Don Quixote. But do they have any real powers? Or it is all part of ingesting the “sacred saints” (mushrooms)? Exposed to a life outside of her own, young Fatima starts to question, along with the outsider: Is there a difference between magic and choice?
The Unbearable Likeness of Jo, Semity, and Jones – A ridiculous investigation into memory, personal identity, and digiphrenia. Moments before her plane is about to crash, Jones deconstructs memory as a state of passage; from love, to Facebook, to her sexuality; all as related to one thing: present shock.
Then They Forgot About the Rest – “Two sisters coping with a recent traumatic event sign up to receive information regarding a special trial for the soon-to-hit-market drug: Alleviate. Meanwhile, at an ad agency called The Rest, the advertisers are about to accept this new ‘forgetting pill’ brief. Paths intertwine between memory, the truth, and The Rest as a pending apocalypse threatens to end the human race. An apocalyptic frontera (border) funk piece with elements of noir, ‘Then they forgot about The Rest’ is a southwest femmetasia about the things worth forgetting, the physical impact of memory, and the company that we keep.”
Bio:
Georgina Escobar is a queer playwright from Ciudad Juárez, México who specializes in genre with heart, including musical theatre, modern sci-fi, and other futurity femmetasias. Her plays have been produced in the US, México, UK, Italy, Denmark & Sweden. She is a Kilroy’s List Writer, and the recipient of the inaugural Gotham & Variety Audio Honors award for groundbreaking audio storytelling. Other accolades include The National Darrell Ayers Playwriting Award, Outstanding Service to the Women on the Border Award, and Finalist at the National Playwright’s Conference 2019. Escobar is a La MaMa Umbria, MacDowell Fellow, Djerassi Residency, Fornés Writing Workshop, Clubbed Thumb Emerging Writers Group, and Project Y writer. She has been a Visiting Instructor at institutions like Kingsborough College NY, the University of Texas at El Paso and Princeton University. Her work has been featured in The Texas Review (Matted), Los Bárbaros | Lxs Bárbarxs (Pies Pa’Que), McSweeny’s Press (“I Know What’s Best For You”), Inti Press UK (Cósmica, translation) and more. Off Broadway: Then They Forgot About The Rest (World Premiere INTAR 2019), Sweep (Lincoln Center Director’s Lab 2016) Off-Off Broadway: Desaparecidas (JACK, 2022), The Unbearable Likeness of Jo, Semity & Jones (Dixon Place), Penny Pinball Presents The Beacons (UNIT 52, INTAR). Musical Theatre book-writing credits include: Little Duende with music & lyrics by Robi Hager and additional lyrics by Escobar, (NAMT ’21, National Music Theatre Conference 2021) Desaparecidas (Joe’s Pub, JACK) with music by Jaime Lozano, lyrics by Jaime Lozano and Florencia Cuenca, and All Strings Considered with music by Zenén Zeferino Huervo (New York Children’s Theatre.) Her short plays have been featured across the country and internationally as part of initiatives like “After Orlando”, Climate Change Theatre Action, The Future is Female, and EMILIA ROMAGNA TEATRO FONDAZIONE: Planet B. Un mondo ancora possibile? Her original work has been produced and developed at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, NAMT, INTAR, JACK Space Brooklyn, Open Jar Studios, New York Children’s Theatre, Clubbed Thumb, Lincoln Center, Bushwick Starr, La MaMa, Two Rivers, Milagro Theatre, Aurora Theatre, Duke City Repertory, and more. Her short story “And then I hit the glass” was part of the Talking While Female album available on Audible, and “Musings” on Girl Tales Podcast. She is the creator/writer of Sonoro’s Sci-Femme series “Hidden Element.” Her short film MONAH had a World Premiere at the Austin Film Festival 2022. She serves on the Board of the El Paso Holocaust Museum, Marfa Live Arts, is on the Advisory Committee for the Latinx Theatre Commons. Escobar is represented by Bret Adams Agency (Theatre; New York) and 3 Arts Entertainment (TV/Film; Los Angeles).
Website: www.georginaescobar.com