Artesia, New Mexico.
Current Residence:
Reside in both Madrid, New Mexico and Astoria, Queens.
Tell us about your play:
It's about a very conservative family in a very rural town coming to terms with one of their own being gay. The different generations are forced by a very extreme situation to look closely each other, and within themselves, for new and deeper answers that they would have never believed themselves capable of finding. It's about how we are all capable of love and redemption and evolution regardless of our backgrounds, cultures or creeds, particularly in times of crisis. On a personal level, it's the love song I've finally written to the world I come from. A world in which family, and tradition, and culture are sacrosanct; a world that is far away from other worlds; a world that is very judgmental and hostile to new ways and influences. But it is also a world which surprises me continually with its ability to evolve in small and courageous ways when given the opportunity to do so.
What are your goals with the Newborn Festival:
I'm really excited to see this cast come together, and to work with Joan Kane. My goal is to find that perfect synergy of creative talents and minds that we all strive for.
Most interesting feedback you've received from an audience member:
The play was produced as a college production at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, which is a very rural town just north of the Mexican border. Las Cruces is a tough little working class ranching and farming community. Because the University requires that all freshmen comp students see and write about the fall or spring production, my play got reviewed by a couple hundred kids.The artistic director passed on many of their comments to me, but there was one from a young man that really stuck with me. The teacher included a note saying that he was a very tough guy. And in his paper he wrote that the play had really upset him because his cousin had been gay, and their uncle had beat him to death. There were no charges brought against the uncle, nobody in the family ever talked about what happened, nobody spoke his cousin's name anymore, and nobody had ever been to visit his grave. He ended the play review by saying that he cried for his cousin for the first time as he drove home from the play, and that he took a detour, drove out to the cemetery and sat at his cousin's grave.
How would you like to be remembered?
As a kind person who tried to help people in need, and who could spin a great yarn.
DON'T MISS THE 2014 NEWBORN FESTIVAL - FREE
SAT, FEB 8 @ 8:00 PM
SWEET, SWEET SPIRIT
By Carol Carpenter
Directed by Joan Kane
Set in New Mexico, Jimmy is a lawyer and a “good old boy”. When he catches his under-aged son Tyler in bed with an older man, he beats Tyler into a coma. As the family sits at Tyler’s bedside, they must fight for the boy’s future, if he wakes up.
- Talk-back hosted by Martin Denton, Editor of Indie Theater Now