Breath Of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble Celebrates Its Quincenera With A New Play Festival

Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble presents, "15 Stories Celebrating 15 Years - A New Works Festival" on Saturday, May 26 @ 2:00 PM presented at Grand Central Arts Center Theater in downtown Santa Ana. There will be a small reception to follow.

The event is FREE and made possible through a two-year grant from California Arts Council Cultural Pathways and donors like you. The grant concludes June 30, 2018. Please RSVP here to secure your spot: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/15-stories-celebrating-15-years-a-breath-of-fire-new-works-festival-tickets-45809933745?aff=efbeventtix

The event includes staged readings of 15 short new works presented by 15 professional, and emerging playwrights. The festival is a culmination of time dedicated to storytelling, theatre-making and playwriting programming. Workshops and classes were taught by professional theatre artists and offered free. No one was ever turned away for lack of experience.

The event also marks the ensemble's 15th anniversary, it's Quiñceanera.

The festival is under the direction of BOFLTE's Literary Director, Diana Burbano:

"In today's fraught and divided political environment, it would be easy for writers to write either screeds against divisive policies, or to default to "Clean" work that doesn't do any commentary and works hard to offend no one. The pieces in our festival do neither. They are very different stories, some sad, some not, but all infused with the honesty of lived experience and truth.

What do they have in common? They are asking for the audience to open their eyes to a story that perhaps they think they don't share or don't understand, but is in fact a universal experience to the core. I am very proud to have chosen this fascinating mix of brand new plays from our Breath of Fire Literary Festival, since so many of the writers came through BOFLTE's various playwriting programs. Many of them took the same classes,but the writer's individual voices shine through. We are also thrilled to have a couple of brand new (to us) writers in them mix, whose plays excited and challenged us.

I hope you too are challenged and stimulated by our program, and that our cohort of diverse playwrights make you think about old topics in a new way."

Over the past three years, Breath of Fire has developed into an organization that serves as an incubator for underrepresented voices in theater by providing programming that provides guidance in the art of storytelling, playwriting, producing, and acting. These workshops bring seasoned writers, playwrights, and actors to facilitate high quality theater making workshops for local Orange County residents at no cost.

These workshops have served as a catalyst for plays that document the lives and represent the abundant creativity of local residents who do not readily have access to theater. Thus, in addition to the workshops, we have facilitated the production of some of the plays written at our workshop for performances and shared readings, while also bringing engaging the community through performances by award winning professional playwrights such as José Cruz González, Karen Zacarias, Monica Palacios, Ser Anzoategui, Jose Casas, and Paul S. Flores to name a few.

Playwrights and New Works included:

• La Chingada by Elizabeth Isela Szekeresh

• Consulting Spirit By Yolanda Mendiveles

• The Visit by Lorna Silva

• Cast Me by Mildred Lewis

• Home by Jacqueline Castaneda

• Vagina Blue, Vagina Green by Brenda Kenworthy

• Breaking the Binary by Angela Moore

• Mis Padres Murieron by Richard Soto

• Call the Shots by Anatalia Vallez

• Resilience by Eloise Coopersmith

• Fatness and Glory by Shanelle Garcia

• Swastika by Elaine Romero

• Dreaming by Diana Burbano

• Rosado by Cole Santiago

• Jets, Sharks & Beckys by Nancy Garcia Loza

Sponsors include California Arts Council, CSUF's Grand Central Arts Center, and The WAYWARD ARTIST.

Funding for this event is made possible through a grant from California Arts Council Cultural Pathways two-year grant and donors like you. Additional support is provided by Grand Central Arts Center Artist-in-Resident program.

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