Photos: Roger Q. Mason's JUANA MARIA Gets Reading At The Roots And Wings Project

On Sunday, May 25th The Roots and Wings Project (Producer, Jesse Bliss) presented a special reading of Roger Q. Mason's Juana Maria, the third part in Mason's Califas Trilogy, a trio of genre-obliterating plays about the beauty and the underbelly of ambition in America's West.  See photos from the reading.

Juana Maria was directed by Michael Alvarez and starred Tonantzin Carmelo. The reading was produced by Outside In Theatre and Skylight Theatre Company in association with The Roots & Wings Project. 

West of the West Coast lies the isolated St. Nicolas Island where a young indigenous woman lived for almost two decades without human contact. And then she was "rescued" in 1853 by an American sailor with a bounty. After living as an exotic at the Santa Barbara Mission for seven weeks, rich food, fleeting fame, and the excess of the West killed her. This is a dirge for her last two months alive. Juana Maria was a recipient of the 2024 Ojai Playwright Conference Fall Playwright Residency.

The Roots and Wings Project will present Luminous Streets a Highland Park Los Angeles theatrical tour centering on women’s survival and the pursuit of justice this September. For more information please visit www.therootsandwingsproject.com. 

Photo Credit: Alex Griffin/Nastassia Cordeiro

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