Roger Q. Mason's CALIFORNIA STORY To Premiere With Outside In Theatre
Performances will run from May 9 to June 3 at LACC's Caminito Theatre.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Apr. 16, 2025
Roger Q. Mason will receive the World Premiere of their play California Story with Outside in Theatre at LACC's Caminito Theatre May 9-June 3. The production, directed by Michael Alvarez, will feature Aphrodite Armstrong, Camila Arteche, Davi Santos, Gracie Cartier, Morgan Danielle Day, Sawyer Shine, and Peter Mendoza.
Whipping between a post-capitalist water-world dystopian future and the Golden Era of 19th Century Manifest Destiny, California Story scrutinizes the past, present, and (hopefully not) future cost of grasping for privilege in America. At the heart of the tale is Pio Pico - California's last Mexican governor - who sacrifices family, identity and integrity to stake his claim in the American dream during California's journey to statehood in the 1800s.
California Story was a finalist for the 2024 Ojai Playwrights Conference. The play is the first part in Mason's Califas Trilogy, a trio of genre-busting plays about the beauty and the underbelly of ambition in America's West. These three new plays examine the past, present and future of California as expressed through western expansion and gentrification. More information about the other two plays in the Califas Trilogy, also playing in Los Angeles this spring, can be found at www.califastrilogy.com.
Roger Q. Mason
(Playwright) (they/them) is an award-winning writer, performer and educator who satirizes and revises history to disrupt the biases that separate rather than unite us. Their playwriting has appeared on Broadway; Off/Off-Off-Broadway; and regionally. Their recent productions have garnered five Barrymore Award nominations in Philadelphia, a Jeff Award Recommendation in Chicago and the San Francisco Chronicle's prestigious Datebook Pick. Mason's World Premiere of Lavender Men was lauded by the Los Angeles Times as "evoking the mingled visions of Suzan-Lori Parks, Jeremy O. Harris and Michael R. Jackson." They received 2024's Playwrights' Center McKnight National Playwright Commission, the inaugural Dramatists Guild Foundation Catalyst Grant Award, a Hermitage Residency, a Lucille Lortel commission, a Kilroys List nod, and the Chuck Rowland Pioneer Award. Mason is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and an alum of the Ma-Yi's Writing Lab, Page 73's Interstate 73 Writers Group, the Fire This Time Festival, and Primary Stages Writing Cohort. As an educator, Mason has served as a mentor for Lambda Literary, Workshop Theatre, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute's Starship Fellowship, the New Visions Fellowship and the Shay Foundation Fellowship. They are currently on faculty at CalArts. Mason holds degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. Instagram: @rogerq.mason
Michael Alvarez
(Director) is a Latinx interdisciplinary and international theatre director, creator, and visual artist. He has been a Directing Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, a Drama League Directing Fellow, and a Director with The Civilians R&D Group, amongst others. He has directed and created work in New York, London, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Eastern Europe, and at such institutions as Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End, Arcola Theatre, London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, National Theatre of Slovenia, New York Theatre Workshop, Serenbe Playhouse and made performance art pieces at the British Museum. He is the founding Artistic Director of The Muse Collective and is Assistant Professor of Directing and Interdisciplinary Performance at UNCSA. Most recently, he directed Julius Caesar at Catskill Mountain Shakespeare. Member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Education: Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and California Institute of the Arts. www.Michael-Alvarez.com
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5.6% of votes
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5.5% of votes
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