Five panels of an Annette Sexton-Ruiz piece being used in a poster to promote a short-play festival featuring student and other works on the topic of immigration
Playwright James Garcia has worked for years with students at Carl Hayden Community High School on robotics and other projects.
Garcia says he learned “by coincidence” that some of the students had written a play titled “Should We Stay or Should We Go?” with teacher Trish Galindo Kiser — and that the work has themes similar to plays he’s assembling for an upcoming festival.
Garcia, who founded the New Carpa Theater Company in Phoenix, is organizing a “Performing 1070 Short-Play Festival” featuring works “centered on themes related to immigration.”
The festival will include 12 plays, chosen from 70 submissions, which vary in length from four to 12 minutes. The list of works being presented was finalized earlier this month — and you’ll have two opportunities to view them.
The “Performing 1070 Short-Play Festival” takes place Wed, March 30 at Arizona State University West (as part of an annual event examining “border justice” issues) and Thurs, March 31 on the lawn of the Arizona State Capitol.
Students from Carl Hayden High School will be working with Garcia and their teacher this week to consider which vignettes from their piece would best compliment the other plays. Chosen vignettes will be performed by students during the festival.
Works being presented by Arizona playwrights include “Freedom Trail” by Terry Tess Earp, “In Old Arizona” by Guillermo Reyes, and “Joe Arpaio Meets La Virgen de Guadalupe” by Stella Pope Duarte.
Playwrights from California, New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Pennsylvania and Idaho are also represented. Most, says Garcia, have “awards and/or professionally produced plays under their belts.”
Garcia notes that New Carpa is “especially honored” to present an excerpt from a new work by Josephina Lopez titled “Detained in the Desert.” Lopez authored the play “Real Women Have Curves” — and co-wrote the screenplay for the film version featuring actress America Ferrera.
“The purpose of this short-play festival,” shares Garcia, “is to highlight the effects of a series of state-based immigration-related legislation enacted or proposed in Arizona over the last decade.”
Garcia describes the festival as “a non-partisan, grassroots, community-based theater project…on one of the most compelling human and civil rights issues of our time.”
Admission to the festival is free, but Garcia notes that “donations to the nonprofit New Carpa Theater Company will be accepted.” Click here for event details.
— Lynn
Note: The festival’s title refers to SB1070, an immigration-related piece of legislation signed by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on April 23, 2010.
Coming up: East Valley high school students sound off about “Macbeth”
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