LUPE FINDS ME IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2024
7PM at Playwrights Horizons’ Peter Jay Sharp Theater

by Esperanza Rosales Balcárcel (she/they)
directed by Adin Walker (they/them)

Dramaturg: abigail jean-baptiste
Sound Designer: Bailey Trierweiler (he/him)
Stage Manager/Assistant Director: Bea Perez-Arche (she/they)
Stage Directions Reader: Janice Amaya (they/them/elle)
Design Consultants: Elizabeth Barrett (they/them) & Hannah Tran (she/they)

featuring Clew (they/them), Marquise Vilsón (he/him) & Samora la Perdida (she/they)

Estrella, a young trans playwright, is at a spiritual crossroads. She becomes the Old Hollywood actress Lupe Velez on the last night of her life to find the answers to her questions, and the two people who hold them are Anna May Wong and Gary Cooper, her lifetime's greatest relationships. LUPE FINDS ME IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS spans years in cinematic history to raise the question: what are the costs to being a queer artist of color in today's industry, and what would happen if we found a way of creating ourselves and our work outside of it?

**Esperanza Rosales Balcárcel** (she/they)

**Writer**
Esperanza Rosales Balcárcel (she/they) is a trans Guatemalan artist, born in Guatemala City and raised in Norwalk, CT. Her works are spiritual and physically adventurous journeys that give Queer BIPOC voices a space to interrogate core wounds and find a path towards healing. Esperanza is the recipient of the Paul Greene Award from the National Theatre Conference, the Kennedy Center's Latinx Playwriting Award, as well as a Relentless Award Honorable Mention for their play *Color Boy*. Her play *Lupe Finds Me in the Garden of Dreams* is a finalist for the Leah Ryan Prize, the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Van Lier Fellowship, and was developed through NYTW’s 2024 Dartmouth Residency. She is a two-time nominee for the Ollie Award, as well as a Weissberger New Play Award. Currently, Esperanza is a teaching artist for the Public Theater, and a Lecturer in Playwriting at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. BA: Princeton, MFA: Yale

**Adin Walker** (they/them)

**Director**
Adin Walker (they/them) is a frequent collaborator with the dance, puppetry and climate-justice focused Phantom Limb Company, whose production *Falling Out* about the 2011 tsunami and radiation disaster in Fukushima premiered in BAM’s Next Wave Festival. Walker recently directed the world premieres of Yilong Liu’s *PrEP Play, or Blue Parachute* (New Conservatory Theater Center) and Adam Ashraf Elsayigh’s *Data Queen* (Golden Thread’s ReOrient Festival), both in SF. Other directing includes the NYC premiere of Roger Q. Mason’s *The White Dress* (NYC) and regional productions of L M Feldman’s *Grace, or the Art of Climbing* and Allison Gregory’s *Not Medea.* Walker is currently in residence at Stanford in Performance Studies, and has published essays in the journals *TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly*, *Theatre Topics,* and *New Review of Film and Television Studies*.

abigail jean-baptiste

Dramaturg

abigail jean-baptiste is a theater maker born & based in New York City with roots in Haiti and the American South. guided by questions around blackness, femininity, and kinship, their work uses fragmented language, repeatable gestures, and found objects in a search to build nonsensical ways of being. 2023-24 BOLD Resident Director (Northern Stage, Vermont), FY2023 NYSCA Grantee, Cycle 9 Audrey Resident (New Georges), 2023 JACK Radical Acts Artist, I AM SOUL Directing Residency (National Black Theater), 2021 Project Number One Artist (Soho Rep.), 2021 Bushwick Starr Reading Series Playwright, Roundabout Directors Group Cohort 2, 2018 Lilly Award Winner. www.abigailjeanbaptiste.org @abigailrosejb

**Bailey Trierweiler** (he/him)

**Sound Designer**
Bailey Trierweiler (he/him) is a New York based sound designer, editor, engineer and mixer for live theater performance, installation, dance and audio drama. Select design credits include Blood of the Lamb (59E59); Riverside (Indy Shakes); Dangerous Days (Miami New Drama); The Slow Dance (59E59); Fires in the Mirror (Baltimore Center Stage/Long Wharf Theatre); already there (The REACH at the Kennedy Center), among others. Select associate sound designer for The Blood Quilt (Lincoln Center Theatre); Valour: A Drag Spectacular (La Jolla Playhouse); The Welkin (Atlantic Theater Co); KATE (Connelly Theater); The Comeuppance (Signature Theatre Company); Becky Nurse of Salem (Lincoln Center Theatre); King John (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Peerless (59E59) among others. M.F.A - Yale School of Drama.

**Bea Perez-Arche** (she/they)

**Stage Manager/Assistant Director**
Bea Perez-Arche (she/they) is a Cuban American theatre artist focused on creating community through her work in the arts. She has primarily worked at the Public Theater on Shakespeare in the Park, the Under the Radar Festival, and the Public Shakespeare Initiative. She is an Associate Artist at Sanguine Theatre Company and has collaborated with a range of institutions including The Flea, The Civilians, Tectonic Theater Project, One Whale’s Tale, Women’s Project, La Mama, Little Island, Chelsea Factory, and Ballet Collective. She received her BFA in Theater Arts from Boston University and currently freelances as a stage manager, director, and dramaturg.

**Janice Amaya** (they/them/elle)

**Stage Directions Reader**
JANICE AMAYA (they/them/elle) is an actor, theatermaker, and educator. Most recent theater credits: Orlando (Signature Theatre Company), Shhhh (Atlantic Theater Company), Mushroom (People’s Light Theater Company), Cartography (John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts). Janice is a Co-Director at Pipeline Theatre Company in NYC. MFA, Harvard University and the Moscow Art Theater.

**Elizabeth Barrett** (they/them)

**Design Consultant**
Elizabeth Barrett is a projection and media designer based in Brooklyn. They are passionate about new work development and highly collaborative processes. They hold an MFA in theatrical design from The University of California San Diego.

**Hannah Tran** (she/they)

**Design Consultant**
Hannah Tran is a Brooklyn-based projection designer with a passion for new works and movement. With community at the root of her work, she strives to push for accessibility in the arts. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, her love for storytelling started by watching dubbed Chinese dramas with her grandmother. Hannah holds a BA from the University of California, Irvine and MFA from the Yale School of Drama. https://hannah-tran.com/

**Clew** (they/them)

**ANNA MAY**
clew is a Brooklyn-based actor. They are invested in transformational change, loving truth, and fostering radical joy within their communities. Privileged to return to Breaking the Binary festival this year, clew believes in the artist's role to inspire action, grow capacity for curiosity, and agitate/upend dominant power structures. Through active struggle with creativity, we can envision & create a more delightful world for all. clew stands in solidarity with oppressed peoples fighting for freedom and justice across the globe. Free Palestine, Sudan, Congo, and Haiti.

**Marquise Vilsón** (he/him)

**GARY COOPER**
Marquise Vilsón is a New York Native, actor and man of trans experience. Recently he was cast as “DUCK” in *The Lost Holliday* starring side Vivica A. Fox and Jussie Smollett, which is currently playing at select AMC movie theaters across the U.S. Marquise was first introduced to TV audiences as a guest-star in the critically acclaimed episode of *LAW & ORDER: SVU,* titled *Service*, addressing the issues faced by transgender military service members. Vilsón’s other TV credits include *TOM SWIFT* (series regular), *QUANTUM LEAP*, *A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN* (recurring), *BULL*, *THE BLACKLIST*, *TALES OF THE CITY* and *BLINDSPOT* (recurring). Vilsón’s Film Credits include *THE KITCHEN*, *BEN IS BACK* and B-BOY BLUES. Marquise made his New York stage debut Off-Broadway as Beta in MCC Theatre’s *CHARM*.

**Samora la Perdida** (she/they)

**ESTRELLA/LUPE**
Samora la Perdida (she/they) is a 2024 Princess Grace Award winner, and YoungArts Fellow. She just wrapped production on QUEENS OF THE DEAD, alongside Dominique Jackson, Jacquel Spivey, and Margaret Cho. She starred in Soho Rep's NOTES ON KILLING..., Quiara Alegría Hudes' MY BROKEN LANGUAGE at Signature Theatre, along with A TRANSPARENT MUSICAL at the Mark Taper Forum. Her TEDxTalk, DO LATINES NEED TO SPEAK SPANISH? FINDING YOUR LOST MOTHER TONGUE, features music from her upcoming bilingual musical: SPANGLISH SH!T. SPANGLISH SH!T has been developed with Berkeley Rep, NYSCA, Baryshnikov Arts Center and En Garde Arts.

2024 FESTIVAL STAFF

Co-Sound Designer: Bailey Trierweiler (he/him)
Literary Manager: Bryar Barborka (they/them)
Casting Director: Charlie Hano, CSA (he/him)
Co-Sound Designer: Christopher Darbassie
Associate Producer: Esmé Maria Ng (they/she/he)
Assistant Producer: Flower Estefana Rios
Founding Artistic Director: George Strus (they/them)
Graphic Designer: Marc Ella Roy (they/them)