THE 2002 HISPANIC PLAYWRIGHTS PROJECT

California Scenarios
by Luis Alfaro, Joann Farías, Anne García-Romero, José Cruz González and Richard Coca directed by Juliette Carrillo.
July 25-28, 30, 31 and August 1-4. 8 p.m. Noguchi Garden.

California Scenarios is a site-specific piece commissioned by South Coast Repertory through the Hispanic Playwrights Project. Five playwrights – Luis Alfaro, Joann Farías, Anne García-Romero, José Cruz González and Richard Coca – have written short plays which will be performed in the outdoor public garden designed by Isamu Noguchi often called the Noguchi Garden. The "artwork" was designed to celebrate the various natural components of California – desert, waterways, pine forests, grassy slopes – and now this HPP original work will tackle the even larger landscape of Latino life in the Golden State.

Electricidad
by Luis Alfaro
directed by Juliette Carrillo
August 2 at 1 p.m.
Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Founders Hall

A brilliant writer gives his inimitable twist to Sophocles’ Electra and the story will never be the same again. Clemencia, former rodeo queen, loves the smell of new. According to her husband Agosto, when you get hooked on new, you have to have it all. A longtime veterano of the South Side "Locos," Agosto gets shot dead at the end of the street, and the next thing you know Clemencia is driving around in a Monte Carlo. But revenge is coming, bringing Orestes home from banishment in Vegas. Soon there could be blood in the streets.

Lobster Face (or The Shame of Amanda Cockshutt)
by Magdalena Gomez
directed by Daniel Jáquez
August 2 at 3:30 p.m.
Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Founders Hall

An artist, performance poet and prolific playwright, Gómez has won awards in play festivals across the country. This evocative work began to unfold itself to her through a mystical piece in an art exhibit which she transforms into an intriguing memory play. On a journey from kindergartner to hippie to elderly woman, Amanda encounters much of what is bad in the world and learns to adjust until she finds a kindred spirit in a former classmate turned janitor. Joe possesses a font of information-most of it wrong-but he understands her search for beauty and the memory of a smile.

Lost in Translation
by Rogelio Martinez
directed by Lisa Portes
August 3 at 1 p.m.
Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Founders Hall

A native of Cuba, who came to the country in 1980 on the Mariel boat lift, Martinez has set his new play in today’s Havana at a fancy hotel that was once even fancier. The ocean views don’t compensate for a storm that threatens to collapse the building or for the Cuban official who holds more than the freedom of the guests in his hands. In fast-paced scenes, a writer working on a play with an unbelievable plot about a hot air balloon blown off course from Miami discovers that the couple in the room next door actually did blow in on a balloon. And for them, a change of lifestyle may be next.

The Beauty of the Father
by Nilo Cruz
directed Diane Rodriguez
August 3 at 3:30 p.m.
Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Founders Hall

In his new play, the author of the lyrical Two Sisters and a Piano evokes the Costa del Sol, where a young woman is reunited with her artist father. Among the paintings and sculptures which fill Emiliano’s villa is an unfinished statue of Federico Garcia Lorca. It’s through the beauty of Emiliano’s work and his world that Marina comes to understand why her mother fell in love with him-but not why he left. The answers could lie with the other woman and the handsome young Moroccan who live at the villa. Or perhaps Lorca’s spirit will illuminate the dark corners of Emiliano’s life.