Press Release:​ ​​Ten Dollar Taco

Ten Dollar Taco—An Original Radio Play and Feast for the Senses

COSTA MESA, Calif. (Sept. 3, 2020)—South Coast Repertory (Artistic Director David Ivers; Managing Director Paula Tomei) continues its SCR commUNITY series with the world premiere radio play, Ten Dollar Taco, written and directed by Juliette Carrillo, with music and sound design by David R. Molina. Ten Dollar Taco features artists from the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at the University of California, as well as others from throughout the Southern California community.

Although inspired by a real restaurant, Ten Dollar Tacois a work of fiction. We are grateful to the restaurant industry for their continued service and dedication to our community under the distressing conditions of COVID-19.

The audio recording of the play becomes available on Monday, Sept. 14, by 5:30 p.m., via Apple Podcast and other streaming channels, as well as on SCR’s YouTube channel. It will remain available through Sunday, Sept. 20. Tickets for Ten Dollar Taco are free, but reservations are required at www.scr.org.

Part fantasy, part adventure and part archeological dig, this exciting new work explores the playwright’s growing connection to the culinary artistry of her Mexican and Californian heritage.

The cast features actors from throughout the Southern California community including Carmen Alatorre, Gustavo Arellano, Abel Garcia, Quinn Garcia, Anica Garcia-DeGraff, David R. Molina, Marcos Najera and Vincent Olivieri.

SCR commUNITY is the theatre’s new digital platform dedicated to amplifying the artists and narratives of our region by producing stories inspired by or about the rich diversity of people living in Southern California. Ten Dollar Taco is the final installment of a three-part SCR commUNITY series, titled El Teatro de la Comida, exploring the legacy, history and family lineage of food.

“El Teatro de la Comida explores how food brings us together, even when we’re forced to stay apart,” Carrillo said. “I’m interested in how recipes, smells and tastes live in our DNA; more specifically, in the Latinx community. Since every recipe has a lineage and a story, how do we reach back into the past and embrace the traditions of our ancestors?”

Juliette Carrillo is a nationally recognized theatre director, writer, playwright and award-winning filmmaker from Los Angeles. She has directed critically acclaimed productions across the country including plays at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Rep, South Coast Repertory, Magic Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company and Yale Repertory Theatre. She is known for developing new plays and has done numerous workshops regionally as well New York City theatres such as The Public, New York Theatre Workshop, INTAR Theatre and The Women’s Project. As an ensemble member of Cornerstone Theater, she has collaborated with numerous communities in writing and directing original work including with the East Salinas farm workers, seniors and their caregivers, and the Los Angeles River community. Carrillo was an SCR artistic associate, directed regularly and ran the Hispanic Playwright’s Project, collaborating with successful Latino writers across the country, including Pulitzer Prize-winner Nilo Cruz and Oscar Award-nominated José Rivera. http://juliettecarrillo.com/index.html

David R. Molina is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, sound artist, music producer and instrument inventor. Over the past 24 years, he has created music for all the performing arts, multimedia installations, film and radio, performed with many bands and produced albums nationally and internationally. He has worked with Juliette Carrillo for most of those years. Molina recently composed music and sound for Octavio Solis’ Quixote Nuevo, which toured last fall and winter to Connecticut, Boston and Houston. His honors include an Ovation Award for Sound Design (2009). His invented instruments, made from salvaged and discarded materials, have been featured at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Broad Museum (Los Angeles), Oakland Museum of California, McLoughlin Gallery, and SOMArts (San Francisco). He has collaborated with bands including TAU (Berlin), Emanative (U.K.) and El Paso (Peru). Molina’s bands are Impuritan, Ghosts and Strings, and Transient.

Tickets for Ten Dollar Taco are free; ticketholders are encouraged to support an online food drive, held in partnership with Second Harvest Foodbank of Orange County, to support those without access to nutritious food during the pandemic. More information is at the food bank’s website: https://www.yourfooddrive.org/drive.php?scr_food_drive