Plays
I am an occasional playwright. Happily, my work has been well-received.
Below, you’ll find a little blurb about each play, along with a link to the first few pages. If you would like to read the entire play, I’ll print out a paper copy and send it your way for a couple of bucks. If you would like to stage these plays, then we need to talk. Contact me at plays@lifewithponcho.com. I know what it’s like to keep a community theater afloat, so my royalty fees won’t break your piggy bank.
After the list of plays is a short bio focusing on my life as a playwright. By my choice, some of my plays are no longer in circulation.
My plays
Buy to Rent,a one-act play commissioned by and produced as part of More Minutes from Reading, a Reading Theater Project evening of one-act plays, performed July-August 2005 at the Institute for the Arts in Wyomissing.
It Happened on Cherry Street, a 10-minute play, commissioned by the Reading Theater Project as part of its inaugural production, Ten Minutes from Reading, an evening of 10-minute plays, performed on July 26 & 27, 2003, at the Sovereign Performing Arts Center in Reading.
Atardecer Tejano, a full-length play, in Spanish, performed as a staged reading, October 12–13, 2001, at Theater of the Seventh Sister, Lancaster.
Two Abes on the Pier: a one-act play; staged reading held in Reading, August 1997.
There It Is: Vietnam War drama, produced by the Guadalupe Theater, San Antonio, Texas, September, 1985; and by Shoestring Productions, Reading, Pennsylvania; January, 1987.
El gato con botas/Puss in Boots: bilingual audiocassette (Spanish on one side and English on the other), a retelling of the famous fairy tale. The author produced the cassette, , composed the music (flute and guitar), directed the actors and played several parts. The work was a commercial venture by author’s De Volada Productions.
Ghost Dancing: a full-length play about conscience and history. Never produced. Out of circulation.
I came here to die: a two-act play about a Puerto Rican couple, a beauty contest and Puerto Rican Nationalist’s attack on the U.S. House of Representatives. Never produced. Out of circulation)
Manito: a chicano screenplay, action/drama, co-written with Nancy J. Sharp. Unsold. Out of circulation.
Gun-Shopping: an award-winning one-act play about living with the threat of nuclear war.
Matachín Dancer: an award-winning one-act play about a religious dancing tradition and its meaning to the people who live it.
Awards
First Prize in Drama, Chicano Literary Contest, 1988; University of California at Irvine—for Matachín Dancer.
Honorable Mention in Drama, Chicano Literary Contest, 1988—for Gun Shopping.
Third Prize, Art in the Nuclear Age, Muhlenberg College, PA, 1988—for Gun Shopping.
Theatre Association of Pennsylvania Playwright Fellowship recipient, 1989-1990.
Directing
Tracers—Vietnam war drama staged by Shoestring Productions, Reading, Pennsylvania, fall 1989, as part of a Vietnam veterans homecoming celebration.
El gato con botas/Puss in Boots—See "Significant Writings" (below).
Two Abes on the Pier, a one-act play which I authored, performed as a staged reading in Reading, August, 1997.
Cosas de papá y mamá, Spanish comedy, May-June 1998, the inaugural production for Teatro Sol y Luna, a not-for-profit Hispanic theater company. Performed, in Spanish, as part of the Portales: Gateways to Latino Theatre series at Theatre of the Seventh Sister in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and in Reading.
Final Judgment and The Census, two one-act plays performed in Reading at Genesius Theater, June 2000, both translated from the Spanish by the director.
Atardecer tejano, a full-length Spanish-language play which I authored, performed as a staged reading at Theater of the Seventh Sister, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, October 2001.