Sombras Nada Más

by Megan Xotchilt Espinoza

University of California, Berkeley

New Play Reading Series

2020

Bienvenida is undergoing the transition between a life where she suffered from dementia and a death where she is able to remember everything. We journey through her granddaughter, Soledad's, and her relationship in time to understand when the forgetting began. As a grandmother-becoming-ancestor, she confronts what she was taught to never speak on: the truth.

Director: Rebecca Struch

Assistant Director: Gabriela Pool

This reading was part of the New Play Reading Series, a course I co-taught at UC Berkeley.

The New Play Reading Series is a directed group study course (taught by graduate students) where students form a repertory theatre company dedicated to the production of three new play readings by emerging playwrights. The repertory company is cast through open auditions at the beginning of the semester.

The course exposes undergraduate students to the process of developing new dramatic work for the stage. By providing a forum for students to meet and work with emerging playwrights, cultivate their play reading skills, and familiarize themselves with contemporary dramatic literature, the New Play Reading Series seeks to build a bridge between undergraduate students and the theatre community, and to aid students in their professionalization as theatre artists.