Texas State hosts 7th Annual Black & Latino Playwrights Conference

By Alec Jennings
University News Service
September 3, 2009

Students and professionals in the dramatic arts will converge at Texas State University-San Marcos for the 7th annual Black and Latino Playwrights Conference Sept. 14-20.

Chosen from submissions sent in from throughout the country, this year's featured playwrights are Judy Tate and Amparo Garcia-Crow. Directed readings of Tate's Slashes of Light will be featured Friday, Sept. 18 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 19 at 2 p.m. in the Theatre Center. Directed Readings of Garcia-Crow's The Bonobos will be Saturday, Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 20 at 12 p.m. in the Theatre Center. 

Tate's Slashes of Light takes place in 1967 in an all-black parochial middle school on Chicago's south side.  Precocious young Sunny befriends the new white history teacher, but her best friend, a budding young radical, doesn't approve, and the older boy she has a crush on is mysteriously quiet.  In what is described as a coming-of-age story, the characters confront their deepest secrets in a thorny struggle to understand themselves, each other and the changing world around them.

Garcia-Crow's The Bonobos is centered upon divorced couple Lorenzo and Antonia who have been having an affair. When a cyber pornography unit comes knocking on Lorenzo's door during a tryst, the couple discovers that Tiffany, their 17-year-old daughter has been starring in and selling internet "instructive videos" falsely implicating Lorenzo as a child pornographer.  In the process of defending his innocence, the hypocrisies of sex in one family illuminate the "missing link" that might bring them all back together again.

Rehearsals for both plays will take place Monday, Sept. 14 through Thursday, Sept. 17 from 6-10 p.m. in Theatre Center rooms 206 and 209. Students and the public are invited to attend. There is no charge to attend the rehearsals.

This event is sponsored by the Texas State Department of Theatre and Dance and the Center for Multicultural and Gender Studies. Tickets are $3. For any questions about this event, please call (512) 245-2147.