Victor I. Cazares, a New York Theatre Workshop playwright in residence, presents their play american (tele)visions as part of the 2022-23 Off-Broadway season. Get on american (tele)visions tickets on New York Theatre Guide today.
american (tele)visions is a play about the American Dream; its dark flip side, the American nightmare; and one family who experiences the collision between the two firsthand. They are a family of undocumented Mexican immigrants, and their story is told by Erica, the audience's "Hero of Ages Lost" and narrator, as she strolls the aisles of a Walmart in the '90s. The show is a memory play, in which the tales of the Mexican family on stage are Erica's memories brought to life, but it's also a multimedia experience.
The show combines traditional live performance with pre-recorded video and live feeds of the actors. Cazares has written a technology-saturated multiverse filled with real and imagined televisons, video games, and store aisles that go on forever, bending time and space as past memories meet Erica's present.
american (tele)visions is Cazares's second production at New York Theatre Workshop; their play Pinching Pennies with Penny Marshall went up virtually in 2020. Three of their works, Ramses contra los monstruos, We Were Eight Years in Powder, and «when we write with ashes», also went up in 2021 with National Queer Theater and Lincoln Center's Restart Stages program of in-person summer arts events.
The world premiere of american (tele)visions in New York is a co-production with Theater Mitu. The play's director, Rubén Polendo, has been founding artistic director there for more than 20 years. Polendo and Theater Mitu's work has been produced nationwide at dozens of venues including The Public Theater, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center.
Tickets to american (tele)visions will be available on New York Theatre Guide soon.