SPF 13: Hecuba
Inspired by Euripides’ Hecuba and the peak of the eugenics movement in 1970s Los Angeles, this surreal drama focuses on a Philippine-born baker and mother, Hecuba, as she remembers and reckons with the past violence done to her and her children – who may or not be imaginary but are very real.
Development
Finalist, NY Classical Theatre New Visions 2022
Finalist, Wayward Artists 2022
Staged reading, NY Classical, 2022
Virtual reading, Playwrights Arena (Ghost Light Reading Series), 2021
Amanda L. Andrei is a Filipina Romanian American playwright and translator residing in Los Angeles by way of Virginia/Washington DC. She writes epic, irreverent plays that center the concealed, wounded places of history and societies from the perspectives of diasporic Filipina women, and she translates from Romanian to English. Her plays have been produced or developed with NY Classical Theater, La MaMa, Relative Theatrics, Parity Productions, Echo Theatre, The Vagrancy, Pasadena Playhouse, Playwrights Arena, Artists at Play, and more. Her work has received finalist status with the Eugene O’Neill Conference and Ashland Festival, and semifinalist status with Playwrights Realm. She is a teaching artist with 7 Daughters of Eve, co-facilitator for the South Eastern European Film Festival screenwriters group, producer/writer for Filipinx Actors Barkada, member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and an alum of the Echo Theater Playwriting Lab and The Vagrancy Writing Group. MFA: USC, MA: Georgetown. www.amandalandrei.com
Sara Guerero (she/hers), a Southern California Chicana native of Mexican and Mestizo ancestry, is a professional, versatile theatre artist whose mission is to model, share, and create theatre-making opportunities for and with their community. The founding artistic director of Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble (BOFLTE), she and the ensemble are artists-in-residence of California State University of Fullerton’s Grand Central Arts Center in downtown Santa Ana. Under Guerrero’s leadership, the organization serves as an incubator for voices that have been historically excluded in theater by providing free programming in the guidance in the art of storytelling. A CalArts alum, she’s been recognized as a “People to Watch” by American Theatre Magazine, and “Best [Artistic] Director” and “Person of Interest” by OC Weekly, a 2022 Congressional Woman of the Year (46th district), 2021 and 2020 Woman of Distinction (Senate District 34), 2020 Hispanic Lifestyle Latina of Influence Honoree, and Community Engagement “COVID-19 ArtistGrant” Awardee. As a playwright, her recent coming-of-age, abortion play “Have to Believe We Are Magic” had a reading in partnership with BOFLTE and Planned Parenthood of Orange & San Bernadino Coutnies, and was featured in Women’s Theatre Festival Occupy 2022, a finalist for OC Centric Festival, included in Teatro Vivo’s Latinx New Plays Festival 2021, and available through the newplayexchange.org. Additionally, Guerrero is a freelance director who works all over the country in higher education and the professional stage. www.teatroguerrero.com
“Hecuba”
Hecuba – Tess Lina
Therapaina – Presciliana Esparolini*
Cassandra / Nurse #2 – Jessica Andres*
Polyxena / Nurse #1 – Christina Won Pat*
Odysseus / Customer – Chase Cargill*
Agamemnon – Richard Soto
Priam / Cynossema – Lee Shorten
Stage Directions – Katharine Lee McEwan*
*Road Company Member
