Speranza Theatre Company’s Women Playwrights Festival is featuring a dramatic reading of Kimi Ramírez’s play, Strange Angel on Friday, May 19, 2023 at the Apple Tree House, 298 Academy Street, Jersey City, NJ at 6:30pm.
Helmed by Kaelani Burja, the cast features Fernando Vieira, Brenda Luz Orellana and Ray Rodriguez.
When junior mechanic Gab García reveals they are liberal, nonbinary, and vegan, their conservative father blows a fuse. A rift between parent and child ruptures traditional cultural values and suspends the family auto-repair business in an uncanny lurch as they struggle to rebalance, reconcile, and re-establish bonds and boundaries. This dark comedy of miracles pays significant homage to Nobel Prize Winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez while examining universal conflicts associated with identity formation.
Kimi Ramírez (aka Kimberly del Busto Ramírez) is an interdisciplinary dramatist with an M.F.A. in Playwriting and a Ph.D. in Theatre & Performance. Their original plays explore persistent social and intergenerational conflicts associated with Latinx heritage, veganism, gender, sexuality, and education. Kimi’s dramatic writing has been presented at Breath of Fire Latina Theatre, Teatro Luna, Repertorio Español, San Diego Repertory Theatre, Teatro del Pueblo, WOW Café Theatre, Nuyorican Poets Café, Primary Stages, Drama Book Shop’s Arthur Saleen Theatre, Hippodrome State Theatre, Latin American Theatre Today Festival, Edward Albee’s Great Plains Theatre Conference, Maieutic Theatre/MT Works, Southeastern Theatre Conference, 21st Century Playwrights Festival, Morris-Jumel Mansion with People’s Theatre Project, Tribeca Performing Arts Center with America-in-Play, Martin E. Segal Theatre, the Spoon Theatre, Hudson Opera House, and Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Published versions of Kimi’s plays and monologues can be found in Label Me Latina/o: Journal of Twentieth & Twenty-first Century Literary Production, Basta!: Latinas Write on Gender Violence (University of Nevada-Reno Latino Research Center), Collages & Bricolages Journal of International Writing, Mother/Daughter Monologues (International Centre of Women Playwrights Press) and We-Us: Monologues for Gender Minority Characters (Smith & Kraus). They are an active member of The Dramatists Guild, Dos Alas Theatre, The Players founded by Edwin Booth (including its Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion committee), and currently serve on the official Lucille Lortel Awards Nominating Committee in recognition of excellence in Off-Broadway theatre. An incurably homesick Miami native, Kimi can also be found simulating subtropical environments on their unusual New York City patio in midtown Manhattan.
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This event is free of charge. Donations are greatly appreciated. To make a donation, when reserving free ticket, please use donation option, input the amount of your donation and click quantity 1.
Speranza Theatre Company, a member of The New Jersey Theatre Alliance, is a non-profit women’s theatre company focusing on the presentation of plays to live audiences. Founded to provide an opportunity for artists, particularly females, to share their voices through entertaining and challenging theatre, Speranza continues to meet this mission by presenting competitively priced professional theatrical performances, free readings of new works, and educational programming. Donations are welcome and can be made online.
This is sponsored by Museum of Jersey City History, The Jersey City Office of Cultural Affairs, and is part of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance 2022 Stages Festival, made possible by support from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts; Bank of America; The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey; OceanFirst Foundation; New Jersey Historical Commission.
Backstage Pass with Lia Chang 