Playwriting student Antonia Cruz-Kent has been announced as one of four playwrights chosen to participate in the selective Latinx Playwrights Circle 2024 Intensive Mentorship program. During her time in the program, Cruz-Kent will be mentored by playwright and television writer Cusi Cram to develop a new play. She will also receive a stipend and access to classes at Primary Stages Einhorn School of Performing Arts.
Founded in 2017, the Latinx Playwrights Circle seeks to encourage and support the creation of new plays by Latinx playwrights nationwide, and foster community within the New York theatre world and beyond. The group is spearheaded by playwright and screenwriter Guadalís Del Carmen and playwright and actor Oscar A. L. Cabrera.
The new plays developed during the Intensive Mentorship will be performed in a public staged reading in the fall of 2024. Cruz-Kent’s play, Ivera, is a love letter to Puerto Rican womanhood and a condemnation of medical racism. It follows 25-year-old Ivera, a young woman who falls into a coma due to doctors' negligence during the birth of her first child. As the veil between worlds begins to lift, Ivera soon realizes her vibrant, passionate life wasn't as perfect as she always thought it was. Cruz-Kent expressed her excitement at being selected for the mentorship, saying, “I’m extremely excited to learn from my mentor, the amazing Cusi Cram, to be in community with the other wonderful LPC mentees, and to meet and connect with the greater LPC community.”
Ivera is also Cruz-Kent’s thesis play and will be performed at the end of April as a part of the School of the Arts New Plays Festival. “I’m so excited for the opportunity to both have my play staged with Columbia, my artistic home of the past three years, and to be able to intensively focus on it with LPC, an organization that is powered by incredibly empathetic, talented, and passionate artists.” Cruz-Kent said. “I’m deeply grateful for both of these amazing communities, and can’t wait for what comes next.”
More information about the LPC Intensive Mentorship can be found here. Tickets to Ivera as part of the New Plays Festival will soon be available here.
