Book by Jordan Ramirez Puckett
Directed by Reed Flores with additional support for Shannon R. Davis
A mother with a history. An adopted son who wants one. Set to the teen’s hip-hop beat, their cross-country road trip is a voyage of discovery, identity, understanding, and the depths of love. Can a white mom and a brown son find common ground in their uncommon pasts? Sometimes it’s the journey, not the destination.
(Playwright, they/them) is a Chicanx writer from the Bay Area, currently living in New York City. Their plays include Transitional Love Stories, Huelga, En Las Sombras, To Saints and Stars, A Driving Beat, Las Pajaritas, Restore, and Inevitable. These works have been produced and/or developed by Goodman Theatre, Playwrights Realm, San Diego Repertory Theatre, and San Francisco Playhouse, among others. Most recently, A Driving Beat was short-listed for the prestigious 2022 Yale Drama Series Prize. Ramirez Puckett is a student of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard.
(Director, he/him) is a San Francisco Bay Area based director, writer, and producer. Reed has worked around the country at places such as Seattle Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Breaking Wave Theatre Company, Bindlestiff Studio, Long Beach Playhouse, Hillbarn Theatre, where he is currently Casting Director, and TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, where he is currently the Line Producer. In 2017, Reed was one of the founding members of The Wayward Artist in Santa Ana, CA. In the pandemic, Reed co-founded and led a BIPOC centered initiative called Wayward Voices, which produced virtual work around the country -- Reed left Wayward in 2020, but is proud to say that Wayward Voices continues to this day. Favorite Directing credits include: RENT (Hillbarn Theatre), PUEBLO REVOLT (World Premiere, Alter Theatre Ensemble), BRACKISH (World Premiere, Wayward Voices), LIZARD BOY (Asst. to Brandon Ivie, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley). Upcoming: cuckoo edible magic (SFBATCO), Constellations (The Pear Theatre). www.reedflores.com
(Supporting Director) is a Bay Area director, educator, & community connector. She is a visiting professor at Saint Mary’s College. She was most recently on the Cal Shakes Artist Circle, the director of community connections at ACT, a lecturer/director at UC-Berkeley, and a co-founder of Bay Area Native Theatre Artists & the Bay Area Accountability Workgroup. MFA in Directing/Acting from UW-Madison. Worked with: New Native Theatre, American-Indian Community House, Native Writers Theatre, Theatre of Yugen, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Repertory Theatre, Freestyle Love Supreme, ACT, Berkeley Rep, Cal Shakes, SF Shakes, Marin Shakespeare, Aurora Theatre, Brava Theater, PlayGround, Shotgun Players, Playwrights Foundation, Anchorage Opera, MoxieArts NYC, Theatre Battery, Ohio University-Tantrum Theatre, Ashland New Play Festival, Forward Theatre, Renaissance Theaterworks, others. www.shannonrdavis.com
RINABETH APOSTOL thoroughly enjoys her time with TheatreWorks - in The Four Immigrants: An American Musical Manga, Red and numerous New Works Festivals. She has also appeared in many new works onstage at American Conservatory Theater, Actors Theater of Louisville, Seattle Rep, TheatreWorks, CalShakes, The Magic, Arizona Theater Company, East West Players, Skirball Center for the Arts, and Berkeley Rep Ground Floor, among others. 2022-2023 productions: Redwinged Blackbird (world premiere), Fun Home (42nd Street Moon), Monument (world premiere, Magic Theater), Smart People and The Chinese Lady (Capital Stage), South Pacific (Billings Symphony) and Hamlet (Marin Shakes). Offstage, you can hear her on Sirius XM/Marvel’s UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL Podcast as Gretchen Campbell. Upcoming: Bald Sisters and My Home On The Moon. Proud member AEA, SAG-AFTRA. @rbdtwo | rinabeth.com
LAWRENCE-MICHAEL C. ARIAS is honored to join this year’s New Works Festival. He was recently seen as “Mushnik” in Theatreworks’ Little Shop of Horrors. He also performed in M. Butterfly (Kurogo), Red (Red Guard), Batboy: The Musical (Roy/Mrs. Taylor, etc. at select performances for James Monroe Iglehart), Jane Eyre The Musical (Robert u/s), and Pacific Overtures [2001](British Admiral/Merchant). He originated the role of ‘Wong’ in Utah Shakespeare Festival’s world premiere of Gold Mountain. Other regional credits: National Asian Artists Project/Prospect Theatre’s staged concert of Gold Mountain (Wong). Other Bay Area credits: Hillbarn Theatre - The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Mitch Mahoney); Los Altos Stage Company - Yellow Face (HYH); Pintello Comedy Theatre - A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Miles Gloriosus); Western Stage - Man of La Mancha (Sancho). Film: Protection Detail (Sonny).
LUCINDA HITCHCOCK CONE: TheatreWorks appearances include Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Tuck Everlasting, Outside Mullingar, Big River, The Clean House, Ragtime, and Cabaret. She appeared in the National Tour of Big River. Recently she appeared in Grand Horizons at San Jose Stage Co. where she also played Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman. Regional credits include productions at Hartford Stage, Arizona Theatre Company, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Geva Theatre, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Folger Theatre, ACT, Berkeley Rep., San Jose Rep., Sacramento Music Circus, Capital Stage, B Street Theatre, Aurora Theatre, AMTSJ, Marin Theatre Company, PCPA, and the Coconut Grove Playhouse. Lucinda received four SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle awards, and a Dramalogue award. Lucinda studied Mime with Etienne Decroux.
JACQUELINE DE MURO has performed with TheatreWorks in A Little Night Music (Mrs Segstrom), Pacific Overtures (Shogun’s Mother), Joy Luck Club (Amah), Kiss of the Spiderwoman (Marta), and Into The Woods (Cinderella’s Mother). Most recently, she appeared in New Conservatory Theatre Center’s Encore. Other favorite local productions include Broadway by the Bay’s The King And I (Lady Thiang) and Thoroughly Modern Millie (Muzzy), Woodminster’s Flower Drum Song (Madame Liang), Palo Alto Players’ City Of Angels (Alaura/Carla) and The Baker’s Wife (Genevieve), Busbarn’s And The World Goes Round and Baby (Pam), 42nd Street Moon’s Grand Night For Singing and By Jupiter (Buria), Ohlone Stage’s Man Of La Mancha (Aldonza), and Foothill Theatre’s South Pacific (Bloody Mary), for which she won a Bay Area Theatre Critics Award.
MICHAEL PATRICK GAFFNEY has been working as an actor in the Bay Area for the past 25 years and is very honored to be performing this summer with TheatreWorks! Last spring he played the role of the Interlocutor in The Scottsboro Boys with 42nd Street Moon. Other regional theatre companies Michael has worked with include: Center Rep, Shotgun Players, Aurora Theatre Company, San Jose Stage Company, Word for Word, and Contra Costa Musical Theatre. Michael has been a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association since 1997.
EMILY KURODA worked at TheatreWorks (The Language Archive, Calligraphy), South Coast Rep (Tiger Style!, Fast Company, Our Town, Ballad of Yachiyo), New York Theatre Workshop (Endlings), Yale Rep (Today is My Birthday), Pan Asian (Brothers Paranormal), American Repertory Theater (Endlings), Page 73 (Today is My Birthday), Actors Theater of Louisville (we, the invisibles), Huntington Theater (Tiger Style!, Woman Warrior), Artists at Play (Two Mile Hollow), Alliance Theater (Tiger Style!), Sundance Theater Lab (Today is My Birthday, A Cage of Fireflies), East West Players (over 45 productions), Kirk Douglas, Mark Taper Forum, Public Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Seattle Rep, Singapore Repertory, Berkeley Repertory, The Doolittle, LATC, Zephyr, LA Women’s Shakespeare Company, and the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival. Selected TV: Mrs. Kim in Gilmore Girls, Baymax, All Rise, The Good Doctor, The Resident, Drop Dead Diva, Sequestered and Amazon’s The Power. Recent Films Strange World, Kimi, Porcupine, Take the 10, Party Boat, Red, Yellow Face and Sensei.