american (tele)visions Tickets
About american (tele)visions
A long, long time ago—the ‘90s—in a Walmart far, far away, Erica, our Hero of Ages Lost, pushes her shopping cart—that most sacred ancient vessel of capitalism—through the aisles of a memory play. american (tele)visions is an explosive collision between the American Dream and the American Nightmare—the story of an undocumented Mexican family.
With singular wit and pathos, NYTW Tow Playwright-in-Residence Victor I. Cazares creates an epic multiverse where time is fluid and the characters are refracted through literal televisions, imagined video games, endless Walmart aisles and a double-wide torn in two. NYTW Usual Suspect Rubén Polendo, founding artistic director of Theater Mitu, directs the multi-media production which includes live performance, live camera feeds and pre-recorded video.
american (tele)visions cast and creative team
By: Victor I. Cazares
Producer: New York Theatre Workshop
Director: Rubén Polendo
Lighting: Jeanette Yew
Design: Bretta Gerecke
Costume: Bretta Gerecke, with specialty costumes by Mondo Guerra
Cast list: Clew, Raúl Castillo, Ryan J. Haddad, Elia Monte-Brown, Bianca “b” Norwood
Other info:
Technology design by Justin Nestor, Alex Hawthorn, and Kelly Colburn; fight direction by J. David Brimmer; intimacy direction by Andy Arden-Reese; voice and text coaching by Dawn-Elin Fraser
Venue
More information about american (tele)visions
Victor I. Cazares kicks off New York Theatre Workshop's season with american (tele)visions off Broadway. Get american (tele)visions tickets on TodayTix.
The american (tele)visions play follows an undocumented Mexican family living, as Cazares once put it in an interview, "in the shadow of the first Walmart in the universe." The show takes place in the 1990s, a few decades later than Walmart was actually founded, but time is fluid in american (tele)visions. With technology, live acting, and a plot that bends reality and space, this new play, narrated by a shopper named Erica, tells how one family's American Dream becomes an American nightmare.
Cazares is a queer, Indigenous Mexican playwright whose shows focus on the immigrant and queer experience. This play had an early reading in 2018 at the Austin Latino New Play Festival. New York Theatre Workshop intended to produce american (tele)visions off Broadway in 2020, but postponed the premiere amid the pandemic.
american (tele)visions is a co-production between NYTW and Theater Mitu, a company that produces experimental theatre, or shows that play with nontraditional design, media, and ways of storytelling besides a linear plot. The founding artistic director of Theater Mitu, Rubén Polendo, directs american (tele)visions in New York.
Get tickets to american (tele)visions off Broadway on TodayTix now.
What to Watch For
- american (tele)visions is a multimedia show. In addition to live performance, the show includes pre-recorded and live video that the characters move through.
- Cazares's plays often explore capitalism and commercialism. american (tele)visions evokes this with a shopping cart in a '90s Walmart, and another of their plays, Pinching Pennies with Penny Marshall, is about a financial advisor to more contemporary moneymakers, like online content creators and the cleaning staff for a mansion where TikTok stars live.
- american (tele)visions is Cazares's first fully staged live show with New York Theatre Workshop; the company previously produced Pinching Pennies as a web series in 2020.
- NYTW is known for producing world-premiere works, some of which go on to success on Broadway, like Hadestown.
Tickets
Unfortunately, tickets for this event are no longer available.
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