Milta Ortiz

Milta Ortiz

Milta Ortiz, an award-winning playwright was born in El Salvador and raised in the Bay Area, she now calls Tucson home. She's devising Antigona 3.0 with Borderlands Theater ensemble set to premiere in Spring 2024. She'll direct The Candy Craze: A Sticky Situation at Pima Community College in October 2024, a play she facilitated Pima students in writing, the second installment of a TYA ongoing project...
Milta Ortiz, an award-winning playwright was born in El Salvador and raised in the Bay Area, she now calls Tucson home. She's devising Antigona 3.0 with Borderlands Theater ensemble set to premiere in Spring 2024. She'll direct The Candy Craze: A Sticky Situation at Pima Community College in October 2024, a play she facilitated Pima students in writing, the second installment of a TYA ongoing project. She’s developing Anita, a musical in collaboration with composer Quetzal Guerrero at Borderlands Theater and Childsplay. An excerpt of Anita was showcased at 4xLatine by the Latine Musical Theatre Lab. Milta was a 2020-21 Projecting All Voices Mellon fellow at Arizona State University, where she incubated Anita and solo play What Are You? In October 2022, she directed Ballet & Bagels, a TYA play she facilitated her students in writing at Pima Community College. Her play, Pilar and Paloma was part of Launchpad’s 2021 Bipoc Reading Series Festival. Judge Torres, commissioned and produced by Milagro Theatre Group, toured nationally to universities (2019-2020). Milta is Associate Artistic Director at Borderlands Theater, where a few of her plays, including Sanctuary (2018) and Más (2015) have world premiered. Borderlands’ production of Más toured Arizona universities in the 2016-17 season. Más was produced at Ubuntu Theatre Project/Laney College (2016), Su Teatro (2017), and San Diego State University (2018). She devised, wrote and directed Solving for X for the Working Classroom in the 2016/2017 season. Other produced plays include the 21st, 20th, 19th, and 18th Annual A Tucson Pastorela, Sonoran Shadows, Disengaged, Fleeing Blue and solo play Scatter My Red Underwear. She earned an MFA from Northwestern University, and a BA from San Francisco State University. She is proud to serve on the National New Play Network board of directors and as commissioner for the Tucson Convention Center.

Plays

  • Pilar and Paloma by Milta Ortiz
    Cast: 
    8–9
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    Genre: drama, fable/folktale + 1 more
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    Keyword: immigration, environment + 4 more
    Genre: drama, fable/folktale, movement/physical
    Keyword: immigration, environment, Sisters, southwest borderlands, American Southwest, borderlands
    After the newly built wall, Desert mourns her fallen Saguaros as Lupe rushes to get across the border. One mother’s grieving ripens another’s pregnancy and Zuri steps in to help Lupe’s twins. In a hurry, Zuri breaks desert convention and years later they must face the consequences.
  • Sanctuary by Milta Ortiz
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: drama, political
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    Keyword: borderlands, based on historical events and characters + 5 more
    Genre: drama, political
    Keyword: borderlands, based on historical events and characters, immigration, feminist, asylum helpers, asylum seekers, allyship
    When Carol and Micha find out about detained Salvadorans fleeing civil war, they set out to process political asylum applications. After meeting Victor, a Salvadoran in a Border Patrol detention center, they realize that they're going to need help. They call on Father Hartford who meets Nidia, a Salvadoran with strong opinions at another detention center. Micha and Carol enlist Jeff Chord, who sits on the...
    When Carol and Micha find out about detained Salvadorans fleeing civil war, they set out to process political asylum applications. After meeting Victor, a Salvadoran in a Border Patrol detention center, they realize that they're going to need help. They call on Father Hartford who meets Nidia, a Salvadoran with strong opinions at another detention center. Micha and Carol enlist Jeff Chord, who sits on the National Presbyterian Council and before long Quaker Will Hewitt joins the group with ideas of his own. But Nidia and Victor are on opposite sides of the war, the number of detained Salvadorans keeps growing, and the group has to come to terms with their personal issues, and choose between the law of man and the law of God.
  • Más by Milta Ortiz
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    8
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    Genre: docudrama/historic, political
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    Keyword: identity, Latinx + 8 more
    Genre: docudrama/historic, political
    Keyword: identity, Latinx, resilience, culture clash, southwest borderlands, American Southwest, based on historical events and characters, Mexican American, chicano, Mexican Culture
    Based on a true story. A community struggles to hold onto their history, identity, and humanity as they fight to save Mexican American Studies in the Tucson Unified School District.
  • Disengaged by Milta Ortiz
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    9–11
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    Genre: drama, young audiences
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    Keyword: at-risk youth, lesbian youth + 8 more
    Genre: drama, young audiences
    Keyword: at-risk youth, lesbian youth, youth angst, Immigrants, bilingual, southwest borderlands, borderlands, marginalized youth, human resilience, immigrant youth
    Follows the lives of seven high schoolers as they struggle to attend and stay in school. (Based on source material: story circles with youth and educator interviews on the drop out crisis in Phoenix.)
  • You, Me, and Tuno by Milta Ortiz
    Cast: 
    7
    ·
    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: coming of age, spoken word + 4 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: coming of age, spoken word, urban, identity, food desert, hip hop
    You, Me, and Tuno is a poetic journey that questions relationships and place in the search for home. Marisol, Luna and Tuno venture out of their opportunity desert hood, to the aisles of “Real Foods” to taste a pomegranate.