"Why does it happen, over and over and over? Why do they take you, my friend, and put you in a cage in the hopes of deporting you? What harm have you done to them? You are as much of this country as you are of México. But you are not home in either place. Ni de aquí, ni de allá." With these words, Isabel describes the absurd reality suffered by her longtime friend, Jesús, who is kidnapped each night by immigration officials and thrown into a cage to await deportation. But each time, Jesús escapes and makes his way back to the park to be with Isabel and await the mysterious Godínez.

Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s iconic Godot play and our country's anti-immigrant policies, WAITING FOR GODÍNEZ explores the meaning—and absurdities—of identity and belonging.

WAITING FOR GODÍNEZ had its world premiere on April 5, 2024, at the Teatro Espejo in Sacramento, CA. Prior to that, it was selected for the Playwrights' Arena Summer Reading Series (2020), The Road Theatre Company's Summer Playwrights Festival (2021), the Garry Marshall Theatre's New Works Festival (2022), the Instituto Arte Teatral Internacional’s Cimientos Staged Readings Series (2023), and was a semi-finalist for the American Blues Theater's 2021 Blue Ink Playwriting Award.

You may watch The Road Theatre’s streamed reading of WAITING FOR GODÍNEZ at: https://roadtheatre.org/event/spf-12-waiting-for-godinez/

Olivas discusses the writing of his first full-length play in the essay, "From Dystopia to Absurdity: On Being a Chicano Writer in the Age of Trump" published in the Los Angeles Review of Books: https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/dystopia-absurdity-chicano-writer-age-trump.