Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro

Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro

My plays include Before I Leave You (Huntington Theatre in Boston), Behind Enemy Lines (Pan Asian Repertory in N.Y.), Mishima (East West Players in L.A.), Martha Mitchell (Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Six Figures Theater Co. in N.Y.), Barrancas (Magic Theater in S.F.), Pablo and Cleopatra (New Theatre in Boston), Mexico City and Sailing Down the Amazon (the Boston Women on Top Festival), and It Doesn’t Take a...
My plays include Before I Leave You (Huntington Theatre in Boston), Behind Enemy Lines (Pan Asian Repertory in N.Y.), Mishima (East West Players in L.A.), Martha Mitchell (Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Six Figures Theater Co. in N.Y.), Barrancas (Magic Theater in S.F.), Pablo and Cleopatra (New Theatre in Boston), Mexico City and Sailing Down the Amazon (the Boston Women on Top Festival), and It Doesn’t Take a Tornado and Amsterdam (La MaMa in N.Y.).

I am writer, and narrator of Japanese American Women: A Sense of Place, a documentary directed by Leita Hagemann, which aired on PBS in Seattle and was part of a traveling exhibit of the Smithsonian Institution. I was a 2010 Huntington Playwriting Fellow and received a 2011 MCC Artist Fellowship in Playwriting. Several of my plays have been produced nationally and abroad and anthologized by Baker’s Plays, Heinemann, Meriwether Publishing, PlaySource, Smith and Kraus, and Charta Books, Ltd. In 2020 I was named to the inaugural group of 20 Cambridge Cultural Visionaries by the Cambridge Community Foundation.

Plays

  • Incredibly Annoying Women: Five Monologues by Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    3–5
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    Genre: drama
    Genre: drama
    Five monologues: "Cul-de-Sac" - an Asian woman harbors murderous feelings against the rambunctious 8-year-old Mexican twins who live next door; "Torched" - an Asian dean at U Penn gets dangerously carried away as she eulogizes Kathleen Chang(e), an Asian American performance artist and political activist who died of self-immolation; "It Doesn't Take a Tornado" - a woman living...
    Five monologues: "Cul-de-Sac" - an Asian woman harbors murderous feelings against the rambunctious 8-year-old Mexican twins who live next door; "Torched" - an Asian dean at U Penn gets dangerously carried away as she eulogizes Kathleen Chang(e), an Asian American performance artist and political activist who died of self-immolation; "It Doesn't Take a Tornado" - a woman living in a trailer park that was just leveled by a killer tornado; "A Nasty Piece of Work" - a middle-aged Asian actress gets her big break when she's gets the starring role in a play at the largest theater in town, only to be upstaged by a comic actress in a supporting role; "Sailing down the Amazon" - a 78-year-old actress reacts to the news that she has Alzheimer's by taking a trip down the Amazon.
  • Golp by Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: drama
    Genre: drama
    Maggie, a scientist, creates an android named Golp to babysit her 10-year-old child, Abigail, and be a companion for her lonely 57-year-old mother, Jean. Abigail wants a playmate, and Jean wants a man to replace her absentee husband, but Golp develops a mind of his own. At home school shootings are common, and abroad Golp’s cousins, the warbots. are on the move.
  • Discombobulated by Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama
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    Keyword: family, aging + 1 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: family, aging, middle-aged marriage
    Stan (72) and Ellie (64) are having a terrible summer: their little house is full to bursting with the invasion of Ellie’s mother May (89) and their grandson Pete (11). Stan and May have always disliked each other, and it doesn’t help that both of them are feeling old and vulnerable: Stan is afraid of losing his job, and May thinks he is after her money. They wake up each morning itching for a fight.