Hortense Gerardo

Hortense Gerardo

HORTENSE GERARDO is a writer and anthropologist. Her works have been performed nationally and internationally, including: LaMama Experimental Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the International Performance Art Festival, the Venice Biennale, and the Nuit Blanche Festival in Toronto. Her award-winning feature-length screenplays include FOURHAND and DANCING IN EXILE. She is a Company One...
HORTENSE GERARDO is a writer and anthropologist. Her works have been performed nationally and internationally, including: LaMama Experimental Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the International Performance Art Festival, the Venice Biennale, and the Nuit Blanche Festival in Toronto. Her award-winning feature-length screenplays include FOURHAND and DANCING IN EXILE. She is a Company One Theatre Playlab Unit Playwright (2018) and a New World Theatre Masterclass Playwright Fellow (2018). For more info see: www.hortensegerardo.com and follow her on Twitter: @hfgerardo.

Plays

  • Middleton Heights by Hortense Gerardo
    Cast: 
    4–8
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Asian American family, intersectionality + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, experimental
    Keyword: Asian American family, intersectionality, Asian American playwright
    The Token Fallopians of Middleton Heights is a dark comedy that follows MEENA and her Filipino family as they assimilate to life in a Midwestern suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. The play traces historical events in the Cleveland and surrounding area from 1967 to 2014 and the family’s pursuit of the American Dream, refracted through the intersectional lens of the Asian American Pacific Islander immigrant experience....
    The Token Fallopians of Middleton Heights is a dark comedy that follows MEENA and her Filipino family as they assimilate to life in a Midwestern suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. The play traces historical events in the Cleveland and surrounding area from 1967 to 2014 and the family’s pursuit of the American Dream, refracted through the intersectional lens of the Asian American Pacific Islander immigrant experience.

    Part 2 of a Trilogy of plays on the theme of the Asian American Pacific Islander experience.

    Written by Hortense Gerardo
  • FACE WORK by Hortense Gerardo
    Cast: 
    6–11
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, political + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: beauty, cosmetic surgery + 3 more
    Genre: dark comedy, political, satire, science fiction
    Keyword: beauty, cosmetic surgery, botox, feminism ageism, ethnic self-hatred
    A world-renown research scientist Solange Januario embarks on a series of experiments
    exploring the sometimes surreal lengths that people go to achieve their ideal of Beauty.
  • Model Behavior by Hortense Gerardo
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy
    ·
    Keyword: Russia, literature + 1 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: Russia, literature, modeling
    Professor Wilde, a professor of Russian literature and Elle, a college senior and professional model, match wit and will in this short comic play about judging a book by its cover and the gulag of false assumptions.
  • The Rosewater of Dona Felicidad by Hortense Gerardo
    Cast: 
    7–10
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, fable/folktale
    ·
    Keyword: aging, beauty + 3 more
    Genre: dark comedy, fable/folktale
    Keyword: aging, beauty, identity, dance, puppets
    In this magical surrealist one-act play, Dona Felicidad discovers the joys and the pitfalls of being granted eternal youth.
  • A Ruckus In The Ruins by Hortense Gerardo
    Cast: 
    9–14
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 7 more
    ·
    Keyword: Lysistrata, Thucydides + 3 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, dark comedy, musical, parody/spoof, political, romantic comedy, satire, tragedy
    Keyword: Lysistrata, Thucydides, the Peloponnesian War, Ancient Greece, hip hop
    In this historical trip-hop satire, the women of Aristophanes' Lysistrata kidnap Thucydides in a madcap attempt to persuade him to include women's voices in his rewrite of The History of the Peloponnesian War.
  • The Dress Rehearsal by Hortense Gerardo
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: mother, daughters + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: mother, daughters, Body image, beauty, identity
    Philomeena (MEENA) helps MAMA prepare for the most fabulous celebration of her life.
  • The Engagement by Hortense Gerardo
    Cast: 
    2–3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: engagement, marriage + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, melodrama
    Keyword: engagement, marriage, monogamy, Voiceover
    When BOOMER decides to propose marriage to LACEY, an unseen observer provides an uncomfortably objective interpretation of their human behavior.
  • Kith and Tell by Hortense Gerardo
    Recommendations: 4
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: Nebraska, the Heartland + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, satire, science fiction
    Keyword: Nebraska, the Heartland, The Big Apple, Thanksgiving, vegetarian
    When Lucy brings her boyfriend Donald, home to meet her parents, he learns more than he bargained for about himself, human nature, and the seemingly backward ways of the folks in the heartland of America in the not-too-distant future.
  • For the Love of Egon by Hortense Gerardo
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: Robots, automatons
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, fantasy, science fiction
    Keyword: Robots, automatons
    After their first, enthralling, intimate encounter, Egon, a New-age automaton with Old World sensibilities challenges Chloe's views on what it means to be human and in love in the 21st century.
  • On the Fabric of the Human Body by Hortense Gerardo
    Cast: 
    9–14
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: Vesalius, anatomy + 1 more
    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, period
    Keyword: Vesalius, anatomy, dwarfism
    The play follows the story of Andreas Vesalius, the petty arguments he fought with Church leaders of his day, the scientific forefather (Galen) he had to usurp, and his major contributions to the way we think about the human body to this day. It is interesting to note that Vesalius himself, the anatomist who painstakingly recorded the fabric of the human body, was in all likelihood, an achondroplastic dwarf....
    The play follows the story of Andreas Vesalius, the petty arguments he fought with Church leaders of his day, the scientific forefather (Galen) he had to usurp, and his major contributions to the way we think about the human body to this day. It is interesting to note that Vesalius himself, the anatomist who painstakingly recorded the fabric of the human body, was in all likelihood, an achondroplastic dwarf. It is arguable that some of the difficulties he faced throughout his career were based, in part, because of his physical deformities; he was born at a time when physical beauty was equated with purity of soul.