Artistic Statement

Artistic Statement

Drawn from my roots in the Philippines and Romania and my hometown in Virginia/Washington D.C., my plays are epic, irreverent, and medicinal. I honor the stories of my ancestors passed down through oral tradition, the written word, and the memories in my blood. I honor the stories that come from the lands on which I reside, and the lands that my peoples call home. I honor the stories that I write for future generations – our ancestors-in-training.

My work centers women of color journeying through worlds that are haunting, charming, and strange—where the numinous is the norm, not the exception. I call in characters who are funny, rough, vengeful, electric. I call in elements of fire, salt, herbs, ink, and water. I call in the questions – who am I, where did I come from, and what am I made of?

This work includes plays about teen women in a paramilitary squad repairing an electrical grid in the forests (Black Sky), a young woman traveling through one of her homelands with demons and tricksters to find a cure for her ailing father (Lena Passes By), a supernatural college dance troupe staging a Filipino American student performance for power and glory (Culture Night), and an immigrant woman who was forcibly sterilized reckoning with an alternate universe where her daughters are alive (Hecuba, an adaptation of Euripides’ Hecuba).

I intend my plays to convey a sense of ritual and inner infinity—the feeling of so much life inside of you that you could die. After seeing one of my plays, I hope that audience members leave the theater feeling like they have just been through ceremony.