David Valdes

When a gay 15-year-old climbs a bridge to jump off it, the span gets pretty crowded: his cheerful 38-year-old self appears to tell him it gets better, only to be interrupted by his more seasoned 55-year-old self, who has unexpected news for them both. And even then, they're not alone: three versions of their mom (as single mother, complicated grandmother, and irked ghost) have scores to settle of their own. In a meditation on faith, loss, and resilience, The Boys on the Bridge is a play about how--and why--we keep going.

It's all fun and games until you give birth in a trough--er, a manger, that is. (Manger sounds French and French sounds fancy.) Meet Mimi (who could use a drink) and Joe (who hates attention) the night they become parents to, you know, a God. When sheer exhaustion makes them try to give the baby back, it takes innkeeper Zelda, shepherd person Carol, and gay astrologers-turned-influencers Melchoir and Gaspar to help them get through their blessed event intact. A comic riff on the insanity of new parenthood, it's the nativity you didn't know you needed.

When trans couple Dosia and Linus are invited to the gender reveal party of cis couple Lexi and Christopher, a little sabotage and a high gone awry test the limits of love and loyalty, raising the age-old family question: how do you show up for people you want to strangle?

“There are no villains in ‘The Great Reveal,’ just well-intentioned but sometimes tone-deaf people moving haltingly toward some kind of understanding. Valdes is insightful in delineating the ways that unexamined assumptions can cause unintended pain. The play could scarcely be more timely.” The Boston Globe (Don Aucoin)

“Political leanings, alliances and identity collide in this well-written, thoughtful narrative...it shows us how our lack of self-awareness can impact others. But more than that, it demonstrates how we can return from the edge of anger toward reconciliation…The play’s power is really about getting us to consider other perspectives." WBUR, Boston’s NPR News Station (Jacquinn Sinclair)

“There are some extremely funny moments in The Great Reveal…However, the story also infuses some moments of sensitivity and poignancy by reflecting on the human condition as a whole. These moments seem to come at just the right time when they happen, unveiling a finely tuned rhythm to playwright David Valdes’ structured dialogue." METRMAG (Kevin Baldwin)

“Heartfelt and Humorous Moments fill Lyric Stage’s ‘The Great Reveal.’ I found the scenes where Lexi and Linus recalled experiences from their childhood – both loving and rivalrous – and bonded over their parents’ limitations and absence (Valdes’ fifth character is their elderly father, who does not appear but whose stubbornness and sense of loneliness and isolation pervades the production) extremely moving…” Theater Mirror (Linda Chin)

“Funny, insightful, and relatable, The Great Reveal explores two couples and all they have been through as their bond is tested. Through squabbling, sibling rivalry, hurtfulness, pettiness and turmoil, it is important to remember what brought everyone together in the first place and what a meaningful future can hold.” The Sleepless Critic

Four Cubans in two countries navigate race, class, drag, and Reaganonics in 1981, wrestling with notions of home and revolution in a culture defined by exile.

Shortlisted for Shakespeare's New Contemporaries, a modern reply to the (messed up) gender politics of Much Ado About Nothing. Hero gathers the old gang for an anniversary bash thrown by gender-bending party planners sure to push her husband's buttons. Over the course of the night, everyone is made to question why, who, and how people marry. It's a pure comedy with all the Shakespeare trappings--a lot of humor, a little song, direct address, mistaken identity, weddings (and unweddings!), and even a soliloquy about nether parts.

Old friends Laurel, Karen, and Oscar meet for cocktails each week as a safe harbor when they find themselves all at once in the crux of the "sandwich generation," parenting their own declining parents. Laurel's live-in dad has had Alzheimer's for years, while Karen's mom is newly diagnosed with dementia, and Oscar's mom is in hospice. Their bonds are tested by the unpredictable roller coaster of grief, hope, anger, humor, shame, and an endless quest for "one last good day." The play mixes raw portraits of their lives with magical elements and features a POC and LGBT cast. 2019 National Showcase of New Plays.

Seven undocumented immigrants from different populations unwittingly cross paths on the Boston subway. Using liminal space instead of strict naturalism, we discover their joys and visions, as well as their fears, as they wait out an unexpected delay on the train. With composite characters based on interviews with undocumented Bostonians, the show tells the stories more often omitted from media narratives about undocumented life, including their contributions to the city. The play highlights what it like to build a life while holding your breath.

For Pilar and Bird, parenting a trans tween is all about guessing how to get it right when they’re not even sure what that means—and it doesn’t help that they’re not on the same page. Vi just wishes they would keep up: she’s busy navigating her first crush on super-cool Jacob, obsessing over her favorite YouTube vlogger, and just about ready to make herself an internet sensation. Fast-paced, funny, and heartfelt, The Mermaid Hour finds all three confronting the gaps between who they are and who they wish to be.

Mermaid Hour is available from Original Works Publishing
https://www.originalworksonline.com/

Marina, one of the last two climatologists on earth, has hidden herself on the coast of Iceland to escape increasing threats from Eternal Sunshine, a dark ops force dedicated to harassing climate scientists into silence. But when Lucia, her one remaining peer, shows up unannounced, a cat-and-mouse game ensues. Are they allies? Enemies? Who works for who? A suspenseful two-woman show, Last Catastrophist draws on climate science and real life events to imagine life on the brink.

When a young gay couple wake up on their wedding morning, a couple in their sixties appear in their hotel room, having time-traveled to talk the younger pair out of it, in a comedy about marriage in our time. Think of it as Dr. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

It is written for a cast of 4 men (which is how the staged readings have been presented) but it would be fun for an adventurous theatre to cast 6 or 8 for rotating line-ups (alternating between all-male, all-female, or male-female casts).

When poet Ondi Rivers is asked to read at inauguration, she balks because they want her as a transwoman, not just as a poet or even as a lesbian, which is how she identifies. Her wife thinks it’s too dangerous, but her son thinks she owes it to the trans community. His boyfriend, who works for the President-elect, thinks Ondi owes more to history than to herself, but she’s stubborn: if she doesn’t get to claim her own identity, how is that progress? It’s a quick-moving, ultramodern comedy of manners across a generational divide.

When mixed race Cuban-American brothers raised in the north head south bearing their mother's ashes to their estranged Papi in Little Havana, the car is loaded with a surprise guest, a ghost, and 30 years of history that isn't what they imagined. As the miles pass and the story unfolds, they have to ask who they are and what family means when the answer changes. 2018 San Diego REP Latinx New Play Festival Finalist.

When a terrifying accident sends Sander into a coma, his estranged wife and his "work wife" both show up at his bedside thinking they know what is best for his end of life--or life-extending--care. At the same time, we witness the internal experience of his coma, where the real and imagined all seem happily intertwined, even as ominous signs suggest that time is running out. Full Code asks how we know when it's time to hold on tight or just let go.

In the aftermath of a shooting spree that targeted sex offenders, the survivors, the shooter, and his mother are drawn together in memory and reality, their competing--and opposing--stories painting a portrait of loss and rebirth. The evening-length play is ritual based, structured as part ceremony, part Rashomon-like puzzle, as it asks how we go on after a sudden confrontation with horror.