Featuring staged readings of

Pilar and Paloma by Milta Ortiz
Directed by Tania Benites

Grandeza by Ernesto Luna Camargo
Directed by Obed Medina

This event is a bilingual reading series that features two new works from the Latine community: Grandeza by Ernesto Luna Camargo, a founding member of Teatro Público de Cleveland and Pilar and Paloma by Milta Ortiz of Borderlands Theatre.

About Pilar and Paloma…

After the newly built wall, Desert mourns her fallen Saguaros as Lupe rushes to get across the border. One mother’s grieving ripens another’s pregnancy and Zuri steps in to help Lupe’s twins. In a hurry, Zuri breaks desert convention and years later they must face the consequences.

Looking to cast the following roles for Pilar and Paloma:

• PILAR—17 yrs old, older twin, dark hair, dark skin, angry at the world (Latina).
• PALOMA— 17 yrs old, younger twin, light hair, light skin, likes to fit in (Latina).
• LUPE— 37 yrs old, (20 yrs old in the first scene) the twins’ mother, doesn’t hold back (Latina).
• ZURI– mid 30-‘s, Coyote, who mostly appears in human form, (Indigenous/Native American).
• XOCHO— 17 yrs old, Zuri’s offspring, (Indigenous/Native American).
• YAMIL/— 17 yrs old, Zuri’s offspring, (Indigenous/Native American).
• EDDIE: 17 yrs old Paloma’s well-meaning middle-class boyfriend
• DESERT— 30’s- 40’s, appears ageless, embodies the Sonoran Desert, hot-tempered bad-ass (Latina) Also plays MARIA, a Catholic Church lady.
• WIND— 20’s-30’s, blonde, appears ageless, embodies wind, bold and quite capable of fury.
• Stage direction reader.

About Grandeza…

A teenager decides to come out of the closet and realizes that the entire world lives inside a closet, clinging to cultural traditions that have been wrong all their lives. In this black comedy the fight for acceptance will become a journey with no return towards an awakening in consciousness and for that we will need more than courage, we will need to shed ourselves as people.

Un adolescente decide salir del armario y se da cuenta que el mundo entero vive dentro de un armario, aferrándose a tradiciones culturales que han estado equivocadas durante toda la vida.

En esta comedia negra la lucha por la aceptación se convertirá en un viaje sin regreso hacia un despertar en la conciencia y para eso necesitaremos más que valor, necesitaremos despojarnos de nosotros mismos como personas.

Looking to cast the following roles for Grandeza:

• Family One
  • Madre, Mabel. 45/50 años (muy flaca, linda y elegante, no trabaja. Es indocumentada).
  • Padre, Raúl. 45/50 años. (Panzón tirando a gordo, mecánico de autos, indocumentado)
  • Hijo, Martin. 18 años. (dice que es gay, es un dreamer gracias a Obama.)
  • Hija, Mariana. 19 años. (Muy flaca y bonita. Es vegana una dreamer gracias a Obama.)
• Family Two
  • 45/50 años. (gordita latina, ciudadana)
  • 45/ 50 años. (hombre musculoso, guapo, profesor y consejero estudiantil en la high school, ciudadano)
  • Lito 20 años. (Musculoso. Americano hijo de latinos habla español con acento gringo. Metrosexual. Combina toda la ropa con sus zapatos, se pule las uñas y hasta se maquilla a veces
  • 18 años. Americana hija de latinos, habla español con acento gringo (ella es gordita como su madre, una chica Dark, gótica.)

We are open to seeing both AEA and non-AEA actors for both of these auditions.

Important Dates…

• 11/20/23 – First rehearsal (Pilar & Paloma)
• 11/21/23 – First rehearsal (Grandeza)
• 11/28/23 – Tech rehearsal (Pilar & Paloma)
• 11/29/23 – Tech rehearsal (Grandeza)
• 11/30/23 – Opening performance (Pilar & Paloma)
• 12/1/23 – Opening performance (Grandeza)
• 12/2/23 – Closing performance (Pilar & Paloma)
• 12/3/23 – Closing performance (Grandeza)

Important Information about The Plays…

PILAR AND PALOMA contains frank conversations about undocumented immigration and citizenship. GRANDEZA contains strong language and depictions of homophobia.

Auditions…

Sunday, November 12^th, 2:00 – 5:00pm

Tuesday, November 14^th, 6:30 – 8:30pm

Auditions are by appointment only and will be scheduled in 1-hour sections. You may be asked to read scenes individually or with a partner (pairings chosen by the director). Actors should plan to stay at the audition for up to 75 minutes, though you may be released sooner. The directors will be watching the auditions.

For the Audition:

Welcome first timers and experienced actors. No preparation is needed. Actors will be given scenes at the audition to prepare and read. Audition for Pilar and Paloma will be in English. Auditions for Grandeza will be in Spanish. You are welcome to audition for both plays, but please indicate that when you email to schedule an audition appointment.

To schedule an audition appointment, please email

au*******@cp*******.org











. Please include [Pilar & Paloma Auditions] or [Grandeza Auditions] in your subject line. Be sure to include your name, email address, phone number, and role you are auditioning for in your email. Send a copy of your headshot and resume as an attachment to your email if you have one, though it is not required. No phone calls please.

About the Playwrights:

MILTA ORTIZ is a Salvadoran-American playwright, who moonlights as poet, performer, and writer. Originally from the Bay Area, she now calls Tucson home. Currently, she is a Projecting All Voices Mellon fellow at Arizona State University. Her most recent plays are Pilar and Paloma and Cycles, a commission from StoryWorks Theater and the Arizona Daily Star, which Milagro Theatre Group toured nationally to colleges and universities in the 2019/2020 season. She received NEA Artworks and NALAC Artist grants to develop and produce her play Sanctuary, which premiered at Borderlands Theater in September 2018. She devised, wrote and directed Solving for X for the Working Classroom, which premiered in 2017. Other produced plays include A Tucson Pastorela 18^th-21^st annual productions, Sonoran Shadows, Màs, Disengaged, Fleeing Blue, and solo play Scatter My Red Underwear. She is associate artistic director at Borderlands Theater. She earned an MFA from Northwestern University and a BA from San Francisco State University.

ERNESTO LUNA CAMARGO is a founding member of Teatro Público de Cleveland and a lead artist. TPC stage credits: Cuando Cierras Your Eyes (2013); Estrella del Norte (Station Hope 2014); Vuelo del Ocean (Pandemonium 2014); A Recipe para la Vida (2014); Doña Carmella (Station Hope 2015); Mi Nombre Es (Pan @ TCG 2015); Yo Sueño of Home (Pandemonium 2015); ¿Dónde Está My Home? (2015); Uz, El Pueblo (2016); Mariel’s List (Pandemonium 2016); ¡CELEBRANDO 3 YEARS! (2016); Labio de Liebre (The Lip of the Hare) (2017); ¡OBRAS EN EVOLUCIÓN! A Festival of New Play Readings (2017); and En el Tiempo de las Mariposas / In the Time of the Butterflies (2018). Other credits include Sexual Fantasy, a short play written by Ernesto and performed with Dante Fernando Larzabal at CPT’s Pandemonium 2013. Ernesto also participated in the award-winning film, 50 Fathers, which was presented in the Cleveland International Film Festival (2015). He performed in Whisper’s Thread (Pandemonium 2018), directed by Raymond Bobgan and Faye Hargate. He lives in Cleveland Heights. He is a baker, writer, actor, costumer, and make-up artist, specializing in horror costumes. He is from a family of artists and has two sisters. He studied theatre and film in Uruguay and participated as an extra in multiple film productions and studied at Ohio University. He is from Montevideo, Uruguay and has lived in the US since 2002.