In the wake of the Chinese Exclusion Act, an unlikely family carries invented biographies and poems of longing on an arduous journey from rural Taishan to Angel Island Detention Center, in hopes of landing in San Francisco. Intimate and epic, THE FAR COUNTRY weighs the true cost of selling the past for the hope of a brighter future.
Genre: BIPOC
El Borracho
Raúl is ill. He drinks, because he always drinks, just like el borracho on the lotería card. In his final months, Raúl moves in with his ex-wife, who swore she’d never see him again, and their son, who’s longing to connect with his father at last.
Berta, Berta
After committing an unforgivable crime, Leroy is granted one final wish: a chance to make amends with his long-lost lover, Berta. Their reunion swells from a quarrelsome conjuring of the past to an impassioned plot to escape their impending fate.
Black Super Hero Magic Mama
Sabrina Jackson cannot cope with the death of her son by a White cop. Rather than herald the Black Lives Matter movement, Sabrina retreats inward, living out a comic book superhero fantasy. Will Sabrina stay in this dream world or return to reality and mourn her loss?
Bina’s Six Apples
Bina’s family grows the finest apples in all of Korea. But when war forces her to flee her home, Bina is alone in the world with just six precious apples to her name. Can these meager possessions help her find her family? Join Bina on her spirited journey that ranges from the heartbreaking to the humorous. Encountering new challenges at every turn, Bina is forced to rely upon her apples and their important legacy as she begins to discover the power of her own resilience. Often mesmerizing, always heartwarming, Bina will discover that she’s not the only one on a difficult quest for a place to call home.
The Ballad of Emmett Till
THE BALLAD OF EMMETT TILL dramatizes the final days of Emmett Till, a Chicago teenager who takes a fateful trip to Mississippi in the summer of 1955. It is the story of a quest, Emmett’s pursuit of happiness, of liberty and ultimately of life.
This is the first play in The Till Trilogy, a three-play cycle which includes BENEVOLENCE and THAT SUMMER IN SUMNER, exploring the epic saga of Emmett Till and the birth of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Antebellum
ANTEBELLUM focuses on themes of social injustice as it intercuts between two alternate stories throughout the play: one which takes place in Atlanta in 1939, the other in Germany in 1936. The Atlanta plot-line centers on a young Jewish couple living in the South who dress up in Civil War era attire to attend the premiere of Gone with the Wind. In Berlin, a Third Reich officer at a Nazi death camp is in love with his prisoner, a Black, male cabaret performer, yet still allows him to be tortured.
That Summer in Sumner
THAT SUMMER IN SUMNER is the middle drama in The Till Trilogy, a three-play cycle exploring the epic saga of Emmett Till. While the first play, The Ballad of Emmett Till, is the story of the boy, That Summer in Sumner explores the 1955 trial of his killers. While drawing upon trial transcripts, contemporaneous news accounts, and the abundant photographic and media imaging, the play is not a docudrama, but my imagined interpretation of behind the scenes events from the perspective of three African American journalists covering the trial and from Emmett, himself, his ghost, his cipher, his Kah, coming to grips with what has happened to him.
This is the second play in The Till Trilogy, a three-play cycle which includes BENEVOLENCE and THE BALLAD OF EMMETT TILL, exploring the epic saga of Emmett Till and the birth of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Benevolence
BENEVOLENCE explores the impact of the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Chicago youth Emmett Till on two families in the Mississippi Delta, one white (the family of his killers), one black (their neighbors). When the daily routine of a country storekeeper is disrupted by a group of buoyant teens, one of whom whistles at her, from that chance encounter, she is swept into a whirlwind of violence, prosecution, deceit and delusion that pursue her till the end of her days. In a nearby town, an auto mechanic and his wife struggle to hold their family together after his infidelity, but when he witnesses evidence of Till’s murder, the incident tears at the very fabric of their lives. Based on actual events, the third play in Bayeza’s THE TILL TRILOGY grapples with the enduring legacy of American racial violence through this intimate story of two women in quest of love and redemption.
Musings of a Crazy Texican
Imagine witnessing 500 years of Aztec history in 10 minutes, a commercial for menudo popsicles, auditions for Pancho Villa: The Musical or a jillion texts from a psycho gringa. This “crazy” collection of eight short plays contains works that have entertained, inspired and sometimes offended. Playwright Alvaro Saar Rios showcases new work, commissioned pieces as well as those developed with the performance troupe The Royal Mexican Players. To be enjoyed by Texicans & non-Texicans across the country.