Join us March 3rd and 5th for a reading series of new Latiné plays!

The New Latiné Play Salon will feature readings of new works by Baylee Shlichtman, Alejandro Valtierra, Bella O’Brien, Jon Marcantoni, and Alberto Medina!

The plays will include commentary from the authors as well as a chance for the audience to offer feedback to the actors and directors which is vital to developing these works.

Bring a prepared monologue and be ready to do a cold reading.

Alejandro Valtierra’s Puro Estilo will be produced in June 2025 and directed by Michael Castro.

This exciting bilingual blend of historical fiction and musical theater explores the life and legacy of La Lupe, the great Afro-Cuban singer whose career is as triumphant as it was tragic. The story takes place in a dimension of dreams in which her soul is trapped and where she is confronted by the gods of Santería, also known as orishas within the Afro-Caribbean religion that originated from the Yoruba of West Africa. The orishas love La Lupe but are conflicted by her call for their help due to frustration, confusion, and anger caused by the singer’s conversion to Christianity near the end of her life. Acceptance and forgiveness bind the orishas and La Lupe on a shared mission that is imbued with classics by the Queen of Latin Soul whose electrifying personality lives on in the experience of Puro Estilo.

Baylee Shlichtman’s And You Will be Ashes Too will be produced in September 2025 and directed by Veronica Straight-Lingo.

In Baylee Shlichtman’s new horror comedy, a pair of estranged sisters must confront their past wounds in the aftermath of their mother’s unexpected death, a situation made more dire as it becomes clear that the house they are in is haunted by a mysterious spirit.

Bella O’Brien’s water from the river is also in the sea is scheduled to be produced in 2026 by Flamboyán.

Bella O’Brien’s tense thriller follows a young woman who has returned to the US after living overseas, only to discover her boyfriend is missing, her friends are increasingly paranoid, and a new government is targeting Latinos.

Jon Marcantoni’s Playa Flamenco and Alberto Medina’s We Reserve the Right of Admission are short plays being workshopped for the first time.

Jon Marcantoni’s Playa Flamenco is a romantic comedy set over a 12 hour period, as two visitors to Puerto Rico’s famed Playa Flamenco, on the island of Culebra, have a chance encounter that deepens as the hours pass, day turns into night, and they must decide if the day will be a beautiful memory or the beginning of a lifelong love.

Alberto Medina’s We Reserve the Right of Admission is a biting satire chronicling the 126 year (and counting) occupation of Puerto Rico by the United States. A man representing the Pro-Statehood movement visits Washington from the 1890s to the 2020s demanding that the US annex the territory, but he is prevented from speaking to “The Man in Charge” by a secretary, who teases the Statehood Movement with empty promises and patronizing counter-offers. As the decades fly by and the world changes, will the Statehooder give up, or will he finally get his chance to move past the gatekeeper?