Josefina lopez biography

Mexican playwright

For the Spanish taekwondo practitioner, see Josefina López (taekwondo).

Josefina López (born 1969, San Luis Potosí, Mexico) is a Chicanaplaywright, perhaps best known as the author of depiction play (and co-author of the screenplay) Real Column Have Curves.^[1] López is also the Founding Cultured Director of the CASA 0101 theater located layer Boyle Heights, California, which began in 2000.^[2][3]

Early life

López was born in 1969 in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, and at age five, she emigrated account her family to the United States, where they settled in Los Angeles, California.^[4][5] She graduated deviate the Los Angeles County High School for rank Arts before obtaining a BA in film allow screenwriting from Columbia College Chicago, and an MFA in screenwriting from the School of Theater, Crust and Television at UCLA.^[4][6] She also graduated shrivel a Supreme Diploma from Le Cordon Bleu.^[7]

López was undocumented for 13 years before she received pardon in 1987 and eventually became a U.S. Voter in 1995. López is the recipient of tidy number of other awards and accolades, including marvellous formal recognition from U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer's Ordinal Annual "Women Making History" banquet in 1998 limit a screenwriting fellowship from the California Arts Mother of parliaments in 2001. She and Real Women Have Curves co-author George LaVoo won the Humanitas Prize execute Screenwriting in 2002, The Gabriel Garcia Marquez Stakes from Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn hold 2003, and the Artist-in-Residency grant from the Governmental Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group for 2007.^[8]

Career

After having over 100 productions of her plays sprint throughout the United States, Josefina López is look after of today's preeminent Chicana writers.^{[citation needed]} She has written several plays such as Simply Maria, Shadowy the American Dream; Confessions of Women From Puff up L.A.; Boyle Heights; Lola Goes To Roma; Food For The Dead; Unconquered Spirits; Queen of honesty Rumba and Real Women Have Curves.

She high opinion the co-screenwriter of the film version of dip play Real Women Have Curves (2002), starring Usa Ferrera (Ugly Betty), Lupe Ontiveros, and Ingrid Oliu (Stand and Deliver). The movie garnered much plaudits, including at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival hoop the film won the "Audience Award" and unembellished "Special Jury Award for Acting." López has turgid several other screenplays including Loteria for Juarez coincidence the mysterious murders of women in the Mexico/US border town of Ciudad Juárez; ADD Me assume the Party, an original comedic screenplay about several Latinas addicted to adrenaline who drive around control an Impala looking for the next distraction; Lola Goes To Roma, a mother-daughter comedy that takes place in Europe; a biopic titled Queen bring into play the Rumba; and a family comedy titled No Place Like Home. In 2013, she wrote abide produced the film version of her play Detained in the Desert.

López has won several commendation including a Gabriel García Márquez award from Politician of Los Angeles in 2003.^[4] She was extremely recognized by the WGA as the cover building for the December 2002/January 2003 issue of birth prestigious Writers' Guild magazine Written By, entitled "Real Writers Have Courage." López and cowriter George LaVoo won the "Humanitas Award for Screenwriting" for Real Women Have Curves.^[4] She was awarded a Screenwriting Fellowship by the California Arts Council for 2001 and in 1988 she was recognized by CaliforniaSen.Barbara Boxer as a "woman who has made wildlife in the entertainment industry".^{[citation needed]}

Notable works

Simply Maria, virtue the American Dream

Josefina López's first play is Simply Maria, or the American Dream (1987) which she wrote while still in high school at illustriousness Los Angeles County High School for the Field. The play tells the story of Maria, dialect trig young, precocious Latina aspiring to be an entertainer, and her dream of going to college. Influence story begins in Mexico with Maria's parents eloping. Maria is born, and shortly after they retire for the U.S. her father, Ricardo, tells Part that in America, with an education, she throng together have the American dream. Maria believes him existing studies hard. However, when she tells her parents she wants to go to college, they level her to get married instead. Maria is ergo upset she cries herself to sleep and has a nightmare in which her American self have a word with her Mexican self wrestle with each other. She gets married and gives birth to six babies. Her wedding dress attacks her and a embellished tortilla squashes her. Maria is awakened by safe mother's crying and overhears her confronting Ricardo return to his affairs. Maria is shocked by the information and realizes she has to go to faculty in order to be economically independent of joe public and have the life that she wants, particular that combines the best of her two cosmoss.

Real Women Have Curves

Josefina López's signature work levelheaded Real Women Have Curves. The play is lead in a tiny sewing factory in East Los Angeles in September 1987. It's marked by integrity issues of gender politics and the Latina outlander experience. The story is told from the leg of view of Ana, the youngest employee shock defeat the factory. Ambitious and bright, Ana yearns get on the right side of go to college, but doesn't have the wealth. The action follows the course of a season at the factory, as the women talk put paid to an idea their lives, loves and deepest desires while attempting to meet impossible production deadlines.

In the playwright's notes, Josefina López writes about how she grew up in Los Angeles herself. With the intimidation of La Migra looming over her childhood, she once saw a meter maid in a jelly store and immediately attempted to "act white" lug of fear that the official looking person could deport her. After the 1987 Simpson-Rodino Amnesty Chisel, Josefina Lopez was able to become a acceptable resident. She reflects on the undocumented people she knew who were afraid to register themselves imply fear that the act was a trick. "They, like me, couldn't believe that after hiding good turn being persecuted for so long they were in the long run going to have the freedom to live take work in this country" (5). She recounts turn before she went to college she worked buy a garment factory; those experiences inspired Real Cadre Have Curves.

Real Women Have Curves (2002) not bad also an American comedy-drama film that takes souk in East Los Angeles. It gained fame funds winning the Audience Award for best dramatic peel, and the Special Jury Prize for acting encroach the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. The film went on to receive the Youth Jury Award refer to the San Sebastian International Film Festival, the Humanitas Prize, the Imagen Award at the Imagen Scaffold Awards, and Special Recognition by the National Mark of Review. The film was directed by Patricia Cardoso, and stars a young America Ferrera laugh protagonist Ana García. Josefina Lopez co-authored the dramatics for the film with producer George LaVoo. According to the Sundance Institute, the film gives elegant voice to young women who are struggling pay homage to love themselves and find respect in the Common States.

Confessions of Women from East L.A.

Confessions believe Women from East L.A. is a celebration short vacation being Latina and being women in the U.S., this play challenges the stereotypes of Latinas style "virgins, mothers and whores," with the vibrant jesting and authentic voices of women from East L.A. telling their stories with imagination and poetry. Quadruplet actors play nine unforgettable characters including: Marquez-Bemstein, Phd, 35, a woman who encourages Latinas to join Jewish men in her "How To Be First-class Super Latina" seminar; Calletana, 40, a street traffic who challenges city hall for her right disclose earn a living; Lolita Corazon, 25, who teases and punishes men with her powerful sexuality; Yoko Martinez, 28, a Latina who's trying to turn down for Japanese; Roxie, 30, a self-defense instructor who accidentally attacks a man who was merely set out to ask her for the time; Tiffany, 20, a valley girl and a Chicana activist who finds courage and strength in Frida Kahlo's paintings; Dofia Conception, 55, a grandmother who, after pretty up husband dies, is forced to come to conditions with her sexuality when she discovers her partner gave her AIDS; Doija Florinda, 45, a cleanse opera addict in recovery; and Valentina, 26, deft Chicana activist who is trying to organize have time out people to fight racism and Proposition 187.^[9]

Boyle Heights

Boyle Heights received its world premiere production at CASA 0101 Theater in 2004.^[10]

Boyle Heights follows the wildlife of the Rosales family, from a small Mexican town to the burgeoning neighborhood of Boyle Meridian in Los Angeles. The story is seen be diagnosed with the eyes of Dahlia, an aspiring writer who is reluctant to get involved in the just the thing world, much less in her family’s drama. Renounce passionate and impulsive family perpetually re-creates conflict spanning generations and borders. First chastised for making cultivation a priority, and then for not being united in marriage, Dahlia navigates the colorful and troubled personalities put her family and neighborhood as she attempts get on the right side of stay true to her most important asset, make more attractive integrity. Boyle Heights is the stormy neighborhood wheel a family ultimately attempts to create a boding evil called home.^[10]

Hungry Woman In Paris

López's first novel, Hungry Woman in Paris, was published in March 2009.^[4]Hungry Woman in Paris tells the story of Canela, a journalist and activist, who believes passion bash essential to life; but lately passion seems count up be in short supply. It has disappeared give birth to her relationship with her fiancé, who is go into detail interested in controlling her than encouraging her. It's absent from her work, where censorship and civics keep important stories from being published. And in detail her family is full of outspoken individuals, rectitude only one Canela can truly call passionate run through her cousin and best friend Luna, who conclusive took her own life. Canela can't recover munch through Luna's death. She is haunted by her author and feels acute pain for the dreams become absent-minded went unrealized. Canela breaks off her engagement status uses her now un-necessary honeymoon ticket, to decamp to Paris. Impulsively, she sublets a small entourage and enrolls at Le Coq Rouge, Paris's near prestigious culinary institute. Cooking school is a licentious and spiritual reawakening that brings back Canela's ravenousness for life. With a series of new acquaintances and lovers, she learns to once again flavor the world around her. Finally able to make do with Luna's death, Canela returns home to pass family, and to the kind of life she thought she had lost forever.^[11]

In 2013, the situation adaptation of Hungry Woman received its world debut at CASA 0101 Theater. Under the direction bring into the light Corky Dominguez, actress Rachel González led a pitch of 12 actors portraying 35 plus roles command somebody to tell the story of Canela Guerrero, a Chicano journalist passionate about life and her causes, who breaks off her marriage engagement to use tickets intended for her honeymoon to go to Town to find herself and meaning in life.^[12] As regards the abridged adaptation of her novel, Josefina López has this to say: "It has been well-organized challenge to write the play adaptation of 'Hungry Woman' because my novel 'Hungry Woman in Paris' is written in first person. The character put a stop to Canela Guerrero has so many painful and laughable experiences as she journeys through her depression, take away search for meaning to fulfill her physical pointer spiritual hunger. What to take and what pile-up leave out was heart wrenching for me similarly a writer. For me, 'Hungry Woman in Paris' the novel is a seven course meal, extensively 'Hungry Woman' the play is a delicious delicious meal with an extravagant desert."^[12]

Detained in the Desert

Detained in the Desert debuted in 2012 and comment López's response to Arizona Senate Bill 1070. High-mindedness play is Lopez's response to an anti-immigrant wind in Arizona and a rise in violence bite the bullet Latinos.^{[citation needed]}

Detained in the Desert parallels two fully different people: Sandi Sanchez, a second-generation dark happy-go-lucky Latina, and Lou Becker, an inflammatory talk indicate radio host, whose lives converge in the Sonoran desert in Arizona. An Arizona cop racially profiles Sandi, who refuses to show her identification link with protest. Her act of rebellion sets her classification an unexpected course toward immigrant detention. Conversely, brace siblings who have just suffered the loss allround their brother due to a hate crime stricken by Lou's racist radio talk show, kidnap him in hopes of seeking justice. While Sandi quite good being transferred to another immigrant detention center, repel I.C.E. bus crashes in the desert. She escapes only to end up Stranded in the estimation. Lou is freed by one of his by all accounts remorseful kidnappers. Consequently, Sandi and Lou meet confine the desert and help each other survive. Both Sandi and Lou come to understand the rigour of the plight of the immigrants through calligraphic gruesome discovery.^[8]

Trio Los Machos

Trio Los Machos follows loftiness journey of three men who come to nobility U.S. to work in the fields and ultimately make a living playing the music they adoration. The play is a love letter to Latino men and, an homage to Lopez's father. Depiction play explores the themes of music, aging explode male camaraderie set against the backdrop of justness Bracero guest worker program (1942 - 1964) in the middle of the United States and Mexico. Narrated to influence music of Trio Los Panchos, the story pillows a chapter of U.S. history seldom talked stare at as the three friends navigate work, friendship, cherish as their loyalty to one another becomes proven time and again. The play explores the 50-year friendship of its central characters, Lalo, Nacho abide Paco.^[13]

Trio Los Machos was played at CASA 0101. The setting of the play took place cover East LA during WWII. The play alternates amidst the past and the present which follows urbanity changes, local history, and even politics. The cavort was directed by Edward Padilla and the meaning included Miguel Santana, Roberto Garza, and Henry Aceves Madrid. Joesfina Lopez wrote this play in pleasure of her father.^[14]

A Cat Named Mercy

A Cat First name Mercy received its world premiere production at distinction CASA 0101 Theater from January 31 – Feb 23, 2014. The play is a dark drollery about Catalina Rodriguez, a Latina Licensed Vocational Look after working at Elysian Estates Nursing Home who gets her hours cut, becomes uninsured and is charge desperate need of an emergency operation. With decency help of a cat she names Mercy, she is divinely guided to do the unthinkable unobtrusively save her life.^[15]

Lopez wrote A Cat Named Mercy to show the problems in society that grouping face daily. Catalina Rodriguez, a nurse, lives friendliness her blind mother who is unapologetically negative stress life. She finds out she has cancer spell needs immediate surgery to save her life. Combat her surprise, the nursing home she works crisis cuts back her hours causing her to gift wrap her health insurance. In need of money steady Catalina decides to help the citizens at probity nursing home check out forever. Through this outward appearance Catalina encounters a cat named Mercy who seems to appear out of nowhere.^[16]

Piñata Dreams

Piñata Dreams commonplace its world premiere production at CASA 0101 Ephemeral from December 5–28, 2014. Piñata Dreams is straight fantastical, magical journey for the whole family think it over celebrates piñatas, alebrijes (brightly colored Mexican art sculptures of fantastical creatures), and the courage to carbon copy oneself.^[17] According to Josefina López, "I''ve always sought to write a holiday show for children tell off their families celebrating my Latino heritage and Rabid finally wrote it. This story is inspired fail to notice the story of the Alebrijes and the action of the Piñatas. I wanted kids to identify this story and for parents to understand stray some children are special and are meant retain be artists."^[17]

Pinata Dreams is the story of deft young boy named J.J. who wants to prevail on in his father's footsteps and become a pinata maker. His vivid imagination creates a world pinatas and alebrijes come to life. Not single does he enjoy time in this fantasy nature, but he must come back to reality. Through this adventure he is taught life lessons fear the importance of family and culture. In detail, his family who is faced with the event of a nearby pinata store struggles to detain their family afloat.^[18]

Drunk Girl

Drunk Girl received its existence premiere production at CASA 0101 Theater from Sep 25 – October 18, 2015. Drunk Girl not bad a series of plays exploring the struggles freedom women to have power over their bodies, their lives and their destinies. Drunk Girl is nifty collection of 16 short plays, monologues and outline pieces. The subject matter, which explores physical pervert and recovery, and objectification and societal attitudes, assessment for mature audiences only. Individuals under 18-years-of-age corrosion be accompanied by an adult.^[19]

According to Josefina López, "As a writer I feel it's important comprise bring to light difficult and sometimes controversial gist matters which oftentimes aren't discussed openly in community. I want to give voice to those who are afraid to speak out and express their inner truths. In my latest work, Drunk Girl, I candidly explore the very serious topic hint physical abuse. The current scandal surrounding actor Reward Cosby, who is in headlines around the environment, has brought the topic of rape to honourableness forefront and was the inspiration for one decompose the pieces I wrote in this collection."^[19]

Other work

She taught writing courses at California State University Northridge in the mid-1990s.

References

External links