HOUSTON: Stages Houston has announced the sixth annual Sin Muros Festival, a celebration of Latinx voices and stories. The weekend festival will be held May 25-28.
“I’ve seen so many young Latinos—poets, writers, and playwrights—coming up here in Houston, and they’re really excited about the possibilities,” said Jasminne Mendez, whose play City Without Altar was selected for the 2019 festival and who is directing a reading in this year’s festival, in a statement. “I hope a festival like Sin Muros will help nurture these artists and entice them to remain in Houston.”
The readings in this year’s festival include David Davila’s Hotel Puerto Vallarta: A Legitimate Work of Dramatic Theatre; 619 Hendricks by Josie Nericcio, parts per million & prophets by Ricardo Dávila, and a river, its mouths by Jesús I. Valles.
Davila, a playwright and comedian, is the winner of the 2022 National New Play Network Smith Prize for political theatre and the 2021 New American Voices National Playwriting Award from the Landing Theatre Company. He is an alum of the Second City Training Center Chicago and the Primary Stages Einhorn School of Performing Arts, and is currently an MFA student at Indiana University. Hotel Puerto Vallarta follows Connie, a hotel manager and former drag star who learns that her boss may sell the second most popular drag resort in Puerto Vallarta to developers.
Nericcio is a playwright, film and television writer, and poet who wrote for the Nickelodeon series Hey Arnold! Her poetry has been published in the Magazine of Latino Culture, and her plays have been produced by the TEATRX La Vida Es Cortos Festival and Sin Muros. Her play El Arbol won the Alleyway Theatre’s 2020 Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition’s award for one-act plays. 619 Hendricks follows two brothers fighting about the fate of their childhood home and what they want and need from it.
Dávila is an actor and writer who has been seen in AMC’s Dietland, onstage at the Alley Theatre, and in independent cinema. They have developed their playwriting as a creative resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm. parts per million & prophets follows high school student Silvia, who is suspended for a provocative biology project and is struggling with eco-anxiety, which opens her up to something older and deeper.
Valles, who recently won the 2023 Yale Drama Series Prize, is a queer Mexican immigrant educator, writer, and performer. They were a 2021 CantoMundo fellow at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, a 2021 Lambda Literary fellow, and a 2019 Walter E. Dakin playwriting fellow of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, among other honors. Their work has been published in the Texas Review and the Mississippi Review, among others, and their poetry has been featured on NPR’s Code Switch. As an actor, Valles is the recipient of four B. Iden Payne Awards. They are currently an MFA student at Brown University. a river, its mouths follows You, who is struggling with severe depression and returns to their hometown on the Texas-Mexico border as a mermaid haunts the Rio Grande.
In addition to the readings, the festival will present the Premio Puente, or Bridge Award, to an individual who has demonstrated great skill, talent, and care in serving the Latinx art community of the Houston area. This year’s finalists include educator and producer Ashley DeHoyos, artist and activist Deniz Lopez, and artist GONZO247. The festival will also host an arts market featuring local vendors, artisans, nonprofits, and food trucks.
Stages Houston makes plays and tells stories that invite audiences to live and love more boldly. The theatre works to strengthen the creative capacities of Houston theatre artists and technicians and to build equity, diversity, and inclusion in the Houston theatre community. As of 2022, the theatre had a budget of approximately $5.9 million.
