a Staged Reading of "Puto": A new play by Ricardo A. Bracho

Free and open to the entire UCSC community

Please join us in welcoming to our campus Los Angeles-based playwright Ricardo A. Bracho and his vital new work, Puto. Set five years in the future in a parallel reality, Puto is a sexy sci-fi which confronts some of California's most pressing social concerns: prisons, immigration, industrial farming and the failing economy within the context of queer Latina/o militant activism, romance and art practice.

Ricardo A. Bracho is an award-winning nationally recognized playwright whose works have been produced in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York. He was 2004-5 Visiting Artist/Scholar in Residence at the Center for Chicano Studies at UC Santa Barbara where he completed Mexican Psychotic, a silent play with projected text on the life and art of outsider artist Martin Ramirez, a work he began while participating in the Resident Artists' Program of the world famous avant-garde troupe, Mabou Mines. His other works for the stage include The Sweetest Hangover, Sissy, A to B and Querido. He has also been a lifelong organizer of glbt youth, Latina/o urban high-risk populations, queer people of color, incarcerated men and community-based arts and public health programs.

For this staged reading, which Bracho will also direct, we have assembled a top-notch cast of San Francisco and Los Angeles actors: Sean San Jose, Catherine Castellanos, Xavi Moreno, Mariella Saba and Ricky Saenz. Not only are these some of California's leading Latina/o stage interpreters of new work, they are also connected to some of the most historic and forward-vision theaters in California: San Francisco's Campo Santo, the resident theater company of Intersection for the Arts, California's oldest literary non-profit; Company of Angels, Los Angeles' oldest repertory theater company which just celebrated its 50th anniversary; and Teatro East of the River, a youth-founded and focused company which combines theater and community organizing to produce plays of, for
and by East Los Angeles residents.
The visual artist and writer Dino Dinco will serve as Narrator and his fine art and fashion photography will be projected to visually punctuate and create transitions between scenes. The play will be followed with a discussion with the playwright and a reception.

We look forward to your presence at this powerful presentation. For more information or for accommodations contact Tam Welch and Toro Castaño at 831-459-2468 or email queer [at] ucsc.edu.