News and Events

Playwright Virginia Grise (Theater MFA 09) returns to CalArts to further develop Rasgos Asiaticos. Told in a series of vignettes, this multi-narrative story traces one woman’s history back four generations as we are introduced to a cast of Mexican runaways, Chinese refugees, and fiercely independent women trying to let go of binding gender roles. An intimate story about the fluidity of borders, time and the historic confluence of China, Mexico and the United States. Winner of the 2011 Pregones Asuncion Award for Queer Playwrighting. 

From panzas to prisons, from street theatre to large-scale multimedia performances, from princess to chafa – Virginia Grise writes plays that are set in bars without windows, barrio rooftops, and lesbian bedrooms. Her play blu was the winner of the 2010 Yale Drama Series Award and was recently published by Yale University Press. Her other published work includes The Panza Monologues co-written with Irma Mayorga (University of Texas Press) and an edited volume of Zapatista communiqués titled Conversations with Don Durito (Autonomedia Press).