{"id":54833,"date":"2025-11-15T20:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T20:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/54833\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T20:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T20:05:07","slug":"latina-playwright-breaks-bad-in-onstage-playhouses-young-audiences-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/54833\/","title":{"rendered":"Latina playwright breaks bad in OnStage Playhouse\u2019s \u2018Young Audiences\u2019 \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

In \u201cYoung Audiences,\u201d a fierce and whip-smart black comedy that made its world premiere Friday at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista, a fed-up Latina playwright takes revenge on America\u2019s white theater establishment, which she believes pays lip service to diversity only to use artists of color for getting DEI-related grants, donations and drama camp sign-ups.<\/p>\n

Written with a rapier wit by Latina San Diego playwright Mabelle Reynoso, \u201cYoung Audiences\u201d is the ninth new play OnStage Artistic Director James P. Darvas has developed and staged over the past four years through the company\u2019s page-to-stage program. I\u2019ve seen many of these new works by local playwrights, and the satiric \u201cYoung Audiences\u201d is one of the smartest and best-directed.<\/p>\n

The fiery and free-spirited Denise Lopez stars in the play as Lizzie, an overworked and underpaid 20something Mexican-American playwright, whose principal job at 50-year-old Pure Wonder and Imagination theater for young audiences is recruiting \u201cbrown kids\u201d for its money-making children\u2019s plays like \u201cFroggy\u2019s First Fiesta.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when Lizzie discovers the board of PWI (yes, that\u2019s also an acronym for predominantly white institution) has canceled her scheduled play about Sor Juana In\u00e9s de la Cruz \u2014 the brilliant writer, composer and protofeminist nun in 17th-century Mexico City \u2014 she goes rogue (think Walter White from \u201cBreaking Bad\u201d meets Marty Byrde from \u201cOzark\u201d).<\/p>\n

\"HollyHolly Stephenson, Denise Lopez, in the background, and Joe Vitti in OnStage Playhouse\u2019s production of Mabelle Reynoso\u2019s \u201cYoung Audiences.\u201d (Salomon Maya)<\/p>\n

Reynoso\u2019s deep experience<\/a> in playwrighting and the world of theater comes through authentically in the play with dark humor and stark truths.<\/p>\n

Running a theater in \u201cYoung Audiences\u201d means groveling for donations from helicopter parents who demand starring roles for their untalented kids in exchange for dollars, long hours with low pay, cleaning toilets when needed and staging mostly pared-down plays by what Lizzie describes a \u201cdead white men.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the script\u2019s funniest moments are PWI\u2019s youth-friendly and diversity-minded Shakespeare adaptations, like \u201cHamlet Jr. The Musical\u201d and \u201cRomeo and Juliet\u201d set in the Mexican Revolution with Pancho Villa.<\/p>\n

But one challenge with \u201cYoung Audiences\u201d is that Lizzie\u2019s understandable fury at the system starts out in the first scene dialed up to level 10 on the volcanic rage scale, and it pretty much stays there for the rest of the two-hour, two-act play. I felt emotionally exhausted by all the screaming and expletives well before the play\u2019s twist-filled ending.<\/p>\n

Holly Stephenson has a wacky touch of the overdramatic Moira Rose (from \u201cSchitt\u2019s Creek\u201d) as Terry, the burned-out, manipulative and insensitive PWI theater director. Angel Guillermo is gentle but dangerous as Octavio, an illegal goods importer and theater parent with cash to spare. Joseph Vitti has a hilarious comic turn as David, a gay PWI board member angling for special privileges for his daughter. Max Bergstrand plays clueless well as Lizzie\u2019s \u201csafe\u201d white boyfriend Cameron. And Rhae Ferrer is mostly heard, not seen, as PWI\u2019s unpaid, all-knowing intern in the tech booth.<\/p>\n

Scenic designer Patrick Mason created the youth theater auditorium setting, Aria Proctor designed lighting and Brad Dubois designed costumes.<\/p>\n

\u201cYoung Audiences\u201d is a meta play that will resonate with theater workers whose passion for their craft often gets lost in the struggle to survive. It\u2019s also a play about resilience. The theatrical art form has been written off as dead repeatedly over the past 2,000 years, yet it survives by always reflecting the best, and unfortunately the worst, of humanity.<\/p>\n

\u2018Young Audiences\u2019<\/p>\n

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. Through Dec. 7<\/p>\n

Where:\u00a0OnStage Playhouse, 291 Third Ave., Chula Vista<\/p>\n

Tickets:\u00a0$15-$25<\/p>\n

Phone:\u00a0619-422-7787<\/p>\n

Online: onstageplayhouse.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In \u201cYoung Audiences,\u201d a fierce and whip-smart black comedy that made its world premiere Friday at OnStage Playhouse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,9974,967,181,74,84,76,75,3055,1058,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-54833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-chula-vista","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-county","14":"tag-san-diego-headlines","15":"tag-san-diego-news","16":"tag-south-county","17":"tag-theater","18":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}