At San Joaquin Delta I was given the opportunity to direct my
first bilingual play written by me. The name of the play, Esno White. This
play is based on the story of Snow White where two different kingdoms collide.
However, the story and the character of Snow White change when a Latino girl
tells her dad that she wants Snow White to look “a little brown. Cafecita como
yo!”
The play uses references to many other children’s stories as well as Shakespeare language. It also includes songs. It is not a musical but a play with music.
Because this was an original production, the designers and I
worked at combining the “fairy tale” look for the costumes with Salvador Dali
imagery for one kingdom and Aztec architecture for the other kingdom.
Bilingual language was used throughout the play as well as some
very cool special effects to make people, animals, and artifacts disappeared or turned into something else, as
well as to make giant heads talk and ghost float.
