Michael John Garcés
c/o Carl Mulert
The Gersh Agency
41 Madison Avenue, 33rd Floor
New York, NY 10010
(212) 997-1818
(212) 391-8459 fax
Email:
newdramatists@newdramatists.org
Michael grew up in Medellín and Bogotá, Colombia, and received his BFA at
the University of Miami. He is also a director, and has worked with several
New Dramatists members and alumni in this capacity on readings, workshops
and productions. Theatres where he has directed include New York Theatre
Workshop, Second Stage, Hartford Stage, Yale Repertory, the Huntington,
Woolly Mammoth, Playwrights Horizons, the Children’s Theatre, the Atlantic,
Rattlestick, INTAR, Repertorio Español, the Cherry Lane, Geva, Coconut Grove
Playhouse, the Humana Festival, and Sna Jtz’ibajom in Chiapas, Mexico.
He is also the recipient of the Alan Schneider Director Award, TCG New
Generations Grant, The Princess Grace Fellowship and Special Project Grant,
a NYFA Playwriting Fellowship, the NEA/TCG Career Development Grant for
Directors, a Van Lier Fellowship, and a Drama League Directors Project
residency. He was a resident director at New Dramatists in 2000-01, and is
an Artistic Associate at INTAR.
points of departure
Two-act Drama
3W, 4M
A flexible environment
People engulfed by the violence perpetrated by the government of a
Central American state against the indigenous population of an isolated
region struggle to survive and maintain their language, identity and
integrity as their world collapses around them.
Premiere: INTAR (03/06 -
upcoming). Reading: New Dramatists (2005).
Acts of Mercy
Two-act Drama
5M, 2W
Flexible Set
On the eve of Nestor’s death, his two sons, Eladio and Jaime, venture
into the night, each bent on proving his manhood in the eyes of a father
they can never hope to satisfy.
Premiere: Flush Puppy Productions,
Chicago, IL (2002). Production: Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre (02/06 -
upcoming).
graceless
Full-length Drama
5M, 2W
Multiple Areas
Jimmy and Beth, confronted with the breakdown of their respective
families, try to survive the damage done by and to each other.
New Dramatists Reading (2005).
THE WEB
Two-act Drama
5M, 2W
Multiple Areas
This drama follows the life of a young New York entrepreneur as it falls
apart after he discovers on the internet that his identity is being
stolen from him. In a series of increasingly bizarre and frightening
episodes, he encounters a number of shadowy quasi-governmental agents as
his loved ones disappear and his very sanity comes into question.
New Dramatists Reading (2005).
customs
Full-length Drama
2W, 3M
Flexible Set
Vida, a journalist, is on a plane flying back to Colombia, which she had
to leave many years ago under threat of violence. Sitting between two
strangers, she gradually realizes that they both know who she is, and
that she is already in terrible danger. Either one or the other of the
two men, equally menacing, may represent her only possible way out—and
she has to decide before landing.
Fully Staged Workshop at INTAR
(2003). Readings: Actors Playhouse, Miami, FL (2002); Mark Taper Forum
(2001). Finalist, National Latino Playwright Award (2002).
Suits
Three-act Dark Comedy
10M
Multiple Locations
Deep in the bowels of bureaucracy a clerical nightmare erupts as
functionaries madly maneuver to maintain the status quo. A missing
signature…a file out of place…no discrepancies permitted.
Premiere: Twilight Theatre Company
(1998). Reading: New York Theatre Workshop (1998).
land
Full Length Drama
1M, 1 Girl (14)
Flexible Set
He meets her in the kitchen in the middle of the night after picking her
mother up in a bar. She runs away from home, and he puts her up in a
small room in a tough neighborhood. Now what?
Premiere: Juggerknot Theatre
Company, Miami, Fl (2002).
[the site]
Two-act Drama
2W, 3M
Flexible
Manrique, a state department official, goes to the country where her
parents were born to investigate an alleged massacre by U.S.-trained and
-financed army troops. Brown, her guide, bodyguard and translator may or
may not want her to find out the truth. Paniagua, a Colonel in charge of
the closest army base, definitely does not. A crucial vote on funding is
upcoming in the U.S. Congress, and her report will impct it. Against the
odds, she sets out to investigate, and finds out more about herself than
she bargained for.
late call
One-act Comedy
2W, 1M
Unit
Joanne, a bartender on the Lower East Side, gets a late night visit from
her old boyfriend. Charles, a college instructor, and his very young
“friend” Gigi, an undergrad. Someone has got to pay the bill…
audiovideo
and sandlot ball
Two one-act Comedies
3 Boys
Unit
In audiovideo, Eric and Ryan go to play a video that they made,
and realize that they have the wrong one, and that Eric’s parents must
be watching theirs, to their horror. Ryan’s little brother Josh just
wants to know what’s on the video. All of them are in for more than
being grounded.
Premiere: Juggerknot Theatre
Company, Miami, Fl (2002). Productions: Flush Puppy Productions at the
“Abbie Hoffman Festival,” Chicago, IL (2002); Directors Project, “Directorfest,”
NYC (2005).
In sandlot ball, Eric has a pirated copy of a new, much
anticipated, still unreleased, video game; he shows it off, more
interested in gloating than playing. Josh wants a turn, Ryan claims he
doesn't care, but they all want to win.
Premiere: Mile Square Theatre “7th
Inning Stretch,” NJ (2004). Production: Vital Theatre “Vital signs,” NYC
(2005).
now and then
One-act Drama
2 Young Women (15-18), 2 Young Men (15-23)
Flexible
Monica, a young HIV-positive woman, struggles with her past and present
as she looks hopefully towards the future.
Premiere: La Mama, Left Theatre
Company, “Positive Women” (1998); INTAR NewWorks Lab (1999); La Tea
(2000, 2003); published in Positive/Negative: Women of Color and
HIV/AIDS, a Collection of Plays, Aunt Lute Books, 2002
up for air
One-act Comedy
2W, 2M
Flexible
What happens when the television is off and won’t come on. Everyone is
talking and no one’s saying anything. Or maybe she can just hear them
for the first time.
American Living Room at Here
(1998).
frag
One Act Drama
2M, 1W
Flexible
A family with a tenuous grip on stability breaks into pieces when the
mother suspects that one of her sons may be responsible for a terrible
crime. What is betrayal? What is right? What is truth? Is anything?
Productions: American Living Room
at HERE (2004); Juggerknot Theatre Company in Miami, FL (2001).
agua ardiente
One-act Monologue
1M
Open
In English and Spanish, a man celebrates the poetry of his grandfather’s
legacy of joy, song, machismo, sex, anger, fear and, especially,
drinking, for better and for worse. The thing you love may be killing
you, but you love it nonetheless.
Oye Rep/Area Stage, Miami, FL
(2000); The American Place Theatre, Dreaming in Cuban (Premiere, 1999);
Hamptons Shakespeare Festival (in progress, 1998); Aaron Davis Hall,
Playwrights in Performance (in progress, 1998).