Simply Maria, or The American Dream by Josefina López, one of the most popular Latina playwrights currently working in the United States.  This fast-paced comedy follows the character Maria, a bright, assertive child born to Mexican immigrants, who dreams of a obtaining a college degree and a living life far different from that of her parents. “…Her father, Ricardo, tells Maria that in America, with an education, she can have the American Dream. Maria believes him and studies hard. However, when she tells her parents she wants to go to college, they order her to get married instead. …Maria …realizes she has to go to college in order to be economically independent of men and have the life that she wants, one that combines the best of her two worlds.”—Dramatic Pub. Co. Catalog.

 

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Playwright's Notes about Simply Maria

I had thought about committing suicide, but I knew I wanted to live. I just wanted so badly to get my parents’ attention and for them to understand me. So I wrote a play! I wrote Simply Maria or Th e American Dream when I was 17. I wrote this play because I had to. I was so angry with my father for his machismo and all of his aff airs. I was so angry at my mother for allowing my father to disrespect her and for being so dependent on him. I wanted to go to college because I knew that would be the only way I could become economically independent and self-suffi cient. However, because I was undocumented at that time, I couldn’t get financial aid and my parents didn’t have any money to give me or lend me. They would just tell me it was going to be a waste of time anyway and I should just get married. It is painful to think about this period in my life because I was hurting, I was confused, and I was mad as hell.

Very early in my life, I learned to channel my anger into something positive. I remember wanting to scream back at my father when he was yelling about house chores not being done. I couldn’t yell back at him and disrespect him, but my throat hurt as I held back the scream. I quickly grabbed a pen and stabbed the paper with my words. I wrote viciously, with rage and said all the things that were in my gut and heart that I couldn’t say out loud. The next day, I read the piece of paper and was very impressed with what I had written. Writing became a tool of empowerment.

I was a junior in high school and I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. I was so confused and I kept hearing three different voices, I thought I was going crazy. Nothing made sense. My parents would tell me to do one thing and then I would go to school and my teachers would tell me to keep reaching for the stars. I was living in two different worlds that kept clashing. I wrote Simply Maria to make sense of all this confusion.

...I write to empower myself because I grew up feeling very helpless. I grew up feeling like my life as a Latina woman was not very important. After I wrote Simply Maria or The American Dream, and realized how important my experience is, that of a Mexican-American immigrant woman, I became the protagonist of all my plays and took charge of my life and went on to college. I had to drop out of college three times, but I eventually graduated May 27, 1993.

Josefina Lopez
Los Angeles, 1996

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Ellen O’Keefe (Director). The last time Ellen O’Keefe ventured out at the Stage Center Theatre, she was playing the role of Bananas in House of Blue Leaves. Now she is very pleased to make her directoral return with such a talented cast and crew. She has directed over fourteen productions, most recently, an original adaptation of Aimee Bender’s The Girl in the Flammable Skirt for Paleo Productions. She is a founding member  of Michael Montenegro’s mask and puppet ensemble, LAMP, which performed their latest work, The Sublime Beauty of Hands at this year’s Winterroot Festival. Some of her favorite directing projects include: an original adaptation of School for Scandel, The Adding Machine, Biederman and the Firebugs, Archangels Don’t Play Pinball and a staged reading of her play, Ubu Planet, with The Woman’s Theatre Alliance. She is a member of the NEIU faculty and when not walking the picket line, teaching, or performing, she likes to relax with her remarkable family, Richard, Eve and Adrian, who make all things possible.

John Rodriguez (Scenic Design) joined the theatre faculty at Northeastern last year and has been teaching courses in technical theatre as well as working as a designer on the mainstage shows. Last year he designed the lighting for Little Murders, Lend Me a Tenor, The Game of Love and Chance, and the set and lighting for Ghosts. This past summer John designed the set and lighting for the Stockyard Theatre’s production of Duet for One, directed by Lynn Ann Bernatowicz and produced at the Victory Garden’s Theatre.

Elizabeth Powell Shaffer (Costumer) received her Masters Degree in Design from Penn. State University in 2002, after graduating from Washington University in St. Louis. She has been designing and draping in the Chicago area for several years. Her credits include: Bailiwick Arts Center, L’Opera Piccola, Opera Theatre Highland Park, Chicago Jewish Theatre, Reverie Theatre, and Lifeline Theatre (where she is an Artistic Ensemble member). She eagerly awaits a call from the Lyric. She is also the Assistant Designer / Head Draper for the annual Baroque Handel Opera Festival in Gottingen, Germany.

Robert G. Smith (Lighting Designer) is the resident designer in Northeastern’s Department of Communication, Media and Theatre where he has been designing scenery and lighting since 1984. In Chicago professional theater he is an ensemble member at Famous Door Theatre and Stage Left Theatre, is Vice President of the Board of Directors of A Red Orchid Theatre and is a founding member of Plasticene. He has also designed for Steppenwolf, Northlight, The Next Theatre, The Organic Theater, Apple Tree Theatre, The Second City, The Apollo Remy-Bumppo and dozens of other Off Loop theaters. Elsewhere he has designed productions in New York (Off Broadway), London (West End), Edinburgh, Dublin, Los Angeles, Jerusalem and Singapore. His design for the television series The Straight Dope was seen across the nation on the A&E cable network. He has been nominated nine times and has received seven Joseph Jefferson Citations as well as three After Dark Awards and an Emmy nomination.

Mary Foley (choreographer) began jazz dance training at the age of four and has found ways to pursue the many facets of dance as a performer, teacher and choreographer ever since. For the past five years, she has been devoted to teaching and performing the art of partner dancing, especially the Argentine Tango and Swing. She currently co-runs Mariposa, a tango salon here in Chicago, and has studied with master teachers from San Francisco, New York, Argentina and Brazil. She continues to study different forms of solo dancing,most recently Flamenco, with several institutions including NEIU. She would especially like to thank Dame Libby Komaiko for her influence on the work done for this production.