Alexandra Espinoza
Alexandra Espinoza (all pronouns) makes plays as a playwright, performer, director, dramaturg, and more. Playwriting credits include All My Mothers Dream in Spanish (IATI Theater Cimientos Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Foundation Finalist/Honorable Mention), exxx…stasis, exxx…hale… (Villanova Theatre), HOMERIDAE (Theatre Exile Studio X-hibition 2020, Unicorn Theatre Works in Progress), and PERIL’s ISLAND, commissioned by Shakespeare in Clark Park in residence at Harrowgate Park in North Kensington. In 2020 Alexandra directed the Philadelphia premiere of Angelina Grimké’s 1915 anti-lynching play Rachel at Quintessence Theatre. Virtual directing credits include their own original community driven play for liberation BlackBestFriend, supported by the Leeway Foundation, Art is Essential, and the Open Meadows Foundation Nancy Dean Grace Lesbian Playwriting Award. Alexandra is the Education Associate at the Wilma Theater, a committed teaching artist and activist, and a lifelong student for collective liberation.
Awarded Grants
2021
Window of Opportunity Grant (WOO)
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Overview
Alexandra Espinoza has been invited to host a developmental workshop for her bilingual play, ALL MY MOTHERS DREAM IN SPANISH, at Azuka Theatre for possible production programming in their upcoming theatre season. This opportunity to bring together an all Afro-Latinx cast and crew in-person will allow Alexandra to focus on the physical aspects of the piece with more momentum and depth, while refining the script for possible production. It is Alexandra’s hope that this work can play a part in the growing dialogue among the Latinx community about the long seeded white supremacy culture that has manifested as colorism throughout the community.
This grant will support Alexandra in partially covering the cost of stipends for performers, as well as travel and meal costs for the workshop.
2020
Art and Change Grant (ACG)
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Overview
Alexandra will facilitate workshops with BIPOC young adult theatre students in which she will introduce them to the narrative structure of her play, BLACK BEST FRIEND. This narrative structure will be the springboard for the students’ own written work through a "Plug in Play" process, where they will be able to adapt the play's structure to their own lived experience of racism in an intimate relationship.
