Program Page for CJ, An Aspanglish Play

written by	Mercedes Floresislas (She/Her)
directed by	Ana Maria Campoy (She/Her/Ella)
dramaturgy by	Melanie Queponds (She/Her)
Director of ASL and Associate Director	Kai Winchester (He/Him)

G	Stephanie Nogueras (She/Her)
CJ	Mia Floresislas-Medina (She/Her)
Yoli/Monalu/Teacher	Estefania "Stefy" Garcia (She/Her)
Ana	Beatriz Elena Villegas (She/Her)
Tito	Eduardo "Eddie" Ayala (He/Him)
Armando/L	Michael Martínez-Islas (He/Him)
Mari	Maria Teresa Herrera (She/Her/Ella)
Oh Me	Khalíf J. Gillett (He/Him)
The Poet Signed	Jake Merz (He/Him)
The Poet Voiced	Michael Blum

Stage Manager	Grecia Leal Pardo (She/Her)
Lighting Designer	Melissa Chenoa Marquez (She/Her/Ella)
Lighting Apprentice	Anna Shih (She/Her)
Production Manager	Omar Faust (He/Him)
Technical Director/Video Editor	Josh Valdez (He/Him)
Producer/Videography	Roger Tang (He/Him)

Playwright’s Note: An idea emerged in 2015 when, The Day After, my then-twelve-year-old daughter came home and asked, “mommy, are you going to get deported?” As her fears about safety continued to unfold in the following years, her sense of belonging was also shaken by the “Enoughness” test – the Mexican/American enough, dark/light enough, fluent enough test. It is a test that we all give and take, consciously and unconsciously to stretch and protect our boundaries. Like many other parents, I could not reinstall that sense of safety or innocence for my daughter amidst the nonsense happening around us. But I could at least entice her to co-create a world where she could explore her identity through this play. When 2020 happened, it opened a portal into Mictlan, the place where we shed our final boundaries and find our ultimate identity, teolt. This helped us both find acceptance. She, and her peers, have inherited a world we cannot fix for them. Then comes Porkfilled Productions and their cadre of theater artists who collectively created a nurturing, accessible and safe space where this play can explore its identity, and my daughter witnessed a chance to see how theater artists, with their co-creating sensitivities make the world better.

Dramaturg’s Note: In this trilingual play, we see CJ and the Aztec gods jump from place to place, memory to memory, in the world of Mictlan. Mictlan is the Aztec underworld or “hell”. But it functions more like a purgatory, in that you must travel through all nine levels before your soul can be at rest. From the first level to the last level, it takes four years to complete. CJ almost gets there in three nights. The only thing that pushes souls forward through the trials of Mictlan is a promise of peace. We see CJ traverse dangerous places through this Mechica inferno, as well as pivotal moments of her family’s past and present. What does it mean to go on a journey and learn about two cultures that are so unfamiliar to you, Deaf culture and Aztec culture, but know that these both have an important place in your and your family’s story? How can the journey of self-reflection and self-knowledge, despite the struggle, give one peace?

Special Thanks to Sound Theatre, Daniel Tran, Teresa Thuman and Quality Translations LLC.

Pork Filled Productions is a proud member of Theatre Puget Sound.

PFP is fiscally sponsored by Shunpike.

Financial support for PFP is provided by the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and 4Culture.