ARTISTIC STATEMENT
I write for the theater because dialogue and sharing space with an audience allows for examining the risk of failure more than any other medium. Each moment has the potential to rewrite the narratives we have about history, family or even what is possible. As a bilingual Uruguayan-American, my plays see no divide between the personal and political. They ask: what if we reverse the cardinal directions on our maps and our assumptions, which often only serve those who drew them? What if a system of oppression can be undermined by the sharpness of the story we tell?
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My plays are about immigrants and outsiders. They thrive on poetry that sprouts from the everyday, slips out a door, and explodes into fantasy. They spring from my Latinidad, they speak of the women of color who taught me to lead, and of sisterhood. My plays are born in science fiction, merge with myths and communicate hidden places of forgotten power. With them, I am to question if the rules we make for ourselves are doing all that we believe they do.
NOELLE VIÑAS
Noelle Viñas is a bilingual Uruguayan-American playwright, educator, and theater-artist who immigrated to Northern Virginia right before kindergarten. An Emerson College alumna, she has performed, written/directed plays, taught, and produced with many theaters including ArtsEmerson, Arena Stage, GALA Hispanic Theatre, Apollinaire Theater, TheatreFirst, Shotgun Players, Berkeley Rep, and PianoFight. Her first two plays, Nevermind and Apocalypse, Please were both self-produced in Boston and San Francisco, respectively. In 2017, she was commissioned by TheatreFirst to write the one-act play La profesora and and by Opera Theatre Unlimited to write a 10-minute libretto for Remedial Math, which won “Best Opera” at their 48-Hour Opera Festival. She is a resident playwright at Playwrights Foundation, a future artist-in-residence at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and a company member of Ubuntu Theater Project.