Jesús I. Valles. Image courtesy the artist.
Free with RSVP
RSVP
*In the event that advance tickets are sold out, an in-person wait list will open at 7 P.M.
Co-Presented with The Bushwick Starr
Since 2010, The Bushwick Starr’s annual Starr Reading Series has cultivated a diverse group of writers at all stages of their careers, who approach writing for the theater in thrilling and unexpected ways. Selected through an invited submission process by a rotating committee of curators, currently Jehan O. Young, Elizagrace Madrone, and William Burke, 4-8 playwrights are selected each year, and receive developmental support for a public staged reading of a new, usually unfinished, work. With The Bushwick Starr’s new permanent home currently under renovation, the 2023 Starr Reading Series will take place at, and is co-presented by, CPR – Center for Performance Research. Now in its second year, this collaboration unites the process-oriented missions of both organizations, and celebrates the incubation of new, experimental work in performance. The Starr Reading Series has previously supported new plays by writers including Whitney White, Clare Barron, Phillip Howze, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Haruna Lee, and many more.
Jesús I. Valles: untitled table play
"Years ago, when you were little, minutes ago, it feels like, we sat at a table and (almost) talked about what was done to our bodies. Beneath us, the earth cracked open. Not hell. Just the massive, uncaring mouth of the world and all its gears making us think that what happened to our bodies was inevitable. I was always worried the thing that made us family was this kind of hurt. I always worried the thing we were passing each other in the blood was the horror that follows. I was worried you'd be born a ghost."
This play is a spell against the impulse to narrate sexual assault as a horrifying heirloom, a blood curse some families are bound to. This play is a spell in the service of pulling the earth apart to get ourselves unstuck.
Jesús I. Valles (they/them) is a queer Mexican immigrant, educator, writer-performer from Cd. Juarez/El Paso. Jesús is a 2021 CantoMundo fellow at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, a 2021 Lambda Literary fellow, a 2019 Walter E. Dakin Playwriting Fellow of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, a recipient of the 2019 Letras Latinas Scholarship from the Community of Writers’ Poetry Workshop, and a 2019 poetry fellow at Idyllwild Arts Writers Week. Jesús is also a 2018 Undocupoets Fellow, a 2018 Tin House Scholar, a fellow of The 2018 Poetry Incubator, and the runner-up in the 2017 Button Poetry Chapbook Contest. Their work has been published in Shade Literary, The Texas Review, The New Republic, Palabritas, The Acentos Review, Quarterly West, The Mississippi Review, Palette, The Adroit Journal, BOAAT, The McNeese Review, and PANK. Their poetry has also been featured on NPR’s Code Switch, The Slowdown, The BreakBeat Poets' LatiNext Anthology, the Best New Poets 2020 anthology, and the anthology, Somewhere We Are Human. As an actor, they are the recipient of four B. Iden Payne Awards, including Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama (2018), and Outstanding Original Script (2018) and they were nominated for the Mark David Cohen New Play Award for their play, (Un)Documents. Their playwriting work has received awards and support from OUTSider festival, Teatro Vivo, The VORTEX, The Kennedy Center, New York Theatre Workshop, The Latino Theatre Co. at the LATC, and The Flea. Jesús is currently an MFA playwriting student at Brown University.
Additional Starr Reading Series programs:
Mon, March 27 at 7:30 P.M.
Marissa Joyce Stamps: Letiche and The [Wondrous] Pursuit of Elvis
Tues, March 28 at 7:30 P.M.
Alba Delia Hernández: I've Been Giving Puerto Rican History Lessons for Free
Weds, March 29 at 7:30 P.M.
Divya Mangwani: The Nation Needs to Know
Mon, April 3 at 7:30 P.M.
Daniella De Jesús: GOOEY’S TOXIC AQUATIC ADVENTURE at Wasteland!™ (presented by amazon)
Tues, April 4 at 7:30 P.M.
Maya Lawson: For Du
The Bushwick Starr is grateful to partner with CPR in co-presenting and hosting the annual Starr Reading Series as they build their new permanent home in Bushwick! The grand opening of The Bushwick Starr’s new venue will take place in about a year, but you can be a part of the celebration today! Please consider joining the Starr Giving Galaxy, a community of donors, friends, and audiences making an ongoing commitment to the Starr's future. Your support will help our artists create groundbreaking new performances, and establish a lasting home for the arts and culture in North Brooklyn for all to enjoy.