Latino Theatre Projects Presents BRAINPEOPLE By Jose Rivera

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Latino Theatre Projects (LTP) and Producing Artistic Director Fernando Luna, in association with Theatre Off Jackson, will present the Pacific Northwest premiere of Brainpeople by prize-winning Puerto Rican playwright José Rivera. Brainpeople will be directed by LTP's Producing Artistic Director Fernando Luna. The production will be presented Thursday-Saturday evenings, October 11 through November 3, 2018 at 8:00 pm. Performances will be bilingual in English with some Spanish phrases. General admission is $25 in advance or $30 at the door. Seniors and students are $20.

A mixture of comedy and chaos ensues when one of the guests, who suffers Dissociative Identity Disorder, brings along her crew of "brainpeople" and the other, a nervous, intelligent Armenian woman, reveals the source of her distrust of all people. The meal turns into an evening of brutal honesty and terrifying introspection. Originally commissioned by South Coast Repertory, Brainpeople received its premiere February 2, 2008 at American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco. Subsequent productions in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, and internationally have received glowing reviews for its intense exploration of the broken lives of the three women.

The first Puerto Rican screenwriter to be nominated for an Academy Award, for "The Motorcycle Diaries," José Rivera is also the author of 26 full-length plays including the Obie Award winning Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, both produced at The Public Theatre, New York. Other plays include Cloud Tectonics (Playwrights Horizons, Goodman Theatre), School of the Americas (Public Theatre), The Maids (INTAR),

Adoration of the Old Woman (INTAR), Boleros for the Disenchanted (Yale Rep, Goodman Theatre), and Sueño (Manhattan Class Company). Screenplays include "On the Road," "The 33." "Trade," and "Letters to Juliet." For television he co-created and produced the NBC series "Eerie, Indiana," and has written pilots for HBO and Showtime. Awards include a Fulbright Arts Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a McKnight Fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, a Whiting Foundation Award, and New York Council for the Arts grant.

Rivera has mentored the Sundance Screenwriting Lab in Utah, Jordan, and India and leads the New York-based Writer's Group. Stage Director Fernando Luna is the co-founder and Producing Artistic Director of Latino Theatre Projects. He directed its productions of Mariela in the Desert, Mujeres de Arena/Women of Sand, and Ay, Carmela!. Fernando graduated from Freehold Theatre's Ensemble Training Intensive and holds a Masters degree in Public Affairs from The Evergreen State College.

In 2016, he was selected to participate in the prestigious Chicago Directors Lab, and earlier this year, he participated in a week-long workshop in developing original performance pieces with Teatro Linea de Sombra from Mexico. He has appeared with Latino Theatre Projects in Anna in the Tropics, Death and the Maiden, and Beauty of the Father. He appeared in the feature film Nothing Against Life and the internationally acclaimed short film Pearl. He has also directed performances at the Moore Theater and Benaroya Hall.

The cast of LTP's production of Brainpeople includes Gregory Award nominated actors Sofía Raquel Sánchez (Mayannah) and Alyssa Norling (Rosemary), joined by Vero Lecocq (Ani).