Aug 26 – Sept 1, 2021: Dos Rios Writers Retreat
Dance Mission Theater presents
Dos Rios Writers Retreat
Aug 26 – Sept 1, 2021
Dos Rios, CA and San Francisco, CA
(For inquiries, email stella_at_dancemission.com)
The Dos Rios Writers Retreat, presented by Dance Mission Theater, is thrilled to announce this year’s artists-in-residence Lisa Ramirez, Jordan Ramirez Puckett, and Tori Keenan-Zelt.
This year marks the first annual Dos Rios Writers Retreat, an artist residency program in Mendocino County. Our mission is to create space for a diverse range of theater artists to explore writing outside of the distractions of a city environment at whatever stage of the process they are in – be that writing, workshopping, or early performance. The retreat will culminate with a staged reading at Dance Mission Theater Sept 1.
The land at Dos Rios has been an artistic incubator for Bay Area dance companies including Dance Brigade, Sara Shelton Mann, Arenas Dance Company and Jose Abad, to name a few!
About the artists:
JORDAN RAMIREZ PUCKETT is a Chicana playwright, lighting designer, and producer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her plays include Transitional Love Stories, En Las Sombras, To Saints and Stars, A Driving Beat, Las Pajaritas, Restore, and Inevitable. These works have been produced and/or developed by Abingdon Theatre Company (New York, NY), Goodman Theatre (Chicago, IL), Harold Clurman Laboratory Theatre Company (New York, NY), Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Playwrights Foundation (San Francisco, CA) Playwrights Realm (New York, NY), San Diego Repertory Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, among others. Most recently, A Driving Beat was named a 2021 Finalist for the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center.
TORI KEENAN-ZELT is an award-winning playwright who also writes for the screen. Originally from Pittsburgh, she has written her way out of an Evangelical childhood and two young marriages. Her plays are American horror stories that masquerade as comedies and illuminate the dark corners of women’s lives that are rarely discussed. They include How the Baby Died (Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Ingram New Works Lab, Cleveland Public Theatre–upcoming); Seph (The Araca Project, Princess Grace Award Finalist, Fresh Ground Pepper PlayGround PlayGroup); Air Space (The Kilroys’ The List, The Ingram New Works Lab); Truth/Dare (Project Y, New York Innovative Theatre Award Nominee for Best Original Script, Best Ensemble Pittsburgh Fringe, Best Live Performance—The Nashville Scene); The Egypt Play (The Playwrights Center); and Episode #121: Catfight! (Yale Cabaret), and others.
Tori holds a BA from Harvard and an MFA from NYU Tisch. She has written for The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s Electronic Field Trip series (PBS), for which she received an Emmy nomination, and her award-winning one-act play How to Be a Widow recently aired on NPR’s Playing on Air program. Currently, she is commissioned by San Francisco Playhouse (The JonBenét Game) and is developing a new play in residence with New Georges (Invasive Species).
LISA RAMIREZ’s plays include EXIT CUCKOO (nanny in motherland), Working Theater, NYC (Colman Domingo- director); ART OF MEMORY, 3-LD, NYC (Tanya Calamoneri- director); pas de deux (lost my shoe), Cherry Lane, NYC (Bryan Davidson Blue- director); TO THE BONE, Cherry Lane (Lisa Peterson- director), Pulitzer Prize Nominee, Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, Drama Desk Nominee, Kilroy List; DOWN HERE BELOW, Oakland Theater Project (Michael French- director); IN THE MOUNTAINS, Workshop Theater, NYC (Thomas Coté- director); MORE THAN GRAPES, TheatreFirst, Berkeley (Sean San Jose- director). Currently working on ALL FALL DOWN, a film adaptation of her play TO THE BONE and sAiNt jOaN (burn/burn/burn), directed by Michael Moran at Oakland Theater Project, where she serves as Associate Artistic Director.
As an actor, Lisa has performed extensively at theaters on both the East and West Coast including, the Cherry Lane Theatre, Vineyard Theatre, Atlantic Theatre, Signature Theatre, Oakland Theater Project, Magic Theatre, Berkeley Rep, etc. She was the first Latina Angel in a major U.S. production of ANGELS IN AMERICA at Berkeley Rep and recently completed a sold-out run of TS Eliot’s, THE WASTE LAND in a drive-in theater version at Oakland Theater Project, the first equity approved live production in California post-pandemic shut down.
