"Perhaps this is a spell, an exorcism, a summoning of "The Maid" as a social and theatrical role. Perhaps this is a play. PLAY MAID is an exercise in pre-emptively mourning my mother, and thanking her, and remembering all the women she cleaned for, all the babies she was paid to raise. This play is me, eulogizing Lupe Ontiveros, legendary for having played over 150 maids in her acting career. Structured as a series of monologues and solo exercises that interrogate the role of the maid as a sociological, theatrical, and pop culture figure, PLAY MAID is an exercise in slowly losing your mother to the very labor that fed you, clinging to any refractions of her image on stage, on screen, in the mirror."

Free and open to the public, 30 minute talkback to follow

About the Playwright:

Jesús I. Valles (they/them) is a queer Mexican immigrant, educator, writer-performer from Cd. Juarez/El Paso. Valles is the winner of a 2023 Princess Grace Award in theater, the 2023 Yale Drama Series (Bathhouse.pptx), the 2022 Kernodle Playwriting Prize (a river, its mouths), and was named the 2022 Emerging Theatre Professional by the National Theatre Conference. Valles has received support from the Bushwick Starr, Clubbed Thumb, The Flea, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Theatre Workshop, The Playwright's Center, and Sewanee Writers' Conference. Valles is a Core Apprentice of the Playwrights' Center and received their MFA in writing for performance from Brown University.

Residency co-sponsored by the UVA Arts Council: Enriching the Arts on Grounds, the Institute of the Humanities & Global Cultures. the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, and the Department of Drama and Dance. 

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