SLEEP WITH THE ANGELS

EVELINA FERNÁNDEZ | Playwright

Evelina Fernández was born and raised in East LA.  She is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and actor and she writes about the U.S. Latinx experience.  Most recently, she received the LA Drama Critics Circle (LADCC) Award for THE MOTHER OF HENRY (LA Times Critic’s Choice 2019). She also received the LADCC Award for Outstanding Writing of a World Premiere Play for A MEXICAN TRILOGY published by Samuel French. Her plays have made the LA Times Critic's Choice list; SOLITUDE (2009), DEMENTIA (2010) and her holiday pageant play, LA VIRGEN DE GUADALUPE, DIOS INANTZIN have been featured in both the LA Times and the NY Times.  She received a Best Playwright Ovation Award nomination for her stage play, HOPE: PART II OF A MEXICAN TRILOGY which premiered in October 2011 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center to critical acclaim. In 2003, DEMENTIA won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Theater Production in Los Angeles and received four L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Award nominations, including Best World Premiere. CHARITY: PART III OF A MEXICAN TRILOGY premiered in May 2012 and was Back Stage’s Critic’s Pick and FAITH: PART I OF A MEXICAN TRILOGY premiered in October 2012 to critical acclaim.  Her play PREMEDITATION was nominated for 3 Ovation Awards including Best Theater Production in 2014 and in 2015 it had a 2 week run at ArtsEmerson in Boston.  In March 2015, her adaptation of Plautus’s Pot of Gold, LA OLLA was staged at the Getty Villa Lab and had a full production at her home base, the LATC.  Evelina’s 6-hour epic production, A MEXICAN TRILOGY: AN AMERICAN STORY ran at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in the Fall of 2016. She was a cultural consultant on Pixar’s Oscar winning animated feature “Coco” and was part of the CTG Writers Workshop. She is commissioned by the South Coast Rep and was a writer for Emmy Nominated EAST LOS HIGH seasons 2 & 3.  She is currently developing A MEXICAN TRILOGY for television with Imagine Entertainment.

JOSÉ LUIS VALENZUELA | Director

José Luis Valenzuela is the Artistic Director of the Latino Theater Company (LTC), and The Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) and is also a Distinguished Professor and served as Head of the MFA Directing program at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film & Television. Valenzuela is an award-winning theater director, and has been a visionary and an advocate for Chicanx/Latinx Theater for over 30 years. He has directed critically acclaimed productions at major theaters both internationally and nationally including the LATC where he created the Latino Theatre Lab in 1985 and the Mark Taper Forum where he established the Latino Theater Initiative in 1991. Most recently he directed Macbeth at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Karen Zacarias’ Destiny of Desire at Arena Stage, South Coast Rep, The Goodman Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Cincinnati Playhouse, The Guthrie, and Milwaukee Rep. He produced the national Encuentro Festival in 2014 and national and international Encuentro de las Americas in 2017.