Summer Shorts Highlights Homegrown Talent

City Theatre Miami and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts have become known for bringing some of the best up-and-coming playwrights together from across the country to present Summer Shorts, but in its 26th year, organizers decided to take a slightly different approach.

This time around, City Theatre’s “Homegrown Edition” will feature plays from some of Miami’s best emerging writers, presented June 8-25.

This production is the culmination of City Theatre’s inaugural playwright development program, Homegrown, which aims to nurture, elevate and promote Miami’s BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) writers by providing the time, tools and training they need to create their own body of work. The program was launched through the support of The Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation at The Miami Foundation, among other funders.

The eight writers in this inaugural cohort have been receiving creative instruction and professional development from the program’s master playwright, Vanessa Garcia, to help them create new works.

Garcia, a Cuban American multidisciplinary writer, has written and worked for “Sesame Street” and “Caillou.” Her journalism, essays and thought pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, National Review, ESPN, The Hill, Catapult, Narrativel.ly and numerous other publications. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California Irvine in creative nonfiction, and her dissertation focused on Cuba.

This group of writers, she says, is especially meaningful to her.

“They are fantastic. I’ve belonged to and been a part of a lot of cohorts. In this one, they have just put their whole hearts into this,” she said, while noting that South Florida has a strong emerging theater community.

“Not only is there a super vibrant community, but I think it’s a place where it has voices that haven’t been heard before,” she said. “When it came time for Homegrown, it really excited me. I said yes immediately.”

Native Miamian Garcia is homegrown herself. She went to school in New York and then lived in Los Angeles for a number of years, but is often compelled to return to South Florida.

“There’s something about the vibrancy and the life of Miami that always draws me back,” she said. “I do want to credit City Theatre for being one of the organizations that is bringing up these playwrights and not letting them disappear. Sometimes you grow up somewhere and you can’t stay there because the support system is not there.”

She also talked about her support for the theme buoying this year’s program.

“This is super exciting. It goes to show the guts and the initiative of City Theatre and the strength of this particular cohort. I feel like their shorts will be their calling card for something bigger,” she said.

She says theaters elsewhere are doing similar things involving local playwrights, something Garcia feels is long overdue.

“There’s a real push because we see the talent is here. I think it’s also our responsibility, someone like me, who has gone out and done a bunch of things and come back, we keep doing that for each other. Right now they are finding this community building up around them. They are helping each other and bringing each other up,” Garcia said.

Fake flowers & feigning friends

Playwright Luis Roberto Herrera, a South Florida-based Colombian American with a BFA in acting from the University of Florida and an MFA in playwriting from The New School, will have his play “Plastic Flowers” showcased.

He said he knew Garcia previously and had reached out to her about working together on a collaboration. When Garcia was named master playwright, she reached out to Herrera and invited him to apply.

“I think what’s great about this program is that it seeks people from multiple skill levels. There’s eight of us, and there’s some of us who have done many things and some of us maybe haven’t done anything, but the potential is there,” he said. “They may be fresh out of college or just got into playwriting and their voice is so distinct and powerful.”

For a long time, he says, he was doing anything to get out of South Florida and pursue his career elsewhere because he didn’t feel like there was the place for new or young playwrights.

“This program, I believe, is the first step for the community to see there are playwrights here people can use,” he said.

He calls his play an unexpected comedy but not in a catchy way. It’s what he describes as a comedy in a more grounded, realistic way, with people trying to communicate with each other when they don’t know how to communicate anymore.

“That in itself can be funny. It goes from people who have been strained in a friendship to people verbally attacking each other, which can be funny, and then they just accept where they are,” he said. “It came to my mind out of nowhere. I like the image of literally plastic flowers and I thought what it would look like if someone brought plastic flowers to someone else and how that can start and spiral into some kind of tense argument.”

Fellow playwright Ariel Cipolla is a Mexican Argentine playwright and dramaturgist living in Miami. He recently graduated from Florida International University with degrees in broadcast media and creative writing.

His play, “The Vultures,” is about three teenage girls who get together on social media the summer before starting high school to ensure their success and popularity for the next four years and beyond. He said it’s all about creating a certain image online and constantly feeling like you have to live up to that expectation and the toll it can take on you.

“I’ve always been fascinated that I grew up in the social media era and just the effect it had on me and my friends,” he said. “You have to be somebody online and you have to present yourself in a certain way, and (the work explores) just what that says about you.”

He says the expectations for teenage girls are much higher than for teenage boys, and there’s a two-faced nature that comes with them being active on social media.

“Expectations are so much higher for teenage girls. Even when I was growing up, I would see how girls would uphold their friends to these high standards,” he said. “There’s this element that there are social dynamics that happen because of social media, and they’re heightened.”

This is the first time one of his plays is being professionally produced for the stage.

“People from the outside never look to Miami as this hub of artistic talent. When you’re here, it all connects and it just makes sense. Miami is a melting pot of so many different nationalities and ethnicities and races. It’s a unique place where you have that immediate access,” he said.

Cipolla was born in Mexico City and moved to Miami with his family when he was 7.

“You should always be willing to search for the art that is out there and searching for those voices. Because I have this twofold experience, every time I would go visit these different places, there was an aspect of me there. I felt this weird sense of belonging,” he said. “It took me a long time to say that Miami is my home. I’m so proud to be from the 305.”

He says he has no plans to leave.

“For me, for at least the foreseeable future, I have a responsibility to stay here and share my story and uplift others in my community,” he said.

Summer Shorts Features

“Balloo(n)” by Joel Castillo

Directed by Melissa Almaguer

Love is complicated, especially when he’s white and she’s Cuban – nothing a balloo(n) can’t fix.

“The Vultures” by Ariel Cipolla

Directed by Melissa Almaguer

Three teenage girls plan their “rebrand” before venturing into the wilderness of high school.

“2201: Xibalba” by Chris Anthony Ferrer

Directed by Joshua-Jean Baptiste

On his first day, Cadet Cicero Lipschitz must safeguard the wormhole at Space Station Xibalba, or else.

“Banana Bread” by Sefanja Richard Galon

Directed by Joshua-Jean Baptiste

A short dramatic comedy about two best friends who work in the corporate Banana Bread coffee shop franchise.

“Plastic Flowers” by Luis Roberto Herrera

Directed by Maha McCain

Two estranged friends come together in a hospital room for someone they care about as the tension between them collides.

“I Found This on The Web” by Ivan R. Lopez

Directed by Alex Alvarez

A comedy about dating in the age of infinite intelligence.

“And Other Dreams We Had” by Phanésia Pharel

Directed by Maha McCain

In the attic of a coastal American city a couple discusses an imminent dream.

“7” by Lolita Stewart-White

Directed by Alex Alvarez

Minutes before her wedding, a bride decides whether to remarry her loving husband or reunite with her unfaithful ex.

If You Go

City Theatre Miami & the Arsht Center present

Summer Shorts: Homegrown Edition

June 8-25, various times

Carnival Studio Theater

1300 Biscayne Blvd.

Miami, FL 33132

Tickets: $50-$75

ArshtCenter.org or 305.949.6722