matthew paul olmos is a Mexican-American playwright who focuses his work on the creation of space for marginalized and underrepresented communities. While always personal, his work is aimed at reaching across socio’political boundaries, showing the ridiculous of how separate our lives, and illuminating a potential hope for future generations.
He is a three-time Sundance Institute Fellowship/Residency recipient, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival Commissioned Playwright, New Dramatists Resident Playwright, Drama League nominee, Center Theatre Group LA Playwright Workshop Writer, Geffen Playhouse Writers Room Playwright, Ingram New Works at Nashville Repertory, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Black Swan Lab Playwright, inaugural Primary Stages Creative Development Grantee, Princess Grace Awardee in Playwriting, Arizona Theatre Company’s National Latino Playwriting Awardee, two-time Ojai Playwrights Conference playwright, Repertorio Español Miranda Family Nuestra Voces Playwriting Awardee, inaugural Yale Drama Series Short List playwright, Cherry Lane Mentor Project playwright as chosen by Taylor Mac, and La MaMa e.t.c.'s Ellen Stewart Emerging Playwright Awardee as selected by Sam Shepard.
He spent two years as a Mabou Mines/SUITE Resident Artist being mentored by Ruth Maleczech and is a former New York Theatre Workshop's Emerging Artist Fellow, Baryshnikov Arts Center Artist in Residence, Dramatists Guild Fellow, Humanitas Play LA Workshop Playwright, Primary Stages' Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer, Brooklyn Arts Exchange Resident Artist, INTAR H.P.R.L Playwright, Rising Circle Collective Playwright, terraNOVA Collective's Groundbreakers Playwright; he is also an Echo Theater Company Resident Playwright, a proud Kilroys nominator, Echo Theatre Resident Playwright, and an Ensemble Studio Theater lifetime member.
His work has been presented both nationally and internationally, taught in university, and is published by Concord Theatricals/Samuel French and NoPassport Press. He is a proud three-time Kilroys nominator.
He is currently developing a play with music inspired by Samantha Power’s “The Education of An Idealist” for Geffen Playhouse’s Writers Room and Theatre For One’s Solo Collective; and a new play, for Primary Stages’ Creative Development Grant and Nashville Rep, inspired by Mendez v. Westminster, about the building of Mexican schools as part of segregation. He is currently adapting his most recent play a home what howls (or the house what was ravine) into an opera. He developed a feature with Andrew Lauren Productions and is developing a screenplay inspired by his play THAT DRIVE THRU MONTEREY. www.matthewpaulolmos.com.
Plays
The first of a three-play cycle exploring the U.S./Mexico drug wars. The first play is inspired by the "Bravest Woman in Mexico," follows a twenty-two year old woman who volunteers to replace a beheaded police chief when nobody else would accept the position; which sets a chain of reactions in her husband, the Narcos, and perhaps the entire country of Mexico.
Two warring drug cartels in which the reins of power shift,the method of delivery is ever'changing, and loyalty exists nowhere; this second play in a 3-play cycle about the U.S./Mexico drug wars explores the ridiculous machismo of narco culture as shown through a cast of all women.
An American couple on holiday in Tijuana stumble off the beaten path, and are accosted by a Mexican couple in an alley.
"What ensues is a complex encounter that challenges notions of boundary, safety, identity and what you would do for your family. It's a dissection of difference, of connection, of the borders and barriers we use to distance ourselves, and those dangerous moments when we cross over those borders and barriers."
-Philip Himberg, Artistic Director Sundance Theatre Program
In part one, a put'upon family is run from their home by a settlement of people. In part two, a settlement of people get a surprise guest while simply trying to run a put'upon family from their home. Inspired by the Dog Catcher Riots.
*Published by Samuel French.
*Awarded the "Top Prize of the Americas" by the BBC.
*Developed as part of Mabou Mines/Suite Resident Artist Program
On November 22nd, 1963, just after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, two shooters from Dealey Plaza meet in an undisclosed location while waiting for their handlers to give further instruction. An exploration of how we citizens both vilify and pedestal our leaders; how easily our belief or aversion of our leaders can turn to radicalism.
A re'framing of the school shooting in Isla Vista, just outside the University of California at Santa Barbara.
In a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the premature baby Mira looks to her Labor/Delivery nurse as a mother figure while she tries to survive her challenging first weeks. Elsewhere in the hospital, her teenage mother and uncompromising family clash over who is fit to even raise a child. Meanwhile, Mira’s father struggles to keep a promise made to his daughter nine months earlier on a mysterious beach, in an aging Chevy Blue Cassanova van.
An extended Mexican-American family in Los Angeles over Christmas; invisible children screaming from a flickering hospital; and two mothers dead'set on protecting their sons split apart the family, no matter what the cost.