matthew paul olmos is a Mexican-American playwright who focuses on the creation of space for marginalized, underrepresented communities and gives them poetics and theatricality. While his work is always personal, it is aimed at reaching across socio’political boundaries, showing the ridiculous of how separate we are, and illuminating hope for future generations.
He is a three-time Sundance Institute Fellowship/Residency recipient, Echo Theater Company Resident Playwright, lifetime Ensemble Studio Theatre member and Sloan Commission recipient, New Dramatists Resident Playwright, Playwrights’ Center Core Writer, and two-time Venturous Playwright Fellowship nominee. Previous Actors’ Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival Commission, Arizona Theatre Company’s National Latine Playwriting Awardee, Baryshnikov Arts Center Resident Artist, Brooklyn Arts Exchange Resident Artist, Center Theatre Group LA Playwright, Drama League nominee, Geffen Playhouse Writers Room, Ingram New Works at Nashville Repertory, INTAR H.P.R.L., a proud Kilroys nominator, New York Theatre Workshop Fellow, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Black Swan Lab, two-time Ojai Playwrights Conference, inaugural Primary Stages Creative Development Grantee and Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group, Princess Grace Awardee in Playwriting, Repertorio Español Miranda Family Nuestra Voces Playwriting Awardee.
He spent two years as a Mabou Mines/SUITE Resident Artist being mentored by Ruth Maleczech, was chosen/mentored by Taylor Mac for Cherry Lane’s Mentor Project, and was La MaMa e.t.c.'s Ellen Stewart Emerging Playwright Awardee as selected by Sam Shepard.
His work has been presented nationally and internationally, taught in university, and is published by Concord Theatricals/Samuel French and NoPassport Press. www.matthewpaulolmos.com.
Plays
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.
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.