About Productions, Inc

About Productions creates original interdisciplinary theater work and educational programs that provoke new perspectives on history and humanity. The company is dedicated to collaboration in generating new work in order to create artistic and community dialogue.

INNOVATION: The L.A.-based company has been creating critically acclaimed productions for 22 years that have been seen extensively in So. California, throughout the U.S. and in Canada. Best-known works include:

By the Hand of the Father, which traces the 20th century experience of the Mexican-American father, premiered in 2000 in L.A and has toured nationally for standing room only audiences in Austin, Arizona, Miami, Seattle, Chicago, Alberta, Canada, and locally at the Getty Center and Autry International Center. This was the first theaterwork to be featured on the PBS show Austin City Limits. Our accompanying CD, with original music by recording star Alejandro Escovido, also received outstanding national reviews.

They Shoot Mexicans, Don’t They? examines the historic intersection between early Hollywood and Latino culture. The work-in-progress was staged at [INSIDE] the Ford Theater in Hollywood in 2004 as part of the Ford’s Latino Playreading Series. The full production premiered at Luckman Fine Arts Complex in 2005 and was remounted in a 4-week run in 2006 at the Autry National Center for enthusiastic audiences.

Showing Our Age premiered at the [INSIDE] the Ford in spring 2008, with a subsequent run at the Japanese American National Museum's National Center for the Preservation of Democracy. The production explores the myths, realities and fantasies of aging and the aged, and brings to life the transformation of a generation and the struggles of those who care for them. Showing Our Age is the culmination of our 4-year STAGES program, through which professional writer/actors turn local seniors’ life stories into a theaterwork.

Bleeding Through premiered at the Shakespeare Festival/LA in fall 2009, with previous work-in-progress presentations as part of the L.A. History Project in July 2008. A theatrical layering of live music, video, and interactive setting, the production uncovers the narrative ghosts of L.A.’s Historic Angelino Heights District and the adjacent Downtown area—a neighborhood where more cinematic “murders” have occurred than anywhere else in the world. This noir-influenced theaterwork, adapted from Norman Klein’s highly praised novella, explores the shaping of a city’s memory by commonplace experiences, chronicled history and cinematic influences.

COLLABORATION: AP has worked with numerous performing and visual artists in the development of new work, and with performing arts and cultural centers, community-based arts organizations and educational institutions in the presentation of these new works. Company productions have also been featured in festivals such as the International Hispanic Theatre Festival in Miami, the Telluride Theatre Festival in Colorado, the New Voices Festival at The Public Theater in N.Y., and the SXSW Festival in Austin.

EDUCATION: AP’s productions serve as inspirational models for AP’s successful Young Theaterworks, a semester-long literacy/theater curriculum for at-greater-risk high school students, and STAGES, which provides seniors the opportunity to work with writers to transform their life stories into live theater. Both programs utilize AP’s interdisciplinary writing and storytelling approach, and culminate in original staged public readings, performed by highly regarded professional actors, that reflect seniors’ and young people’s perspectives.