• Arts
  • Creative Work Fund

Playwright Cherrie Moraga and Brava! for Women in the Arts are collaborating to further develop and fully stage The Mathematics of Love. This new play is a meditation on death and dying that examines the role of “spirit” as told through the bodies of people forgotten by history. It considers human existence and colonization through the lens of women of color. Moraga began the play to tell a Mexican and American story and the history that was shaped by the sexual encounter between a European man (Hernan Cortés) and the indigenous woman Malinche Tenepal. Brava and Moraga are assembling a team of artists to work on the piece, including director Shayok Misha Chowdhury, set designer Peiyi Wong, scenic painter Jessica Sabogal; the two-spirit visual artist L Frank Manriquez (Tongva-Acjachemen); Jose B. Cuellar (Dr. Loco); and emerging sound designer and musician Jonathan Leal. Visual artist Celia Herrera Rodriguez is serving as the project’s design consultant. In the last decade, Cherrie Moraga has turned the focus of her theater work from the Western gaze to an indigenous point of view, and The Mathematics of Love emerges from this new perspective. The play will premiere in August 2017.