Theater Project Exploring Bi-Cultural Identity Receives Joyce Award
WDCB’s Gary Zidek shines a light on Joyce Award-winning playwright Nancy Garcia Loza as she begins work on her theater project, Pénjamo: A Pocha Road Trip Story.
LISTEN
“The award makes the project possible, period. The Joyce Awards allow you to be commissioned, to write a play. Literally, this will go from concept and idea into a full-fledged story that’s ready to produce on stage.” - Playwright Nancy Garcia Loza talking about what the Joyce Award means to her work.
Chicago-based playwright Nancy Garcia Loza.
A Chicago-based philanthropic non-profit is continuing its efforts to support underrepresented artists in the Great Lakes region. This summer, the Joyce Foundation handed out $375,000 dollars in grants to five Midwest-based artists. The Joyce Awards started in 2004, since then the Foundation has awarded more than $4 million to commission 77 new works and collaborations in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
This year’s crop of 5 awardees includes two Chicago recipients, including playwright Nancy Garcia Loza. who is partnering with the National Museum of Mexican Art on a new theater project that explores the complexities of bicultural identity.
The 2022 Joyce Awards class: Nancy García Loza, Nabil Ince, Michael Manson, Aram Han Sifuentes, and Pramila Vasudevan
Loza’s Joyce Award-winning project hasn’t been written yet, but it does have a titled, it’s called Pénjamo: A Pocha Road Trip Story. The idea is built around Loza’s personal history and memories of visiting Mexico for the first time in the mide to late 80s, after the Immigration Reform & Control Act passed providing amnesty to immigrant families wishing to visit their countries of origin for the first time since coming to the U.S.
The Chicago-based National Museum of Mexican Art
