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Tanya Saracho

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Tanya Saracho
Born
Tanya Selene Saracho

1976 or 1977 (age 47–48)
Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico
Alma materBoston University
Occupations
  • Screenwriter
  • playwright
Years active1998–present
TitleCo-founder of Teatro Luna

Tanya Selene Saracho is a Mexican-American actress, playwright, dramaturge and screenwriter. With a background in theater before writing for television, she co-founded Teatro Luna in 2000 and was its co-artistic director for ten years. She also co-founded the Alliance of Latinx Theater Artists (ALTA) of Chicago. She is particularly known for centering the "Latina gaze". She developed and was showrunner of the Starz series Vida, which ran for three seasons (2018-2020). Saracho signed a three-year development deal with Starz in February 2018.

Early life

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Tanya Selene Saracho[1] was born in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico,[2][3][4] to Ramiro A. Saracho, head customs officer with the Servicio de Administración Tributaria[2][4] and a powerful figure in the conservative Institutional Revolutionary Party,[2] and Rosalina Armenta. After her parents' divorce, her childhood was split between Reynosa, Tamaulipas, where her father lived, and just across the border in McAllen, Texas,[2][5][6] where she and her mother chose to reside together with her two younger sisters Tatiana Saracho and Fresy Saracho.[4][7] Both cities are part of the bi-national Reynosa–McAllen metropolitan area straddling the Rio Grande (Spanish: Río Bravo del Norte). She and her family-members went back and forth between Mexico and the United States often — with her father commuting over the border in 2008.[5] She attended middle and high school in McAllen[2] and enrolled in Boston University College of Fine Arts to study theater, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.[2][4][8]

Career

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Theater

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Saracho has said that a goal of her work is to provide representation for Latinx people and address stereotypes.[9] Her career started in 1998 when she moved to Chicago.[10][2][7][5][excessive citations] Saracho initially attempted to work as an actress, but found that her opportunities as a Latina were limited[1] to typecast roles as maids or sex workers.[7] She would form Teatro Luna with Coya Paz in June 2000.[1][5][11][12][13][excessive citations] The group had an original ensemble of 10 Latina women from diverse backgrounds.[tone][1][7]

Saracho took part in the creation of numerous works through Teatro Luna, including Machos, Dejame Contarte (Let Me Tell You), The María Chronicles and S-E-X-Oh!.[1][11] Machos is a play examining "contemporary masculinities",[14] drawn from interviews with 50 men across the U.S.[14][15] and performed by the all-Latina cast in drag,[14][16] which earned 2 Non-Equity Jeff Awards.[16]

Saracho parted with the group in January 2010 to focus on playwriting.[5] The same year, she co-founded The Alliance of Latinx Theater Artists (ALTA) of Chicago,[17][18][19][20][excessive citations] which describes itself as "a service organization dedicated to furthering the Chicago Latinx Theater movement by promoting, educating, representing, and unifying Latinx-identified artists and their allies".[21]

Multiple plays that she worked on in this time received nominations for the Jeff Award.[2] She also worked as an outside actor on occasion during her time at Teatro Luna.[2][22]

One of her first works after leaving Teatro Luna was El Nogalar for the Goodman Theatre, co-produced with Teatro Vista, as a reconstruction of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard set in the pecan orchards of Northern Mexico amid the drug wars,[2][3][18][23][excessive citations] which ran at the Goodman Theatre from March 26 to April 24, 2011.[10][24] At that time, she was resident playwright emeritus at Chicago Dramatists, resident playwright at Teatro Vista, a Goodman Theatre Fellow at the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media at Columbia College Chicago and an artistic associate with Chicago's LGBTQ-oriented About Face Theatre.[2][3][23] She was also then working on two Andrew W. Mellon Foundation commissions for Steppenwolf Theatre, an adaptation of a Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz play for Oregon Shakespeare Festival called The Tenth Muse,[23][25] and a historical fiction piece for About Face Theatre called The Good Private. The latter, about a transgender soldier in the American Civil War,[2][3] was inspired by the story of Albert Cashier, recognized as female on birth in Ireland but who lived out their life in Illinois as a man after fighting for the Union Army.[2][5] In late 2012, her play Song for the Disappeared about an estranged borderland family brought together by the disappearance of their younger brother, was performed at the Goodman Theatre.[23][26]

Her 2014 work also included Mala Hierba at the Second Stage Uptown[27][28] and Hushabye as part of Steppenwolf's First Look in 2014.[7][29][30] Saracho's additional involvements include being a member of The Kilroys' List[7] and founding the Ñ Project.[31] Saracho is also a member of SAG-AFTRA[31] and the Writers Guild of America West[31] and has worked as a voice-over actress.[2]

Television: In the writers' room

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In 2012, Saracho began working in television, benefiting from the ABC Diversity program.[7] In her first TV job, as a staff writer at Lifetime's Devious Maids in 2013,[4][8] her office-mate told her she was "the diversity writer" and her agent confirmed that she was not costing the showrunner any budget.[32] In 2014, Saracho wrote a two-hander for the Goodman Theatre,[8] where one character was a first-year TV writer and the other a janitor.[8] The Denver Theatre Center commissioned Saracho to expand that work to create Fade, which premièred there in Winter 2016.[20][33]

After Devious Maids, Saracho wrote for HBO's Girls[4][34] and Looking (in 2013–14),[4][8][34] along with ABC's How to Get Away with Murder.[18][34] Saracho continued writing for theater while also writing for television, including two theater commissions, one set in Red Bank, New Jersey and the other in Costa Mesa, California.[20] Between seasons of Looking, Saracho worked on The Tenth Muse, an all-female play set in a convent in Colonial Mexico.[7]

Television: As showrunner

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Saracho, working with the production company Big Beach,[17][35][36] created, co-wrote, and co-produced the show Vida.[32][37] She assembled an all-Latinx, "heavily queer" writers' room[37][38][32] and directorial team who are all Latinx or women of color.[37][38] Like much of Saracho's theater work, the dialog in Vida is in Spanglish.[36]

Saracho has said that Starz initially approached her about the show, looking for "a female millennial show about gentefication, which is the gentrification of a Latinx space. The queerness came from me. I identify as queer, and it had to be there."[32]

In February 2018, Saracho signed a 3-year deal with Starz.[19][39][40] She has described season 1 of Vida as a three-hour pilot.

She is also developing another series with Big Beach called Brujas,[17][41] based on her 2007 play Enfrascada,[42][43] which will follow four Afro-Caribbean / Latinx Chicagoans within the brujería counter-culture.[41][17]

Awards and recognition

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Saracho was named the Best New Playwright by Chicago magazine,[23][17] one of the nine national Luminarios by Café magazine[23][17] and given the first Revolucionario award in theater by the National Museum of Mexican Art.[23][17] She has also won the Goodman's Ofner Prize,[5][23] a 3Arts Artists Award[23][44] and a National Endowment for the Arts Distinguished New Play Development Project Grant with About Face Theater.[23][45] In January 2019, she was presented with the 2019 Final Draft New Voice Award for Television[43][46][47] and won the 2019 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for Vida.[48]

In June 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride parade, Queerty named her among the fifty heroes “leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people”.[49][50]

Personal life

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Saracho identifies as queer[10][32][37][51][52][53][excessive citations] and has a mainly LGBTQ+ social circle.[10] She was diagnosed with diabetes in 2010, of which there is a family history.[5] She has also spoken about suffering from anxiety and impostor syndrome.[20]

By 2008, as a green card-holder, she was the only member of her family who had not naturalized to American citizenship, being unready to renounce her Mexican citizenship.[5] She has said that in 2008, she chose to become a U.S. citizen in order to vote for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.[5]

Saracho grew up in the trans-border area between Tamaulipas and Texas – a frequent setting for her plays – however she considers herself a Chicagoan. She has also spoken out about racism that she has experienced in Chicago.[34]

She grew up, went to school and to college with fellow Mexican-American actor Raúl Castillo, who she was in a relationship with as a teenager.[10][34] Castillo is featured in a key episode for his character in Looking.[34] After being disowned by her father in 2014, Saracho took a 2-week trip to Scotland, inspired by her love of Outlander.[53]

Saracho has cited a number of individuals as influences, including the 17th-century nun Juana Inés de la Cruz, African-American playwrights and professors Lynn Nottage and Lydia R. Diamond, Cuban-American avant-garde playwright María Irene Fornés, British director Caroline Eves, and LGBT writer and director Luis Alfaro[7]

List of works

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Theatre

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Television

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Year Title Role(s) Notes
2013 Devious Maids Staff writer[8][23]
  • Episode 1x07: "Taking a Message"
  • Episode 1x09: "Scrambling the Eggs"
2014–2015 Looking Story editor[8]
  • Episode 1x04: "Looking for $220/Hour"
  • Episode 1x06: "Looking in the Mirror"
  • Episode 1x08: "Looking Glass"
  • Episode 2x05: "Looking for Truth"
  • Episode 2x09: "Looking for Sanctuary"
2015 Co-producer All 10 episodes of season 2
Ceci, Richie's cousin[10] Episode 2x05: "Looking for Truth"
2015–2016 How to Get Away with Murder Co-producer Episodes 2x01–2x06
Writer
  • Episode 2x08: "Hi, I'm Philip"
  • Episode 2x12: "It's a Trap"
2018–2020 Vida Showrunner All 6 episodes of season 1

Notes

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Sobeira Latorre; Joanna L. Mitchell (2006). "Performing the Generic Latina: A Conversation with Teatro Luna". Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism. 7 (1). Duke University Press: 19–37. JSTOR 40338715.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Kerry Reid (April 1, 2011). "Tanya Saracho catching the wheel: a Mexico-born play wright steps boldly from Teatro Luna into Chicago's larger scene". American Theatre. Retrieved December 21, 2018 – via The Free Library.
  3. ^ a b c d Tanya Palmer (July 1, 2011). "Inside the violence: an interview with the playwright". American Theatre. Retrieved December 21, 2018 – via The Free Library.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Vanessa Erazo (February 6, 2014). "HBO's Looking Writer Tanya Saracho on Creating Latina Roles and Taking on Twitter Haters". Remezcla. Archived from the original on February 18, 2015. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Kris Vire (June 15, 2010). "Playwright Tanya Saracho". Time Out. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  6. ^ "Enfrascada, a dark comedy by Tanya Saracho". KMFA. August 25, 2017. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Victoria Myers (October 29, 2014). "Tanya Saracho". The Interval. Archived from the original on September 28, 2015. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Matt Pollock (January 15, 2014). "13 Questions for Tanya Saracho". Chicago. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
  9. ^ Garrett Anderson (October 31, 2017). "Expanding upon the canon of Latinx plays. Spotlight on Tanya Saracho". Journal of Plays and Musicals (Fall/Winter 2017–2018). Samuel French, Inc.: 24–26.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Jerry Nunn (December 23, 2014). "Nunn on One: Tanya Saracho on her past with the Goodman". Windy City Times. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "History". Teatro Luna. Archived from the original on June 28, 2021. Retrieved December 22, 2018.
  12. ^ "Artist Bios: Teatro Luna". Goodman Theatre. July 2010. Retrieved January 25, 2019.
  13. ^ a b "Latina Theater Troupe Makes Art of Identity". March 6, 2014. Retrieved January 25, 2019.
  14. ^ a b c d "Exploring contemporary masculinity in Machos with Teatro Luna on December 19". Illinois Humanities. December 11, 2007. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  15. ^ Jennifer Domino Rudolph (April 30, 2016). Embodying Latino Masculinities: Producing Masculatinidad. Springer. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-137-02288-2.
  16. ^ a b Kenneth Jones (June 10, 2008). "Dr. Moreau, Jerry Springer, Machos Are Among Jeff Award Winners in Chicago". Playbill. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
  17. ^ a b c d e f g "Member Emeritus". The Alliance of Latinx Theater Artists of Chicago. Archived from the original on June 20, 2020. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
  18. ^ a b c "Tanya Saracho". Goodman Theatre 90 Years. Goodman Theatre. 2015. Retrieved December 22, 2018.
  19. ^ a b Cynthia Littleton (February 23, 2018). "Vida Showrunner Tanya Saracho Sets Overall Deal With Starz". Variety. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  20. ^ a b c d "Tanya Saracho". 50 Playwrights. August 1, 2016. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  21. ^ "Official website". The Alliance of Latinx Theater Artists of Chicago. Archived from the original on February 7, 2019. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
  22. ^ a b "Electricidad". Goodman Theatre. December 10, 2011. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  23. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Tanya Saracho". Oregon Shakespeare Festival. 2012. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  24. ^ a b "El Nogalar". Goodman Theatre. December 9, 2011. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  25. ^ a b "The Tenth Muse". Oregon Shakespeare Festival. 2013. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
  26. ^ a b "Song for the Disappeared". Goodman Theatre. September 12, 2012. Archived from the original on December 25, 2018. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  27. ^ a b Charles Isherwood (July 28, 2014). "Tangled Romances, in Need of Some Pruning". The New York Times. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
  28. ^ a b Marilyn Stasio (July 28, 2014). "Off Broadway Review: Mala Hierba". Variety. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
  29. ^ a b "Hushabye". Steppenwolf Theatre Company. 2014. Archived from the original on June 28, 2021. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
  30. ^ a b Kerry Reid (August 11, 2014). "REVIEW: First Look Repertory in the Steppenwolf Garage". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on August 12, 2014. Retrieved December 25, 2018. (URL not available in the European Economic Area or Switzerland.){{cite news}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  31. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Tanya Saracho". Bret Adams Ltd Artists' Agency. Archived from the original on December 25, 2018. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  32. ^ a b c d e Pilot Viruet (May 4, 2018). "How Starz's Vida Created a Safe Space to Explore Latinx and Queer Stories". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  33. ^ a b Juliet Wittman (February 23, 2016). "Review: Tanya Saracho's Fade Brings Class Struggle to the Denver Center". Westword. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
  34. ^ a b c d e f Nina Metz (February 20, 2014). "Chicago playwright Tanya Saracho lands Girls writing gig". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on October 5, 2018. Retrieved December 21, 2018. (URL not available in the European Economic Area or Switzerland.){{cite news}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  35. ^ "Starz Announces Cast for Half-Hour Drama Series Vida from Latinx Showrunner Tanya Saracho". El Diario. November 14, 2017. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
  36. ^ a b Michael Pickard (May 2, 2018). "Walking the Walk". Drama Quarterly. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
  37. ^ a b c d Carmen Phillips (April 20, 2018). "Vida's Non-Binary Latinx Actor Ser Anzoategui Already Knows Their Show Will Be Your New Favorite". Autostraddle. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  38. ^ a b Carmen Phillips (May 3, 2018). "Tanya Saracho Made Vida With, For and About Latinxs — And She's Not Apologizing". Autostraddle. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  39. ^ Dominic Patten (June 19, 2018). "Vida's Tanya Saracho On Starz's East L.A. Drama, Seeing Herself & Having A Vision". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  40. ^ Denise Petski (June 12, 2018). "Vida Renewed For Second Season By Starz". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  41. ^ a b Dino-Ray Ramos (December 5, 2017). "Big Beach Developing Brujas Series With Showrunner Tanya Saracho". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
  42. ^ a b Curt Wagner (May 2, 2018). "With Vida ready to air, Chicago TV series may be next for Tanya Saracho". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
  43. ^ a b B Hernandez (February 1, 2019). "Gina's Kick Ass Roles, Bardem & Isaac Get Sci-Fi, Castings & Chisme". Latin Heat. Archived from the original on February 7, 2019. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
  44. ^ "Tanya Saracho". 3Arts. 2017. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  45. ^ "Artist Bios: Tanya Saracho". Goodman Theatre. April 2011. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
  46. ^ Patrick Hipes (January 15, 2019). "Final Draft Awards: Callie Khouri, Boots Riley, Tanya Saracho To Be Honored". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
  47. ^ 2019 Final Draft Awards: New Voice Recipient Tanya Saracho. Final Draft. February 1, 2019. Retrieved February 5, 2019 – via YouTube.
  48. ^ Kimberly Nordyke (May 4, 2019). "GLAAD Media Awards: Boy Erased, Pose, Gianni Versace Among Winners". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
  49. ^ "Queerty Pride50 2020 Honorees". Queerty. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  50. ^ Reddish, David (2020-06-15). "Meet the entertainment creators fighting the good fight this year". Queerty. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  51. ^ Suzy Exposito (May 5, 2018). "Viva la Vida — This New Show About Latinx Queer Folks Is Everything". them. Condé Nast. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  52. ^ Michael Schneider (May 10, 2018). "Vida Creator Tanya Saracho Gives Voice to Latinx Sisters, Brown Queers, and Displaced Neighborhoods — Turn It On Podcast". IndieWire. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  53. ^ a b Jessica Radloff (May 6, 2018). "I Was Obsessed With Outlander—so I Found My Own Love Story in Scotland". Glamour. Retrieved December 22, 2018.
  54. ^ a b c d e f g h Paloma Martínez-Cruz; Liza Ann Acosta (October 9, 2002). "El Macho: A Performance Perspective Which Tells How the Women of Teatro Luna Became Men". In Arturo J. Aldama; Chela Sandoval; Peter J. García (eds.). Performing the US Latina and Latino Borderlands. Indiana University Press. pp. 283–294. ISBN 978-0-253-00877-0. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  55. ^ Jen Goddu (November 9, 2006). "Quita Mitos". Chicago Reader. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  56. ^ Kerry Reid (April 19, 2012). "Enfrascada finds humor amid heartbreak". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on December 25, 2018. Retrieved December 25, 2018. (URL not available in the European Economic Area or Switzerland.){{cite news}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  57. ^ Chris Jones (March 13, 2009). "Lady of the Underpass is the sort of Chicago story we need on stage". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on December 25, 2018. Retrieved December 25, 2018. (URL not available in the European Economic Area or Switzerland.){{cite news}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  58. ^ "The House on Mango Street". Chicago Reader. 2009. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
  59. ^ "A Conversation with The House on Mango Street Adaptor Tanya Saracho". Steppenwolf Theatre Company. 2009. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
  60. ^ David Rosenberg (November 12, 2013). "About Face Theatre Kicks Off 'Out Front Series' — First Workshop To Feature Tony Award Winner Levi Kreis". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on September 6, 2014. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
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