21st Annual Black and Latino Playwright Celebration

For the past 21 years, we have brought two playwrights (one Black and one Latino) from across America to San Marcos, to work alongside guest directors, professional actors, dramaturgs and Texas State Theatre students to develop their new plays over the course of a week.

CARLOS MORTON has over one hundred theatrical productions, both in the U.S. and abroad.  His professional credits include the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Denver Center Theatre, La Companía Nacional de México, the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, and the Arizona Theatre Company. He is the author of The Many Deaths of Danny Rosales and Other Plays (1983), Johnny Tenorio and Other Plays (1992), The Fickle Finger of Lady Death (1996), Rancho Hollywood y otras obras del teatro chicano, (1999), Dreaming on a Sunday in the Alameda (2004), and Children of the Sun: Scenes for Latino Youth (2008). A former Mina Shaughnessy Scholar and Fulbright Lecturer to Mexico and Poland, Morton holds an M.F.A. in Drama from the  University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Texas at Austin. Morton has lived on the border between Mexico and the United States since 1981, teaching at universities in Texas, California and Mexico. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Theater at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Playwright of Hurt People

LaDarrion Williams is a Los Angeles based-playwright, filmmaker, author, and screenwriter whose goal is to cultivate a new era of Black fantasy, providing space and agency for Black characters and stories in a new, fresh and fantastical way. His first play, Katrina, won first place at the Alabama State Thespian Conference. It was also a part of A Noise Within Theatre for their Noise Now Reading Series. His adaptation of the best-selling memoir, Feeding A Monster, was directed by award-winning actor and director Art Evans at the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood, CA. In 2019, he was invited to be a guest writer for Center Theatre Groups’ August Wilson Monologue Competition. His play Black Creek Risin’ was a part of the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha, Nebraska, and a finalist in the National Black Theatre I AM SOUL Playwriting Fellowship. In September 2019, his play, Coco Queens, was a part of the Sundance Institute’s Playwriting Intensive. The play was also a semi-finalist for the 2020 Eugene O’Neill National Playwriting Conference. In 2021, his play critically acclaimed play Boulevard of Bold Dreams (a story about Hattie McDaniel’s historic Oscar win) was a part of the New Works Festival at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre in Santa Monica, California. It had a world premiere production at TimeLine Theatre in Chicago Jan 2023 and an East Coast Premiere at Greater Boston Stage Company in March 2023. Currently, it will be a part of Orlando Shakes Theater Signature Series in Fall 2023. Serving as a writer-producer, LaDarrion has curated three short films on Youtube. BLOOD AT THE ROOT, the first novel in his debut YA fantasy trilogy, is forthcoming from Labyrinth Road, a Penguin Random House imprint in Summer 2024.