A Note on Dreams of Malinche: Todd Backus
For one night only, Everyday Inferno Theatre Company presents Nora Sørena Casey’s Dreams of Malinche, a new play about broken friendship, broken families, and Hernan Cortez’ legendary mistress.
Friday, March 10th at 7:30 PM South Oxford Space, The Great Room 138 S Oxford St Brooklyn, NY 11217 Space is limited, reserve your free seats
Hey there,
My name is Todd Backus and I mostly work in new play development. In fact, I met the fine ladies of Everday Inferno when I participated in their Developmental Lab last year. After the lab was over I got an email asking for recommendations for plays to workshop and I immediately thought of Nora Sørena Casey’s Dreams of Malinche.
Nora and I have been collaborators for years. She’s a playwright that uses this incredibly natural mix of the poetic and the everyday to tell incredible stories about ordinary people working to get by. When she first showed me Dreams of Malinche I knew it was something that had to be seen. It, like many of Nora’s plays, is epic in scope and also deeply personal. It tells this beautiful, heartbreaking story of high school friends realizing how different their lives are and will be and it’s juxtaposed with this rarely told story of Mexican history, or, as Emily says, “before America was America.” It’s an excellent story whose immensity was frightening and thrilling at the same time.
I was ecstatic when Everyday Inferno asked for project pitches because I was certain they would be a good fit for the play. I felt that Everday Inferno would be able to give the show what it needed: a strong, diverse, female creative team and time and space to play and grow. I’ve been cheering from the sidelines this whole project through and I’m over the moon about the upcoming reading and I can’t wait to read the latest draft that comes from this beautiful collaboration between artists I know and love.
Enjoy the show! -Todd
Todd Backus is is a director, producer, illustrator and most recently the Literary Manager at Portland Stage in Maine. He likes plays that juxtapose poetry and real life in ways that make you ponder your place in the universe. While he misses Nora, Ben, and his PowerOut family back in NYC (poweroutnyc.com) he's looking forward to workshoping their plays soon... in the wilds of Maine.