REVELATION READING
INVIERNO
by José Cruz González
Directed by Madeline Sayet
Featuring Carlo Albán, Aubee Billie, Joe Cross, Bailey Frankenberg, Zack Lopez Roa, Alfredo Narciso, Tanis Parenteau, Andrew Rothenberg, and Stephen Michael Spencer
In this powerful new version of The Winter’s Tale, José Cruz González uses Shakespeare’s story of jealousy, betrayal, and redemption to heal wounds of colonialism. Set against the rich cultural backdrop of California’s Central Coast, the play travels between the U.S. invasion of Mexico in 1846 and the 21st Century, and opens with a lullaby in the language of the Samala Chumash Native Americans, sung by the character Paulina as a healer who weaves the voice of Indigenous resistance into the temporal borderlands of Shakespeare’s romance.
Produced in association with Borderlands Shakespeare Colectiva.
This Introduction gives a critical context for the play which is available open-access here: Full text of Invierno.
For more information on the revitalization of Samala, see this lecture by linguist Dr. Richard Applegate and Nakia Zavalla, the Cultural Director of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians.
Shakespeare in Tongues by Kathryn Vomero Santos offers an extended discussion of Invierno in light of these revitalization efforts. CLICK HERE TO ACCESS IT FOR FREE
This event will premiere live in-person from the Peter Jay Sharp Theater on Monday, October 20, 2025 at 7:30 PM ET. The recording will be available at 7:30 PM ET on Tuesday, October 21 until 11:59 PM ET on Sunday, October 26. Open Captions will be available at 7:30 PM ET on Wednesday, October 22 until 11:59 PM ET on Sunday, October 26.
THE CAST
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Paulina | Tanis Parenteau
Young Woman / Perdida / Maximino | Aubee Billie
Young Man / Florentino | Zack Lopez Roa
Don León | Carlo Albán
Don Patricio | Stephen Michael Spencer
Caspian | Andrew Rothenberg
Hermonia | Bailey Frankenberg
Alejandro / Afilado | Joe Corss
Vaquero | Alfredo Narciso
Stage Directors | Joana Tsuhlares
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director | Madeline Sayet
Stage Manager | Nikki Lint
Scholars | Katherine Gillen, Adrianna M. Santos, & Kathryn Vomero Santos
Assistant Director / Associate Producer | Joana Tsuhlares
Livestream Producer | Jessica Fornear
Video Services | Merelis Productions
Managing Director | Sherri Kotimsky
Producing Director | Nathan Winkelstein
ABOUT THE PLAY
José Cruz González’s Invierno offers a Borderlands appropriation that embraces The Winter’s Tale’s themes of resilience, revitalization, and repair in order to consider how the past reverberates in the current moment. Set in California’s Central Coast, Invierno toggles between the twenty-first century and a period of time leading up to the U.S. invasion of Mexico that would end in 1848 with the Mexican cession of more than half of its territory to the United States, thus redrawing the border between the two countries.
In the Prelude, a Young Woman and a Young Man fall back in time into the world of the nineteenth-century California ranchos, becoming witnesses to tragic events of the past that resonate in unexpected and sometimes uncomfortable ways with their present situation. In the nineteenth-century plotline, Don León is a prominent Californio ranchero, and Hermonia is a Chumash mestiza whose people have endured generations of Spanish colonial violence. Her half-sister, Paulina, is a Chumash healer, who serves as a bridge between past and present throughout the play. As the Young Woman and Young Man eventually step into the roles of Perdida and Florentino, they help to facilitate the reunion at the end of the play while also beginning their own healing journeys as a result. For more, see the Introduction to Invierno in The Bard in the Borderlands, Vol. 2.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Invierno is written by José Cruz González, an award-winning playwright and professor of theater who traces his creative roots to the tradition of Chicano teatro and El Teatro Campesino. He helped to launch the groundbreaking Hispanic Playwrights Project in 1988 with the South Coast Repertory Theater. In addition to amplifying the work of Latinx playwrights, his own plays celebrate Latinx-centered narratives for audiences of all ages. Professor Emeritus at California State University, Los Angeles, González has written a number of plays including If by Chance, The Extraordinary ZLuna Captures the World, Under a Baseball Sky, American Mariachi, September Shoes, The San Patricios, and The Sun Serpent.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Madeline Sayet is a Mohegan theatre-maker whose work is shaped by the idea of Story Medicine: the belief that every story we put into this world has the power to do real world harm or healing. An award winning director, playwright, and performer, Sayet's accolades as a theatre-maker include being named a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Hollywood & Entertainment, a TED Fellow, a MIT Media Lab Directors Fellow, MacDowell Fellow, NCAIED Native American 40 Under 40, CT Magazine 40 Under 40, a recipient of The White House Champion of Change Award from President Obama, the National Directors Fellowship and a National Arts Strategies' Creative Community Fellow. Madeline is a Clinical Associate Professor in the English Department at Arizona State University (with the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies), a Resident Artist at Center Theatre Group in LA and a member of Long Wharf Theatre’s Artistic Ensemble. She served 6 years as Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (YIPAP).
The Borderlands Shakespeare Colectiva (BSC) is an award-winning group of scholars, educators, artists, and activists who engage with Shakespeare in ways that reflect the lived realities of the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands. We aim not only to change the way Shakespeare is taught and performed but also to promote the socially just futures envisioned en el arte de La Frontera.
To learn more about José Cruz González and Borderlands Shakespeare, see this recorded conversation with fellow playwright and collaborator Edit Villarreal, author of The Language of Flowers and listen to a Texas Public Radio Fronteras episode featuring Dr. Kathryn Vomero Santos and González discussing Invierno.
To read more Borderlands Shakespeare plays, see The Bard in the Borderlands: An Anthology of Shakespeare Appropriations en La Frontera, Volume 1 and Volume 2, edited by Katherine Gillen, Adrianna M. Santos, and Kathryn Vomero Santos (ACMRS Press, 2023 and 2024).
