READY OR NOT (November 2023)
Written and Directed by Angela Reynoso
Actors in order from left to right: Nadja Gonzalez, Zullyvette Muniz, Gabriela Urquia, Lorena Peralta
Four friends catch up while rushing to get ready for a New Year’s Eve Party when tensions rise. Will the girls make it to the party before the ball drops?
The goal for my play, “Ready or Not” is to encourage all women to embrace their strengths, their weaknesses, and self-love. I visited the Framing the Female Gaze art exhibit in Lehman College and an art historian, Linda Nochilin noted “acceptance of woman as object of the desiring male gaze in the visual arts is so universal that for a woman to question or draw attention to this fact is to invite derision”. Immediately I was inspired to write this story. All of the women in this play have different philosophies on how to love, but it doesn’t stop them from being friends. What does stop them is how quickly one runs away from their friendship when they receive a call from a man who doesn't deserve their attention. I want the audience to re-appreciate the time they have with their friends because most of the time, they were around before any love interest was. Sisters before Misters! I want every person in the audience to find one character they relate to and reflect on why they do. I want to hear people formulate opinions on how these women handled their situations with their partners.
LOVE STINGS (November 2020)
Directed by Angela Reynoso
GREED. PRIDE. BETRAYAL… A love story gone wrong. Love Stings was originally a stage play written by Juan Ramirez, Jr., but Angela Reynoso was inspired to bring it to life and create a film adaptation. The protagonist Pilar Lopez, hires a hitman, Felix, to kill her husband, Mark Lopez. Knowing that the script was made for the stage, Angela wanted to create a three-dimensional world where the audience sees the different connections between not only Pilar and Felix in a car, but also Pilar and Mark’s innocent marriage in turmoil, and her performative imagination. Her imagination combines the world of theatre on stage while also acknowledging this as a film between two people in a car plotting a murder.
As Angela's first directorial debut, she focused mainly on the combination of different genres, drama and comedy to convey the story altogether. Overall, her intention is to have you enjoy a reunion with not only herself and the cast, but also those who enjoy watching their loved ones create and do what they love doing most during a very tough and lively pandemic.