esto no tiene nombre

Denice Frohman | Nia Benjamin | Alex Torra

As part the Historias initiative, The Clemente Center welcomes the creative team of Esto No Tiene Nombre for a one-month micro-residency to further develop the show into its final draft. This micro-residency will culminate in three public workshop production shows at Teatro Latea and, for the first time, bring the powerful stories of these Latina lesbian elders to New York City audiences. 

Esto No Tiene Nombre is a work in progress one-woman show that centers the oral histories of  Latina lesbian elders. Written and performed by poet Denice Frohman, the play is told through a  series of vignettes that trace lineages of Latina lesbian activism, expression, and desire. Guided by  first person stories from pre-Stonewall police raids in Philadelphia to first kisses, Esto No Tiene  Nombre places Frohman in conversation with a myriad of elders—barbers, lovers, activists and  chefs– to explore their interiority and her own. In other words: how we love, who we love, and  how we survive. 

The show borrows its name from the first Latina lesbian magazine founded in the 1990s by  Colombian poet, editor and activist, Tatiana de la Tierra, who wrote extensively about Latina  sexuality and desire.  

The archival interviews featured in Esto No Tiene Nombre were a culmination of a year-long  project where Frohman traveled the country conducting over 20 oral history interviews as part of  the project, I See My Light Shining: Oral Histories of Our Elders. Several of these interviews  feature elders with roots in New York City. The project was curated by acclaimed author and  2020 MacArthur Fellow Jacqueline Woodson.

Estimated Run-time: 70 minutes 

DELEVELOPMENT HISTORY:  

Esto No Tiene Nombre’s first workshop production was produced in June 2023 by Journey Arts in  Philadelphia, PA. That project was supported in part by an award from the National Endowment  for the Arts. A full list of funders is available upon request.  

Since then, Frohman has performed excerpts of the work at Diversionary Theater, The Puente  Project and Joe’s Pub. There have also been two film screening held at Taller Puertorriqueño and  the Philadelphia Latino Arts and Film Festival.  

CORE CREATIVE TEAM:  

Denice Frohman (Lead Artist/Writer/Performer) is a poet and performer from New York City.  She has received support from The Pew Center for the Arts, Baldwin for the Arts, CantoMundo,  Headlands Center for the Arts and the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures. Her work  has appeared in The New York Times, Poem-A-Day (The Academy of American Poets), The  BreakBeat Poets: LatiNext, Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color and elsewhere. A  former Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, she has featured on hundreds of stages from  The Apollo to The White House. Currently, she is developing her one-woman show, Esto No Tiene  Nombre, which centers the oral histories of Latina lesbian elders. 

Alex Torra (Director/Co-creator) is a Miami-born, Philadelphia-based director, performer,  producer, and educator. He is the Co-Founder and Resident Director of Team Sunshine  Performance Corporation, where he serves as one of the company’s primary administrators and  has directed all of the company’s full-length works including PUNCHKAPOW, JAPANAMERICA  WONDERWAVE, HENRY IV: YOUR PRINCE AND MINE, and THE SINCERITY PROJECT (parts 1 and 2),  and ¡BIENVENIDOS BLANCOS! OR WELCOME WHITE PEOPLE!. Alex is also an Associate Artist and  former Associate Artistic Director of Pig Iron Theatre Company, where he has worked as  Performer/Creator and Creative Producer on many of the company’s works over the last 10 years.  Alex has received fellowships from the Independence Foundation, the Philadelphia Live Arts  Brewery, the Princess Grace Foundation (the Grace Le Vine Theatre Award), Oregon Shakespeare  Festival, and NY's Drama League. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his  M.F.A. in Directing from Brown University. Alex currently serves a Visiting Assistant Professor of  Theatre at Swarthmore College, where he directs often and teaches Solo Performance and Acting. 

Nia Benjamin (Projection/Set Design) is an agender, queer, Afro-Caribbean multidisciplinary  artist, performer, filmmaker, set/projection designer, video-synth artist and director of experimental theatre. Their work uses the synthesis of dance, poetry, live music, theatre and video  arts to create live performances about the sovereignty, liberation and interiority of Black and  Brown, queer and trans* people. Nia is the Co-Artistic Director of Ninth Planet, an Philadelphia  based experimental theatre company.  

Baldwin-Emerson Elders Project: Oral History Archive 

Curated by Jacqueline Woodson, in partnership with Baldwin for the Arts, The Emerson  Collective and Columbia Center for Oral History Research  

Website: https://eldersproject.incite.columbia.edu/