LAST WEST by Tess Taylor

LAST WEST, ROADSONGS FOR DOROTHEA LANGE

A new poetry/collage piece by award-winning poet, Tess Taylor.

directed by Ciera Eis.

Originally presented by the Museum of Modern Art New York for the 'Dorothea Lange: Words and Pictures' exhibition, Last West is now a theatrical collage commenting on climate change, migrancy, shelterlessness, and what it takes to get by. A photographer tries to document a state in crisis. 85 years later, a poet follows in her footsteps trying to make sense of the uneasy present. Taylor’s hybrid text collages lyric and oral histories against Lange’s own journals and notebook fragments, framing the ways social and ecological injustices of the past rhyme eerily with those of the present.

Last West uses pointed oral testimony gathered by Berkeley photographer Dorothea Lange in the 1930s and 40s and by El Cerrito poet Tess Taylor now. After spending two years in the Oakland Museum’s archive studying Lange’s notebooks and prints, Taylor revisited the farms, shelters and internment camps Dorothea photographed. She wrote letters to Dorothea from prisons and detention centers, some of which are atop the very fields where she once photographed carrot pickers.

If you donate today, you will not only be supporting our actors and our creative team in our upcoming workshop, but securing the success of this project moving forward. We hope that you will join us as producers and supporters in moving this play onto the next road of its journey!

Workshop Presentation: March 16th at 7:00pm PST

FREE (accepting donations to support our actors and creative team)

Run Time: 1 Hour

Produced by Daniel Duque-Estrada and Magic Theatre.

Actors will be performing with script-in-hand and minimal technical design. There will be a small reception for wine and cheese after the presentation.

Location:

Magic Theatre- 2 Marina Blvd, Bldg D, San Francisco CA 94123

3rd Floor at the Southside Theatre

MORE INFO:

“This country’s a hard country, when you die you’re dead, that’s all.”

Welcome to Last West: Roadsongs for Dorothea Lange.

Dorothea Lange made the Great Depression’s most iconic images: Migrant Mother, in Nipomo, California, 1936. The ubiquitous house-car. The two men carrying heavy backpacks under a sign saying “next time take the train.” Her later photos of the Japanese internment process remain among the most haunting images of all time. Lange collected visual data and made notes of the words of ordinary people as California teetered on the brink of economic and climate catastrophe. That data remains eerily relevant today.

In Last West, five characters; LANGE, POET, MAN, WOMAN, and CHILD, move against a shifting backdrop of Lange’s photos. We leap between stories Lange documented, and the California we inherit today.

Tess Taylor (she/hers) Last West: Roadsongs for Dorothea Lange was written by acclaimed poet Tess Taylor, whose body of work deals with memory and cultural reckoning. She has published four other celebrated poetry collections: The Misremembered World, The Forage House, Work & Days, and Rift Zone. She has also served as the on-air poetry reviewer for NPR’s All Things Considered for over a decade. Her work appears in Harpers Magazine, The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, Tin House, The Times Literary Supplement, CNN, and The New York Times. She currently developing another play, Detective Story based on a novella by Nobel Prizewinner Imre Kertesz, which was developed with Lisa Peterson at Stages Theater in Houston. This summer, the Getty Museum will release Intimate Addresses, a podcast she wrote based on six artists’ letters in their archive. Its stories are voiced by Taylor and Anna Deveare Smith.

Ciera Eis (she/hers) is s a theatrical director who develops socio-political new work and explores immersive/interactive space. She specializes in intersectional queer-femme narratives, magical realism, and comedies that pack a punch. She has worked at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Magic Theatre, American Conservatory Theater, Shotgun Players, and more. Recent directing credits include: Faust on 4Chan (The Ground Floor, Berkeley Rep), Circle Mirror Transformation (Custom Made), The Lost Ballad of our Mechanical…(Shotgun Players CRS), Murder at Roland Manor: 8-Bit Mystery (Thunder Bay Theatre), and The Official Unicorn Hunter’s Guide (Winner- Shortlived VIII Festival). She is the Artistic Director of FaultLine Theater and Interim Artistic Director of Custom Made Theatre Co. Ciera was an SDCF Observer, Class 2019-2021, and attended the University of California, Santa Cruz. www.cieraeis.com