ORIGINAL PLAYS
Tanya's newest play tells the story of Rachel, a thirty-seven year old single Jewish straight woman who wants to have a child. She makes a pact with her best friend Anjali, a single Indian lesbian, that they will both become pregnant and raise their children together. On the eve of Rachel's insemination by anonymous donor sperm, she becomes paralyzed by doubt. A passionate travel junkie, she sets off on a solo journey to clear her head and make a decision. She travels to India, where she spends several weeks in the home of Anjali's extended family. The contrast between Rachel's life in the U.S. and the lives and choices of the people she meets in India results in comedy, romance, and deep reflections on the particular choices and challenges Rachel faces as a Western woman at this moment in history.
"Baby Taj" has had public readings at JEFFREY BIHR STUDIO in Berkeley, California; the Lark Studio Theatre, sponsored by RASA THEATER COMPANY, in New York City; and THEATREWORKS in Mountain View, California. It will have its world premiere production in 2005.
“Brigadista” tells the story of Debbie, a young North American activist who travels to Nicaragua in 1990 to volunteer as a coffee-picker and observe the Nicaraguan elections. Though enthusiastic and well intentioned, Debbie alienates several of the Nicaraguans on the cooperative where she is volunteering through her attempts to mold them to her North American feminist values. In particular, she comes head to head with Jorge, the brusque vice-president of the cooperative, who delights in shattering her assumptions about what her beloved revolution should look like. When the revolutionary Sandinista government loses the election, both Debbie and Jorge are devastated, and out of that devastation grows a hard-won friendship. Both a sharp political satire and a coming-of-age story, “Brigadista” turns a self-critical eye on the sometimes misguided behavior of North American activists who travel to other countries intending to help.
“Brigadista” had its first full production in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1990, produced by Mosaic Theatre Project at the Performance Network. This production went on to tour to five Midwestern cities, as well as to Toronto, Canada. The play was then produced by Tanya’s own Larger than Life Productions in San Francisco, where it enjoyed a four-week run at the Capp Street Center. Directed by Wilma Bonet, this production went on to tour to twenty-one cities across the U.S. in 1991.
