Marfa Live Arts presents Ranchland a radio play by Martha Annette Mendoza of Marfa, Texas with actors Georgina Escobar, Gary Oliver, Omar Coronel, Rosario Chacón, Nick Bustillos, Sam Walker, Pam Breithaupt, Primo Carrasco and Giselle De La Rosa. 

Ranchland is the winner of the Marfa Live Arts’ Short Playwriting Contest which was held in Presidio County and Ojinaga, Mexico. The play, which was described as “bold and over-seasoned in a good way,” by playwright jurist Raul Garza, focuses on border issues and attitudes.

Mendoza shares her thoughts on writing Ranchland, “My intention isn’t to embarrass anyone but hoping to raise peoples’ awareness and open them up to have compassion and help others. Everyone can share a smile or wave that could brighten someone’s day. And acts of kindness help everyone just like giving a bottle of water can save a life.”

The story, Mendoza continues, looks not only at the attitudes of some people toward undocumented immigration, but at why migrants would want to make such an expensive, potentially deadly trek. “The story is really about unrequited love. The love of a life in the United States, the love of the American Dream, the love of any promise of a future.”

Ranchland is part of Marfa Live Arts’ ongoing series Radio Plays In The Time of Corona, and is available on Spotify and iTunes. For more information and to get involved go to: www.marfalivearts.org

Director and Sound Design by Tina Rivera. Produced by Marfa Live Arts. 

Sponsors for this program include the National Endowment for the Arts, the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation and the Texas Commission on the Arts.