AZ ArtWorker: Milta Ortiz

Milta Ortiz is a playwright raised in the Bay Area, currently in Tucson by way of Chicago. As a National New Play Network playwright in residence at Borderlands Theater for the 2013/14 season, she wrote and developed Más, which premiered at Borderlands Theater September, 2015. That same year, Más was selected to the Latino Theater Commons Carnaval play festival, nominated for an American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award and Citations, a Tucson Mac award for best drama and co-produced by Laney College in March 2016 and Ubuntu Theater Project in May 2016 and at Su Teatrro in March 2017. Plays include Solving for X (with The Working Classroom) premieres February 2017, the 20th Annual A Tucson Pastorela produced December 2016, 19th Annual A Tucson Pastorela produced December 2015, Disengaged, a TYA play commissioned by Rising Youth Theater, premiered at the Phoenix Center for the Arts in 2014, the 18th Annual A Tucson Pastorela produced December 2013, You, Me and Tuno, a finalist in NYC’s Downtown Urban Theater Festival, 2013. Fleeing Blue won the 2012 Wichita State playwriting contest and a university production in 2012. Last of the Lilac Roses was a runner up finalists at Repertorio Español, Nuestra’s Voces play contest 2011. She earned an MFA from Northwestern University’s Writing for the Screen and Stage program and a Creative Writing BA from San Francisco State University. She received two City of Oakland Cultural Arts grants and a Zellerbach Family Foundation award to write and perform her solo work in the Bay Area. Milta’s day job is Marketing & Outreach Director at Borderlands Theater. She’s worked as a teaching artist for over 6 years and occasionally moonlights as such. She is proud to be mom to a bubbly toddler.

ASU Performance in the Borderlands is a presenting, public programming and education initiative dedicated to the understanding and promotion of cultural performance in the borderlands.

CALA Alliance (Celebración Artística de las Américas) is a non-profit organization that creates shared arts experiences that encourage cultural understanding between people of the Americas. CALA is dedicated to inspiring and educating Arizonans and the international community about the richness and depth of artistic talent in our local community and to creating new understandings through art about Arizona’s relationship to the Americas.

Palabras Bookstore provides the Phoenix community with books in Spanish and English with an emphasis on diverse cultural representation of authors and social awareness. Palabras is much more than a bookstore. It is a safe and encouraging environment for inter-cultural community exchange, providing the community with opportunities to share literary, visual and musical art through workshops and events.

Cultural Coalition, Inc.‘s mission is to provide community engagement through unique cultural programs dedicated to the education, promotion and development of Indigenous artists in Arizona.