It is being published by Wonder Press in collaboration with Metalabel.
Please help yourself to purchasing one if you please.
In Theatrics, the debut full length collection of writing by Maya Martinez, many stories take place. A pig and a lamb contend with dreams and mortality. A party girl confronts rapture in a parking lot. A man accused of vehicular manslaughter pleads to understand humility. A housewife suffers ego death and becomes a motivational speaker.
Aggregating influences like Molly Shannon, Cookie Mueller and Ryan Trecartin, Maya Martinez’s collection builds moments from language heard in restaurants, conversations with friends, and the rhetorical talk of pyramid schemes. Her memorable characters grapple with the reality of the mundane, revealing themselves as their own flaws, passions and shortcomings unravel, all while making the audience laugh.
Martinez’s playful “valley girl” voice processes low brow experiences of everyday life transforming them into experimental, comedic, heartfelt pursuits of understanding. Theatrics collects plays, monologues, and other stage writings. Surrealist exploits ensue. Where you start is not where you will end.
Maya’s writing and performances focus on sound, craft and rhythm and other qualities inherent to poetry, her innate form. Her work has been staged at MoMA PS1, Performance Space New York, Hauser and Wirth, and Poetry Project.
The works in this collection span that last eight years of my life.
I wrote The Play at the end of 2017 while living in Miami. At the beginning of 2018, I was curated into a reading series at American Medium by Adrienne Herr and LA Warman. I was prompted to produce 25 minutes of reading material—so I wrote a play. The other poet that night was Elaine Kahn. We quickly took to each other. This event brought many cherished people into my life. I regularly take classes from LA Warman and Elaine. Adrienne recommended the best skincare, and only skincare product I use daily.
That same weekend Whitney Mallett curated an all day event at MoMA PS1. I performed The Play there as well. Later that year Whitney would travel with me on a two month long poetry tour across America and Canada. We are friends to this day.
I wrote Hole Play at the very beginning of 2019. I was just moving to New York for the first time with an ex after having worked on a weed farm for four months. I was curated by Zoe Brezsny for a reading at Hauser and Wirth. I think I was ask to have about 25 minutes of material here as well. The fellow poet on the bill was Dorthea Lasky. Audrey Gair’s paintings were included in a take away accompanying my poems. On this night I met a lot of people that would eventually come into my life and be very dear friends to me. I didn’t know it but I was about to have one of the hardest years of my life. In 2023 Wonder Press published Hole Play as a chapbook. I asked Mara Mckevitt to direct me in the play for the release. Mara really made the work shine through her direction. I highly recommend finding directors to direct your work if you are a writer. There are some things we cannot see that others can. For that I’m grateful.
I have since performed it in galleries, art fairs, and small theatres. I know the whole play by heart.
I wrote I lived how I Died when Em Brill asked me to read for a series she was curating at KGB. It was the summer. It was the first reading I did coming out of Covid. I knew I needed to write something to rally the troops. I knew it needed to be exciting. My friend Molly came with me to the reading. Chariot Wish was also on the bill. Now Chariot Wish is one of my closest friends. I Lived How I Died would later go on to be published in the LARB Quarterly Issue as well as my first chapbook Hell or Mercy? Published by Other Weapons Press. I suggest looking at the books Other Weapons Press offers, they are superb.
There are many other works in this book. Short plays, monologues, stage directions. As I gear up for the release of it I am working on a totally new performance with my friend and artist Jake Dibeler. In the summer of 2017, Jake Dibeler put on her play Kevin, the Apocalypse, & Kevin at Secret Project Robot. It cracked my brain OPEN. Jake Dibeler is one of the best artists, performers, and musicians of our time. I truly believe this. So as I figure out a venue and date for June, I will begin memorizing a whole new set of things I have written while collaborating with Jake on what it will look like on the stage, as a performance.
I think for a long time I have daydreamed and thought about what my first book would be or look like. When I was 20, I self-published two books on Lulu. I’ve made some zines through the years. I have two chapbooks with presses I respect. I organized my first poetry tour when I was 20, I have done many since then. Now, I am 29 and a very sweet and long term dream I’ve had is coming true. I feel grateful. Writing, performing, poetry—all of it has brought really amazing people in my life. Everything feels full circle in some beautiful weird way.
Ordered!