The staged production of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter has been seen twice before, making its world premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, then traveling to Seattle Rep in 2023.

Isaac Gomez

Ahead of the Denver Center Theatre Company’s (DCTC) opening on September 27, playwright Isaac Gómez has been in Denver perfecting the script and taking an active role in developing the production. But ‘perfecting the script’ isn’t as simple as it seems, moving around a scene or tweaking a character’s line.

“What I’ve learned with my plays is that you don’t really learn what your play is until at least two productions. An audience is that final piece of the puzzle,” Gómez explained. “In a world premiere, you’re actively listening, trying to find what isn’t resonating. A second production allows you to smooth out the edges based on what you’ve learned. The third production, where we are now with the Denver Center Theatre Company, is when you can say to yourself ‘I’ve got this.’”

Gómez has the added hurdle of using a best-selling, award-winning novel as a point of reference–and a point of departure. Erika L. Sánchez’s novel is told from Júlia’s perspective as she comes to terms with her grief after the devastating loss of her sister and builds a life for herself.

As a lover of the novel, Gómez completely respects the integrity of Sánchez’s work. “I am a reader before I am an adaptor. I am a fan before I am a creator, especially when it comes to this book,” they said. But in adapting the novel to the stage, changes needed to be made.

In the previous two productions, the actor cast in Olga’s role served more as a theatrical representation of Júlia’s dead sister than as a fully-fledged character. It was a difficult thing to work around, and it wasn’t quite resonating with audiences in a way Gómez wanted.

“In the novel, the only experience readers have with Olga is through Júlia. We only understand Olga’s circumstances through Júlia’s lens,” they said. “During the rewrites here in Denver, I wanted to fine-tune Olga’s journey. A lot of it must be my own fiction because there isn’t source material to go off.”

But Gómez doesn’t work without implicit trust from Sánchez. “One of the first things she told me was ‘I trust you to do what needs to be done.’ Anytime I find myself stuck, I want to explore something that is completely in contrast to what is laid out in the book. I’ll call Erika and check in, and she just reiterates that she trusts me. It allows me to explore without fear of failure or repercussions. I can explore from a place of curiosity.”

Another important aspect of that trust is knowing the DCTC is a safe space to evolve and develop work as a playwright.

Gómez is but one among dozens of playwrights who have been commissioned, supported, and encouraged at the DCTC, first appearing in the 2019 Colorado New Play Summit with a reading of their new play Wally World.

In 2019, DCPA Director of New Play Development Doug Langworthy would spend his last Summit supporting new work after more than a decade with the Theatre Company. Gómez was one of those lucky few playwrights, before Langworthy’s passing in March of 2020.

The DCTC is proud to be a cornerstone of new play development in the Denver artistic community and beyond. Langworthy was a key part in building the Summit into what it is today. The dedication to uplifting new work has only continued to grow and will continue to blossom for another 40 years and beyond.

“It is so important to me, being back here, to emphasize the importance of Doug,” Gómez said. “He remains to me, and to so many playwrights, a pillar in new play development. He’s a legend. I always want to keep his name lifted, in whatever way I can.”

Now, Gómez is working on a new commission with the DCTC–a play currently titled The Social Influence of Paris and Britney. Of course, this is in addition to several commissions at other major theatre institutions across the country as well as writing for television (“The Last Thing He Told Me,” “Narcos: Mexico.”) “I am so fortunate to be a deeply generative person,” Gómez laughed. “I live with all of these stories inside me.”