Real (play)

New York, 2019. Dominique, a 40-year-old married woman and successful working mother, stumbles upon a play about a young composer in the 1930s crafting a fugue. Drawn to the story, she is inspired to pick up her violin for the first time since her days as a young prodigy. As Dominique plays the music she imagines the young man composing in the play, she has a revelation: she isn’t supposed to be living this life.

New York, 1930. Dominic, a 20-year-old queer Mexican immigrant and gifted composer, begins dreaming of a woman in her 40s playing the most exquisite violin music he’s ever heard. Haunted by his visions, Dominic starts composing a fugue based on the melodies in his dreams, feeling an unsettling pull toward a life that isn’t his own.

Written mimicking the counterpoint technique of a fugue, Real explores two lives as variations on the same theme. As the stories of Dominic and Dominique intertwine, their identities blur, and the boundaries between who is real—and who is living whose life—become impossible to distinguish.

“Real” premiered at The Tank NYC in January 2019. For more information please refer to the “Press” section.