Institute History
Description
Memory Tricks is a drama with a sense of humor. Solo performer Marga Gomez creates a rich, funny, and troubling portrait of her mother, a flamboyant Puerto Rican belly dancer known as Margo the Exotic. Jumping from the raucous Latino showbiz community of sixties Manhattan to the limbo of suburbia, with a sidetrip to Paris, Memory Tricks follows Marga’s lifelong attempts to win her mother’s love, or at least get her attention. Frank Rich of the NewYork Times said, “This is a funny and touching stage autobiography that shows off its performer as both an actress and writer of serious promise. I warmly recommend it.”
Marga Gomez, writer, performer, and stand-up comic, is the author of Memory Tricks and A Line around the Block, companion tributes to her parents and the history of Latino entertainers in New York. She has been presented at Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, and internationally. As a stand-up comic, she has been featured on HBO’s “Comic Relief VI” and Comedy Central’s “Out There.” Marga will appear on a upcoming episode of HBO’s “Tracey Takes On.” Marga has also written and performed Marga Gomez Is Pretty, Witty & Gay, a look at homophobia, heterophobia, and Margaphobia. She participated in the Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters Lab in 1993.