GRINGAS

takes place under the Muskoka sun, where 7 Latina-teenagers from across the Latin American diaspora are at language camp, learning Spanish for the first time. Inside cabins, bathing in lakes, and in magical dreamscapes, these young women are determined to find themselves before the summer is up. This play is a beautiful and hilarious bi-lingual coming-of-age story that’s covered in cigarette smoke and will make you story to wonder: What does it mean to be Latina-Canadian today?

This play premiered at the 2024 Toronto Fringe Festival.

GRINGAS in the press:

“Fringe plays like Mercedes Isaza Clunie’s ‘Gringas’ don’t come around very often. You’d be lucky to find even one in any given season. Exquisitely written, staged and acted, it’s a new work that could easily be picked up by any professional theatre company in Toronto right now and mounted for a full run. I certainly hope that’s the outcome for this brilliant coming-of-age tale”

— Joshua Chong, The Toronto Star

“Funny, thoughtful, and executed with precision and passion, this ensemble work about a group of young Latinas sent to a Muskoka camp to work on their Spanish is one of the Fringe’s strongest new plays.”

— Kelly Bedard, My Entertainment World

“Clunie’s writing exhibits astonishing maturity, an ability to deftly balance comedy and pathos, dramaturgical risk and restraint. Sharp, witty, poetic — the play seamlessly toggles between leisurely monologues and blistering exchanges of dialogue that dart among the characters.”