The aliens make thanksgiving dinner (2022)

A new devised play created by an all immigrant artistic team, the play tells the story of three foreign theatre artists, desperately trying to create the next "Great American Play" to secure their ever-elusive green cards. As they cook, play and talk, food and theatre become metaphors for belonging, survival and the never-ending creative process. Commissioned by Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre and New York Theatre Salon for the 2022 Global Forms Theatre Festival.

CO-WRITER and Co-Director

James Clements To Present Audio Play By Brooklyn Seniors, NUESTRAS PALABRAS - BROADWAYWORLD

Documental theater program at Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Center looks back on members’ lives - BROOKYLN PAPER

BROTHERS IN ARMS (2021-present)

A multimedia experimental play examining life in wartime for two young soldiers, unpacking ideas of isolation, masculinity and loss. Commissioned by La Mama E.T.C and presented as a workshop production in the Downstairs Theater in July 2021, and presented as a streamed workshop through Culturehub. In 2022, curated by Culture Lab LIC for their Emergence Residency, and presented as a work-in-progress showing at Plaxall Gallery in July 2022. Awarded the Queens Arts Fund's Arts Access Grant from the Queens Council on the Arts. The project was then curated for the 2022-2023 BRIClab Performing Arts Residency at BRIC Arts Brooklyn.

CO-WRITER and Co-Director

BRIC Announces 2022-23 BRIClab Artists-in-Residence Program - BK READER

John Maria Gutierrez & James Clements Named CULTURELAB Emergence Resident Artists 2022 - BROADWAYWORLD

James Clements And John Maria Gutierrez Announce BROTHERS IN ARMS Work-In-Progress Share - BROADWAYWORLD

ELLIS ISLAND (2021)

A research-based multimedia filmed play exploring the experiences of two immigrants in the Ellis Island quarantine hospital in 1921, interspersed with contemporary verbatim immigrant interviews. Commissioned by Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre and the NY Theatre Salon for the 2021 Global Forms Theatre Festival. Awarded a 2021 City Artist Corps Grant for a screening and talkback at Queens Theatre in October 2021.

CO-WRITER

“…thanks to Clements’ and Mac Mahon’s…nuanced script work, the two form likable allies and interesting foils, their opposing views highlighting immigrants’ countless existential and practical concerns” - THE THEATRE TIMES

“…a story of isolation, uncertainty and connection” - BROADWAYWORLD

TYPHOID MARY (2020-present)

A play telling the story of Irish cook Mary Mallon, who was the first asymptomatic disease carrier identified in the United States in 1907, wrestles with themes of sexism, classism and anti-immigrant rhetoric in times of public health crisis, and has been in development over the last few months. Curated by Dundee Repertory Theatre for socially-development workshop in December 2020.

WRITER AND DIRECTOR

GUAC: MY SON, MY HERO (2019-2020)

A multi-media stand-up activism piece co-written with Manny Oliver, a visual artist who lost his son in the Parkland shooting. The piece combines live painting, video, testimony theatre and site-specific activism tailored to each performance. The piece was developed at MANA Contemporary in New Jersey in 2019, followed by workshop productions in Los Angeles and Miami, before the official premiere Off-Broadway at the 92nd Street Y in New York. “GUAC” is on a national tour, produced by Live Nation, through 2020. Project advisors include Benj Pasek, Susan Sarandon and Leslie Odom Jr.

CO-WRITER AND DIRECTOR

“compelling one-man stage performance” - THE GUARDIAN

“an affecting, tragic, beautiful, funny evening” - PLAYBILL

“a performance that is as honest as it is openly seeking to push social action on gun reform” - MIAMI HERALD

MEDEA/BRITNEY (2015-2019)

A retelling of Heiner Müeller’s ​Medeaplay​,​ “MEDEA/BRITNEY” was initially created in an undergraduate directing class taught by Kate Whoriskey. It was further developed at NYU, and then presented at the Living Gallery in 2015 as part of the Thirsty Theatre Nights Festival. In 2019, it was re-imagined at the the Nuyorican Poets Café, as a Mainstage as part of Fringe Club at the NYC Fringe, before a development run Off-Broadway at HERE as a Co-Op production in December 2019.

Writer, director and co-creator

“[the piece] merges classical theatre and pop culture to comment on the judgment of prominent women in crisis” - THEATRE IS EASY

“the performance explores the idea of proper femininity…[and] the performative properties of public female bodies” - BROADWAYWORLD

The Diana Tapes (2016-2018)

“The Diana Tapes” is a media thriller telling the true story of Princess Diana’s secret tapes, recorded as her marriage collapsed and smuggled to journalist Andrew Morton, who turned them into one of the best-selling biographies of all time. After a workshop production at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016, the show enjoyed a North American tour in the summer of 2017 (Providence, a New York workshop and Toronto), before premiering Off-Broadway at HERE in 2018, followed by an Off-West End transfer to London’s Stockwell Playhouse.

writer

“tightly-written…intimate and compelling” - BROADWAYWORLD 

“magnifying” - TIMEOUT

“entrancing” - MOTIF

“…[T]he People’s Princess is reincarnated at the HERE” - THEATRE IS EASY

“compelling…intense” -  EDGE MEDIA NETWORK

Four Sisters (2016-2020)

A drama about the Romanov daughters in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917, “Four Sisters” enjoyed a development reading at the Sheen Center in December 2016, followed by a workshop production at the American Theatre of Actors in March 2017 and the first public reading of the re-imagined script at Theatre for the New City in March 2018, at part of the Scratch Night Series. Inspired by Chekhov's Three Sisters, the play combines imagined language, the letters and diaries of the Grand Duchesses and Biblical text. In the autumn of 2020, the play will be further developed as part of a design and dramaturgy workshop entitled “ISOLATION + CHAOS.”

writer and director

UNTITLED SHAPE SHOW (2017)

“Untitled Shape Show” is a musical for young audiences that celebrates self-expression and promotes individuality, using the metaphor of shapes to create a positive, affirmative theatrical experience. The musical had a premiere production at the Providence Public Library in Providence in June 2017, followed by a second production at IRT Theatre in New York in August and a third at the RED Sandcastle in Toronto in September with the support of the Gracie Annabel Fund for the Arts.

Co-director

Dogs of DC (2014-2017)

A farcical political comedy-of-errors set in the Under Secretary of Defense’s office in Washington, “Dogs of DC” received an Off-Off-Broadway premiere at Manhattan Repertory Theatre in November 2014. It was subsequently re-written and re-staged for charity gala performance in January 2017 at the Living Gallery in Brooklyn, entitled “Dogs of DC: The Road Ahead.”

writer and director

ASSISTING AND OBSERVING

Sweat - Second Assistant Director - The Public Theater, ​directed by Kate Whoriskey

War - Assistant to the Playwright - Lincoln Centre LCT3, ​written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Her Requiem - Assistant Director - Lincoln Centre LCT3, ​directed by Kate Whoriskey

The Color Purple - Directorial Observer - Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on Broadway,​ directed John Doyle

AWARDS, GRANTS & CITATIONS

QAF Arts Access Grant from the Queens Council on the Arts (2022)

Guaranteed Income for Artists Grant from Creatives Rebuild New York (2022)

SU-CASA Artist-in-Residence for the Brooklyn Arts Council (2022)

Emergence Residency Artist-in-Residence for “Brothers in Arms” (2022)

NYFA/DCLA City Artist Corps Grant for public presentation of new work (2021)

A.R.T./New York Creative Space Grant for further development of Beauty Freak (2020)

BroadwayWorld’s New England Pick of the Week for The Diana Tapes touring production in Rhode Island (2017)

Developmental Grant from Donn Russell of the Peg Sandvoort Foundation for the creation of new work (2015)

NYU Dean's Undergraduate Research Fund Grant for research on Princess Diana in London​ ​(2014)

EDUCATION

New York University - BFA Hone in Drama, Tisch School of the Arts & BA Hons in History, College of Arts and Sciences

University Honours Leadership Student | Phi Alpha Theta American National History Honors Society Member

Dean’s List Citation | Named Schwartz Family Research Scholar | Founders Day Award Recipient | 3.77 GPA