Meet the Ensemble
Marc David Pinate
Producing Artistic Director/Core Ensemble
marc@borderlandstheater.org
Marc David Pinate makes theatre in his ancestral home, the Sonoran Desert. Through theatricality and storytelling his productions deepen feelings of belonging and social connection. Original works he’s developed and directed include Más (with playwright, Milta Ortiz) chronicling the banning of TUSD’s Mexican-American studies program; Sonoran Shadows, a shadow play based on the stories of Patricia Preciado-Martin; The Water Project, about the tumultuous history of water in Arizona performed on the riverbed of the dried-out Santa Cruz River; and Antigona 3.0, commissioned by Milagro Theater, Su Teatro, and the International Sonoran Desert Alliance. He created the Barrio Stories Project: a festival series grounded in oral histories and community collaboration using site-specific popular theatre and digital media to tell the story of Tucson’s historic barrio heritage. His Barro Stories placekeeping efforts played a role in the renaming of the Alva Bustamante Torres Plaza at the Tucson Convention Center (Barrio Stories, 2016); the Oury pool reopening and reestablishment of the Barrio Anita Neighborhood Association (Barrio Stories in Barrio Anita, 2018), and the development of the Morley Avenue arts district (Barrio Stories Nogales, 2022) to name just a few impacts. Pinate has worked with noteworthy theaters including: The Magic Theatre, Campo Santo, El Teatro Campesino, ShadowLight Productions, Steppenwolf, Cleveland Public, Milagro Theatre and the Kennedy Center for the Arts. His efforts have received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Doris Duke Foundation, National New Play Network, The Mellon Foundation, and Theatre Communications Group. Marc is the producing artistic director of Borderlands Theater. He received an MFA in Stage Directing from The Theatre School at DePaul University.
Milta Ortiz
Associate Artistic Director/Chore Ensemble
milta@borderlandstheater.org
Milta Ortiz is a Salvadoran American playwright in Tucson. She’s originally from the Bay Area by way of El Salvador. A concert sharing of Anita, a musical in collaboration with composer Quetzal Guerrero was part of the One Nation One project on July 27, 2024. She’s excited to premiere Anita at Borderlands in the 2025/26 season. Anita was developed at Borderlands Theater. Prior development partners include the University of Arizona Theater Department, and Childsplay at Phoenix College. She devised Antigona 3.0 with Borderlands Theater ensemble, which premiered in Spring 2024 and will tour in Fall 2024. She directed The Candy Craze: A Sticky Situation at Pima Community College in October 2023, a play she facilitated Pima students in writing, the second installment of a TYA ongoing project. In Fall 2022, she directed Ballet & Bagels, a TYA play she facilitated her students in writing at Pima Community College in Spring 2021. Milta was a 2020-21 Projecting All Voices Mellon fellow at Arizona State University HIDA. Her play, Pilar and Paloma was at Launchpad’s 2021 Bipoc Reading Series Festival. Judge Torres, commissioned and produced by Milagro Theatre Group, toured nationally to universities (2019-2020). Milta is Associate Artistic Director at Borderlands Theater, where a few of her plays, including Sanctuary (2018) and Más (2015) have world premiered. Borderlands’ production of Más toured Arizona universities. Más was produced at Su Teatro, Ubuntu Theatre Project/Laney College, and San Diego State University. She earned an MFA from Northwestern University. She is proud to serve on the National New Play Network board of directors.
Clarrissa Rodriguez
Education Coordinator
@borderlandstheater.org
Clarrissa is a queer Latiné singer and theatre artist, originally from Tucson, Arizona. In 2021, she earned her BFA in Acting from Marymount Manhattan College. She has recently arrived back to Tucson from Portland, OR where she worked as the Education Director at Milagro and carries the resilience and bravery the desert has instilled in her everywhere she goes. At Milagro she directed two productions: the Spanish play, Verónica Princesa and the 39th annual Dia de los Muertos Festival, Canciones de la Familia! Most recently you will find her at Borderlands Theater as their Education Coordinator. She is passionate about sharing theater with those who have not yet been exposed to it, as she believes in the power of theater to change the world. She hopes to continue changing the world in the years to come as an artist, director, educator, performer, and advocate.
Jonathan Heras
Development Director/Core Ensemble
jon@borderlandstheater.org
Jonathan is an actor and singer from Yuma, Arizona and now a Tucson performing artist and member of the Borderlands Theater Ensemble. He has worked with various local theaters including Live Theatre Workshop, Stories That Soar, Gaslight Theater, and many more. He develops and writes content with a group of artists called Digital Desmadre to create content and raise awareness through social media platforms. He has worked with youth as a theater teaching artist for over 10 years and is currently the musical director at Sal Pointe Catholic High School.
Lilianna Espinoza
Social Media Manager
lilianna@borderlandstheater.org
Lilianna Espinoza is a proud Xicana and Native American woman who was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona. Lilianna has been acting in theatre since she was 7 years old. Today, she has her associates degree in Film and Digital Media from Pima Community College. She attended The University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, where she studied film for one year. She has explored numerous creative pursuits such as writing, photography, directing, acting, singing, modeling, and content creating. She has worked on many film sets in Arizona & New Mexico as an extra, a production assistant, and a 2nd AD. As well as acted in many short films locally in Tucson. Lilianna has an 8 year long history with Borderlands, as a volunteer, stage manager, and supporter of the cause.
Katharine Len Yee Mitchell
Production Manager
katharine@borderlandstheater.org
As a biracial explorer of this world, with roots in the US and Malaysia, Katharine centers her work on individual and community stories and the connection to place and others, accessibility, community development as freedom, and healing. Katharine has lived in the Sonoran Desert in Tucson, Arizona since 2011. She completed her Masters in Urban Planning at the University of Arizona and Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Anthropology at Bard College in New York. With two decades of experience working with for profit and nonprofit organizations in Southeast Asia, California, New York, District of Columbia, Virginia and Arizona, Katharine leads with generosity, abundance and a curious mind. Her strengths are in community organizing, outreach and stakeholder engagement, research, policy, project management, grant writing, program evaluation, and healing as a mentor. She is a big picture thinker who easily adapts to new environments. She is continuously inspired by solutions that help the most vulnerable in our communities and in final products that are beautiful in every sense contributing to local culture. Katharine currently works in community as a consultant/contractor and volunteers her time in mutual aid growing in her knowledge and network in Tucson and beyond.
Adam Cooper-Terán
Media Designer/Technical Director/Core Ensemble
adam@borderlandstheater.org
Adam Cooper-Terán (ACT) is a native of Tucson, Arizona, born from a mixed heritage of Mexican, Yaqui, and Jewish roots. Known for their collaborations among various performance troupes, theater companies, musicians, and dancers, Adam’s work has featured across the globe as large-scale media projections, musical interventions, and installations of digital storytelling.
Adam’s work as a DIY performer, producer, and designer has led to residencies at Project Row Houses in Houston, Latino/Chicanx arts organization MACLA in San Jose, Teatro Tespys in El Carmen de Viboral, Colombia, Universidad Cd. Juárez, and the University of Rostock, Germany. Adam has garnered praise and support from academic and cultural institutions such as the MAP Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, National Performers Network, Network for Ensemble Theaters, Arizona State University, Belle Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, National Hispanic Cultural Center, and the International Sonoran Desert Alliance. Current projects involve the disruption of mainstream media, however possible, while continuing to support and augment underrepresented voices across the spectrum.
Gregory James Houston
Lighting Designer/Core Ensemble
gregoryjameshouston@gmail.com
Gregory James Houston is all about lights and vibes! He’s been freelancing as a lighting designer, especially rocking it out with Borderlands on tons of shows. He’s a proud graduate of the University of Arizona, where he nerded out on technical theater production with a major in lighting design. Gregory swapped cacti for palm trees, moving from Tucson to Los Angeles, where he’s now the go-to Lighting Designer at Avalon Hollywood. Plus, he’s still jamming with XIXA, a cool band from Tucson.
Our Founder
Barclay Goldsmith
Barclay Goldsmith is the founder of Borderlands Theater (1986) which in turn developed out of a community-based theater collective: Teatro Libertad, a collective active in the 1970’s civil rights movement. Before, Goldsmith lived and worked in Mexico and Argentina, where he directed U.S.-Host Country Bi-National Cultural Centers. He has spent the better part of his theater life, in addition to teaching, developing and producing theater that speaks to the diverse voices of the region. Through the Border Playwrights Program (1988), he has sought to have emerging (and established) playwrights produced here and in theaters around the country. In support of this mission, Goldsmith was a co-founder of the National New Play Network (1998), an organization which now encompasses over 90 member theaters, that champions the new plays and new playwrights. Expanding Borderlands’ mission to be truly a theater of PLACE here on the border, he established the U.S. Mexico Program, which works extensively with Mexican artists and theater companies in trans-national projects.
He has directed many of Borderlands Theater’s productions. Ongoing programs he has established include the Border Playwrights Project, featuring new plays by established and emerging playwrights, and The U.S./Mexico Project supporting exchanges of theater practitioners across the border. He is a founding member of the National New Play Network and has worked as director at Circulo Teatral in Mexico City, in new play development and translations at LARK Play Development Center in New York, and at the Kennedy Center’s National MFA program in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Stanford University, BA, and Carnegie Mellon University, MFA.