Today we’d like to introduce you to Marielle Vizcarra.
Marielle, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I guess it all started by discovering that I enjoyed writing. I have never been really good at voicing what I am feeling through spoken words, so I took refuge in the notes app of my phone when I was younger. I was born in the 90s so I still got to experience having those phones where you needed to type one number multiple times until you got the letter that you wanted, but that never stopped me from typing away. When I got to my freshman year of high school, my English teacher, Mr. Taylor had a lesson on poetry, and introduced the class to slam poetry, and I was amazed by the videos that he would play from Def Jam Poetry and Button Poetry poets who would go on stage and perform their craft. I was amazed by the poets’ abilities to be vulnerable about the darkest/deepest parts of themselves without caring what others would think and I thought, “I want to do that.”
I grew up in Calexico, CA, a small border town 2 hours away from San Diego that is next to our sister city of Mexicali, the capital of Baja California. I grew up being immersed in both cultures, and both languages, and I feel lucky to have had that experience. However, back in the day, there were not a lot of opportunities for creative writing or just creative activities in Calexico. I mostly grew up playing sports (basketball, tennis, track and field), but when I got to college, I finally felt like I had the chance to try out some of the things that had always piqued my attention but never got the chance to do, such as playwrighting and acting. Not only did I fall in love with theatre after taking those classes, but I actually decided to make Theatre my minor while studying at UC San Diego.
In my last year of undergrad, I was able to act in a student production of Tartuffe by Moliere, and I also got one of my 10 minute plays produced, and I loved the feeling of not only being on stage, but seeing my work- My words, that I had purposely crafted together to create this story, recited back to me. I think that is truly what I fell in love with, not so much the acting, which I truly enjoyed, but hearing my words, and seeing the impact that it had on others.
In early 2021, Mabelle Reynoso, an immensely talented playwright local to San Diego and my friend, reached out about forming part of a virtual Latinx playwrighting workshop that would meet weekly, and I agreed to form part of it. The workshop started as a way for artists to remain active and connected during the aftermath of the pandemic, but I never realized that through this group, I would find my community. This weekly workshop has remained active since then, and we call ourselves, Pa’ Letras. Pa’ Letras has really helped me throughout my writing journey because not only do we set an hour aside every week where the emphasis is to write, but I get to bounce ideas off of other talented/creative folks in the group. It’s also a great way to hold each other accountable when we’ve got deadlines, or have an idea about a play we want to work on. The group has had the opportunity to hold some virtual and in-person readings of our work throughout the years, and it’s always incredible to see how impactful it is for new playwrights to see and hear their work on a stage performed by actors.
Without the experiences that I’ve had throughout my life, and the support of the beautiful community that I have had the privilege to form part of, I don’t think my writing would have gotten as far as it has. I’ve had my work performed in San Diego, Boston, New York, Houston, Atlanta and Virginia. And even though poetry has taken a backseat in my life, I’ve had some of my poems form part of art exhibitions in Los Angeles, and Irvine, and my poems have also been published in poetry books (POETS UNDERGROUND 2024, and 2023-24 San Diego Poetry Annual). The little girl that would type away in her Notes app, could have never even begun to imagine how far her writing would take her, but it has brought me exactly to where I need to be.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I think one of the challenging things of being a writer is that it’s a lot about who you know, and who will give you an opportunity. A year or two after graduating from UC San Diego, I decided that I was going to apply to their MFA Playwrighting program, and I did, but I was not selected to be part of the cohort. If I remember correctly, I was disappointed at first, but I’m a firm believer that rejection is redirection, and how going to graduate school was maybe not going to be part of my story, and I was okay with that. One of the bigger reasons that I wanted to go back to school is because of the connections and networking that you get to do during that time, and since I was not able to make connections that way, I had to pivot. That’s why I’ve developed relationships with different theatre groups in San Diego: Pa’ Letras is a cohort of TuYo Theatre and I’ve gotten to collaborate with TuYo Theatre throughout the years, I am also a member of Scripteasers, which is a writers development group in San Diego that was founded back in 1948, and more recently Onstage Playhouse gave me the opportunity to have a stage reading of my play, Estelita Mi Estrellita, at their Chula Vista location. Even though there have been roadblocks throughout my journey, they’ve never stopped me from trying to get my work out there.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Whenever someone asks me this, I let them know that I consider myself a playwright, poet, podcaster and overall just a creative person in general. When it comes to my writing, I mostly write about what I know. I’ve always been fascinated by family dynamics in Latinx households and I love exploring and portraying these stories in my work. I also like to reflect the experiences of my community within my plays. I use niche humor, bilingualism, and personal experiences from myself and my family to entice my audience. I address the stereotypes within my community and simultaneously fight against them: machismo, religion, marianismo, mental health, addiction, etc. Most recently, I’ve been really focused on exploring the theme of revenge/vengeance from the female perspective, and that can be seen in my most recent full length play titled, Estelita Mi Estrellita, which focuses on two sisters, Eugenia and Estela, in the middle of a police investigation due to the mysterious disappearance of Estela’s husband.
My other creative endeavor involves being the host of my podcast, “That Show F*cked Me Up!” where I talk about TV shows that well- Fucked me up… I currently have 20 seasons where I’ve covered TV shows ranging from The Haunting of Hill House, The White Lotus, Fleabag, to my last season where I covered Big Mistakes, just to name a few. I’ve really enjoyed the process of getting to create and build this podcast from the ground up. Running a podcast by myself is a lot of work (A LOT) but I am super proud of my commitment to continue with the podcast after such a long time. My podcast just turned 4 years old in August 2026, so I think it’s a big accomplishment! I also recently got the opportunity to get back into acting after a very long acting hiatus. I was part of the cast for Blue Marigold written by Mabelle Reynoso, and it was so much fun to use that muscle again. Can’t wait to be able to act in other productions again in the near future.
However, I would say that my biggest accomplishment has been getting to travel to other states because of my work. I never knew that was possible until it happened! In January 2023, I was able to travel to Boston because my play, Ashes Down the Drain, was selected to be part of their A-Tipico festival, and the reception that the audience had towards my play was so heartwarming, and a reality check that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. That same year in June, I got to travel to New York since my other play, Tamales de Piña, was part of the Cimientos Play Development program alongside a bunch of other playwrights from all over the world. I got to meet and connect with a wonderfully talented group of people, that inspired me tremendously because we all had the same goal: to tell our stories. Unrelated but kind of related, while in New York, I got a picture of my aura taken, and the lady who took the picture and interpreted it asked me if I did “healing work”, and I initially said that I didn’t and during our conversation I revealed that I was in New York because of a play I had written, and she went, “Then you are doing healing work. You’re telling stories that are helping others heal”. I had never thought of my stories as “healing” before that interaction, but in a way, I do think she was right.
I know that the poems and plays that I write are not everyone’s cup of tea, but you know what? I’m completely content with that. Because at the end of the day, I don’t write for everyone. I write for myself, and for my community, and I think that is what sets me apart from others. I don’t want to fit in, I want to stand out.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Damn, this is a tough one. As I get older, I feel like my memories start to fade or I don’t remember things as they exactly happened, which is concerning because I’m only 30.
I am not sure if this is my favorite childhood memory (because I was a bit terrified), but it’s definitely worth telling. When I was 4 or 5, I woke up in the middle of the night and I saw that the light in my kitchen was on. My room was at the end of a long hallway, and on the other end was the kitchen. I’m a nosy adult, so obviously, I was a nosy child so I got up to see who was up that late at night thinking that it was one of my parents or something, but when I walked into the kitchen I realized that the kitchen light wasn’t actually on, but the fridge door was open, and the light from inside the fridge was what I had seen from my room. And lo and behold, the person that was standing next to the opened the fridge door was not my mom or dad, but a duende. A duende is a mythical, small humanoid creature from Latin American folklore who are known to be mischievous and play tricks on humans, similar looking to a gnome. So there I was, witnessing this duende stealing food from my fridge thinking that no one was watching. I was obviously super scared and I ran back to my room and hid under the covers, and I somehow managed to fall back asleep after such a fright. I don’t know how but I did! This is one of the clearest memories I have from my childhood. Some may believe that I did see a duende, and others may think that I was dreaming, or making up a story but if anyone asks me, I will tell them that I came face-to-back with a duende- Since I only saw it from behind.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @marielle_the_creative and @tuyo_paletras
- Other: @thatshoweffedmeup
