R. Réal Vargas Alanis
Director
they/them
R. Réal Vargas Alanis (they/them | Purépecha) is an acclaimed Indigiqueer, 2-Spirit artist from Winton, CA (Yokut territory) and Sahuayo, Michoacán, Mexico. A leading comedic talent, they are an interdisciplinary creative and co-founder of IN THE MARGIN, earning them an Artist Disruptor Award (California Arts Council & Center for Cultural Power 2023). Their plays include La Demanda (New American Theatre Festival, Drama League’s Beatrice Terry Residency Finalist), RAGE: An EDMusical (Candela: Musical Theatre Broadway Fellowship), ¡What Fools! / ¡Que Tontas! written with Lauren Gunderson (ITM + ATE’s Bridging Turtle Island), and Love is Bliss (Breaking the Binary Theatre, published by Broadway Licensing). Directing credits include Exhaustion Arroyo (Cutting Ball + ITM), Mi Camino (A.C.T.), award-winning La Casa de Bernarda Alba (KCACTF Region 8) and finalist for Alicia Keys’ Hell’s Kitchen Broadway Directing Fellowship. They served as Associate Director on the world premiere and national tour of Between Two Knees by The 1491s (Yale Rep, McCarter Theatre, Seattle Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival), as well as on The Copper Children by Karen Zacarías (OSF). Réal’s work fuses social justice and multilingual storytelling through cultural specificity and genre-defying innovation, building platforms for marginalized artists while joyfully making space for love, laughter, and liberation.