Tejana Rasquacha

In her work, Chicana writer and teatrista Marisela Barrera blends history, memory and fantasy in productions exploring urban legends, bygone haunts and colorful slices of life plucked from San Anto and the South Texas borderlands. Evidenced by her linked short story collection Ruby Reds, Big Birds y Burras and its theatrical companion Tejana Trilogy, Barrera’s got a knack for conjuring mysterious scenarios centered around mythic beasts like the Donkey Lady and notorious witch-owl La Lechuza. Playing with the locally pervasive concept of rasquachismo — the practice of creating art from low-brow, readily available materials — her new one-woman show Tejana Rasquacha takes shape in “a fictionalized memoir about living and loving in Texas.” Billed as a conceptual fusion of “Spalding Gray meets Gloria Anzaldúa and Michele Serros while harmonizing with Guillermo Gómez-Peña,” the play features live music by Jaime Ramirez and poses theater-goers such burning questions as “Do you believe in aliens? Do you believe in love? Do you believe in yourself?”